Allaert van Everdingen’s etching, “The Knoll”

Allaert van Everdingen (1621–75)

“La Butte” (The Knoll), 1636–75

Etching on fine laid paper trimmed to the image borderline.

Size: (sheet) 13.4 x 18.9 cm

State iii/iii (based on a pencil inscription verso)

Inscribed with the artist’s monogram at lower left edge: “AVE”.

Bartsch II.216.100; Hollstein 100.II

The British Museum offers the following description of this print: “The hill; two peasants seated next to a large boulder at centre; a third peasant walking past them and the hut at right; at left a wild stream passing a tall tree; in left background a monastery on a hill.” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1634435&partId=1&searchText=+Everdingen&page=6)

Condition: crisp and richly inked impression, trimmed to the borderline in good condition. Verso shows an ink setoff from when the original printer left this impression on top of another still wet impression (a fascinating piece of historical evidence about the printing practice at the time). There are remnants of mounting and inscriptions from previous collectors (verso).

I am selling this early etching capturing the spirit of the Nordic landscape for AU$125 in total (currently US$95.62/EUR85.66/GBP73.97 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this old master print with the rare ink setoff from another impression (verso), please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

What is find fascinating about this artist’s landscapes is not simply that he portrays Nordic scenes with babbling brooks, lumpy rocks and lush trees. What really makes his landscapes special to me is that the babbling brooks, lumpy rocks and lush trees are invariably underpinned with a rigid framework of straight lines that make his landscapes compositionally strong. In this etching, for instance, note how the angles of the architectural features—the monastery in the far distance on the left and the two huts on the right—act like compositional “bones” that give structure to the image.

This print also has a “special” hidden attribute that can only be seen on the back of the print: an offset print (i.e. a mirror image in printer’s ink) from another impression of the same print left when the printer laid this impression on the other still wet impression. Ideally such an offset impression should never happen, as all printers know that freshly pulled prints should not be stacked on top of one another. Nevertheless, I love seeing such revealing acts of dreadful negligence by ancient printers. The German language has the perfect word for it: schottenfreude.