Rembrandt van Rijn

Death Appearing to a Wedded Couple from an Open Grave

1639

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746 Fuendetodos – Bordeaux 1828), No se puede saber por qué – One can’t tell why ca. 1808–1814, etching, burnished aquatint, drypoint, an...

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 1606 Leiden – Amsterdam 1669 The Descent from the Cross by Torchlight 1654 etching and drypoint; sheet 213 x 163 mm (8 3/8 x 6 7/16 inches) Bart...

James Whistler (1834-1903), The Mill, 1889, etching and drypoint, signed in pencil with the butterfly on the tab and inscribed “imp”, and inscribed “first state” (twice) and annotated “Wunderlich” and signed again with the butterfly verso. Reference: Kennedy 413, first state (of 5). Glasgow 457, second state (of 6; see discussion below) (cf. Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg, and Joanna Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2011) On laid paper, in very good condition, trimmed just outside of the platemark all around except for the tab by the artist, 6 1/4 x 9 3/8 inches. A very fine impression of this great rarity, printed in black/brown ink with a slight veil of plate tone. provenance: H. Wunderlich & Co., New York Louis B. Dailey, New York (Lugt 4500) sale, Sotheby’s, New York, October 31, 2003, lot 69 literature; Neue Lagerliste 122: James McNeill Whistler – Etchings...

James Whistler (1834-1903), Venus, 1859. Etching and drypoint, printed in black ink on laid paper, an impression in the second (final) state: there was no published edition. 6 x 9 inches (15 x 22.6 cm) sheet 73/8 x 117/8 inches (18.8 x 30.3 cm) Reference: Kennedy 59; Glasgow 60 A very fine impression. A study of Héloïse, ‘Fumette’, asleep in bed, her head pressed into the pillow and the bedclothes covering her lower legs. This is one of three portraits Whistler made of Fumette in 1859: one of the others shows her standing and in the third only her head and shoulders are depicted. Venus is a work in the Realist tradition, and may be compared with Courbet’s nudes of the same period. The artist may also have had in mind Rembrandt’s study of Antiope in his etching Jupiter and Antiope. Venus was never published and there is no record of it being shown until 1898 when it was included in an Exhibition of Etchings, Drypoints and Lithographs by Whistler at H. Wunderlich & Co., New York. To have been overlooked for exhibition until so late in Whistler’s life might suggest that the subject was considered improper. Frederick Wedmore, whose catalogue of Whistler’s etchings...

James Whistler (1834-1903), J.H. Woods’ Fruit Shop, Chelsea, etching and drypoint, 1887-88. Signed with the butterfly on the tab and annotated “imp,” also signed with the butterfly in pencil verso and numbered “1”. References: Kennedy 265 second state (of 2), Glasgow 327 second state (of 4). Trimmed by the artist around the plate mark except for the tab, in excellent condition. Printed in black ink on ivory laid paper, 3 3/4 x 5 1/8 inches. A fine impression of this great rarity; the print was never published. Glasgow accounts for four impressions. watermark: partial arms of Amsterdam(cf. Spink/Stratis/Tedeschi, watermark nos. 12ff.) This is before the third state in which heavy shading was added around the woman at the center, and the heads of figures at right and left of the figure are defined. In Glasgow’s fourth state the shading and the figure were removed; no impression is known of this state, but the state is inferred from the cancelled plate. According to Glasgow “Joseph Henry Wood had a greengrocer’s shop at 1 Park Walk...

Theodore Roussel, Laburnums and Battersea, etching and drypoint, 1889/1890 and 1898; signed in the plate lower right, and signed in pencil on the tab, with the inscription IMP. Hausb...

Bartsch 281, Hind 167 iii/III, Nowell-Usticke 281, iii/III. A fine impression, with burr, as retouched by Baillie in 1792. With an unidentified collectors stamp, verso.

Street in Smyrna. 1889. Etching. Wisselingh 34. 7 x 5 1/4 (sheet 12 7/8 x 8 7/8).Edition 100, number 49. A rich, tonal impression printed on Strasbourg cream laid paper on the full s...

Original etching and drypoint printed in black ink on laid paper. A strong and dark 17th century/lifetime impression of Bartsch, Usticke and New Hollstein’s second and final stat...

"Veduta del Sepolcro della Famiglia Plauzia per la Strada Che Conduce da Roma a Tivoli vicino a Ponte Lugano" from "Le Antichità Romane" (Roman Antiquities), one of the most famous works by Piranesi. "Antichita" illustrates the tombs along the Appian Way...

Shere Mill Pond, No. II (large plate). 1860. Etching and drypoint. Schneiderman 37.v/ix. 7 x 13 1/8 (sheet 10 3/4 x 16 3/8). This state is prior to publication in Études à l'Eau-Forte. Illustrated: Keppel The Golden Age of Engraving; Print Collector's Quarterly 1 (1911): 18; : Guichard, British Etchers, 1850-1940. A rich, brilliant proof with drypoint burr printed on white laid paper. Signed in pencil. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shere Mill Pond, No. II was one of the most highly praised landscape prints of the etching revival. An impression was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1861 under Haden’s pseudonym, H. Dean. Francis Seymour Haden used this anagram of his own name early in his career as an artist, in order to retain his anonymity and preserve his professional reputation as a surgeon. Biography: Sir Francis Seymour Haden (16 September 1818 - 1 June 1910), was an English surgeon, best known as an etcher. He was born in London, his father, Charles Thomas Haden, being a well-known doctor and lover of music. He was educated at Derby School, Christ's Hospital, and University College, London, and also studied at the Sorbonne, Paris, where he took his degree in 1840. He was admitted as a member of the College of Surgeons in London in 1842. In 1843-1844, with his friends Duval, Le Cannes and Colonel Guibout, he travelled in Italy and made his first sketches from nature. Haden attended no art school and had no art teachers, but between 1845 and 1848 he studied portfolios of prints belonging to a second-hand dealer named Love, who had a shop in Bunhill Row, the old Quaker quarter of London. Arranging the prints in chronological order, he studied the works of the great original engravers, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas van Leyden and Rembrandt. These studies, besides influencing his original work, led to his important monograph on the etched work of Rembrandt. By lecture and book, and with the aid of the memorable exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1877, he tried to give a true reflection of Rembrandt's work, giving a nobler idea of the master's mind by taking away from the list of his works many dull and unseemly plates that had long been included in the lists. His reasons were founded upon the results of a study of the master's works in chronological order, and are clearly expressed in his monograph, The Etched Work of Rembrandt critically reconsidered, privately printed in 1877, and in The Etched Work of Rembrandt True and False (1895). Haden's printmaking was invigorated by his much younger brother-in-law, James Whistler, at the Haden home in Sloane Street in 1855. A press was installed there and for a while Haden and Whistler collaborated on a series of etchings of the Thames. The relationship and project did not last. Haden followed the art of original etching with such vigour that he became not only the foremost British exponent of that art but brought about its revival in England. His strenuous efforts and perseverance, aided by the secretarial ability of Sir WR Drake, resulted in the foundation of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. As president he ruled the society with a strong hand from its first beginnings in 1880. Notwithstanding his study of the old masters of his art, Haden's own plates were very individual, and are particularly noticeable for a fine original treatment of landscape subjects, free and open in line, clear and well divided in mass, and full of a noble and dignified style of his own. Even when working from a picture his personality dominates the plate, as for example in the large plate he etched after J.M.W. Turner's "Calais Pier," which is a classical example of what interpretative work can do in black and white. Of his original plates, more than 250 in number, one of the most notable was the large "Breaking up of the Agamemnon." An early plate, rare and most beautiful, is "Thames Fisherman". "Mytton Hall" is broad in treatment, and a fine rendering of a shady avenue of yew trees leading to an old manor-house in sunlight. "Sub Tegmine" was etched in Greenwich Park in 1859; and "Early Morning--Richmond", full of the poetry and freshness of the hour, was done, according to Haden, actually at sunrise. One of the rarest and most beautiful of his plates is "A By-Road in Tipperary"; "Combe Bottom" is another; and "Shere Mill Pond" (both the small study and the larger plate), "Sunset in Ireland," "Penton Hook," "Grim Spain" and "Evening Fishing, Longparish," are also notable examples of his genius. A catalogue of his works was begun by Sir William Drake and completed by Harrington in 1880. During later years Haden began to practise the sister art...

Study of Six Heads is a beautiful black and white etching with drypoint interventions on paper, realized at the end of XVIII century by the French artist Jean-Jacques de Boissieu (Lyon, 1736- 1810). Six study od heads ( four elder men, a middle-aged man at the center, and a woman with turbant) etched with a superb technique and an incredible draftsmanship are drawn to different scales and with different degrees of finish, have the dignity of six different portraits with the same passion and effort. Signed on plate on lower right margin “De Boissieu”. Inscription ( number plate) on higher-right corner "10". This old master’s original print with lifetime impressions, is in very good conditions, except for a usual yellowing of the paper above all on the edges and some signs of the time,do not affect the image. Jean-Jacques de Boissieu (Lyon,1736 –1810) Jean-Jacques de Boissieu was a French artist studied at the École de Dessin in Lyon, but he was mostly self-taught. His first prints were realized between 1758–64. When he went to Italy in the retinue of the ambassador and Duc de la Rochefoucauld d’Enville, he had the lifechanging encounter: he met Voltaire and he entered in the world of luminaries, he had the opportunity of realizing some plates for the Diderot-d’Alembert’s Encyclopèdie. Then he continued to produce prints in Lyon, Boissieu made many etchings of the Roman and Dutch countryside, as well as the French countryside around Lyon, which earned him a reputation as the last representative of the older etching...