Felix Meyer’s etching after Abraham Genoels

Felix Meyer (1653–1713)  

“Landscape with two women and a man”, 1677, after the design by Abraham Genoels (aka Archimedes; Abraham II Genoels; A. G.) (1640–1723)

Etching on fine laid paper with narrow margins lined to a conservator’s support sheet of washi paper.

Size: (sheet) 15.6 x 19.8 cm; (plate) 14.7 x 19.2 cm

Lettered outside the oval borderline: (lower right) "A G Invent"; (lower left) "F.M. fec. Roma 1677"

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Landscape with two women and a man sitting along a river in the centre, trees and mountains in the background; in an oval.” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1667423&partId=1&searchText=Abraham+Genoels+oval&page=1).

The BM curator advises that this print is a pendent for the oval etching, “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt”, executed by Genoels (see http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1667427&partId=1&searchText=+S.2685&page=1) (see Bartsch 1979 Vol. 5 10 [328] p. 301).

Weigel 1843 undescribed (Weigel, Rudolph, Suppléments au Peintre-Graveur de Adam Bartsch, Vol.I, Leipzig, Rudolph Weigel, 1843); Hollstein undescribed (Hollstein, F W H, Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts c.1450-1700, Amsterdam, 1949); Bartsch unnumbered (described in vol. IV, p.329) (Bartsch, Adam, Le Peintre graveur, 21 vols, Vienna, 1803)

Condition: crisp and well-inked impression with a delicate trace of plate tone outside the oval borderline. The impression has narrow margins (approx. 5mm) and the sheet is in excellent condition (i.e. no tears, stains, holes, abrasions or foxing). The print is laid on a conservator’s support sheet of fine washi paper.

I am selling this beautiful etching dated in the plate, 1677, by Felix Meyer—one of the famous old masters—based on the design by an equally famous old master, Abraham Genoels, for a total cost of AU$164 (currently US$124.34/EUR112.77/GBP101.30 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing in this visually arresting oval etching, 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

I suspect that I may not be alone in feeling uneasy when looking at images set within a circular or oval borderlines. After all, such framing shapes have voyeuristic associations of looking through an aperture. Certainly I should feel like a voyeur looking through an ovoid aperture at the impropriety of the three figures engaged in intimate touching in this print. Interestingly, however, I do not. Here, the figures are almost camouflaged in the vast vista framed by the oval frame and I have no problem diverting my attention to more noble interests, such as how the artist has organised the spatial zones from foreground to distance.

Regarding this organisation, Meyer’s approach to representing spatial depth exemplifies the classical convention of using different visual devices for foreground, middle distance and far distance. Essentially, Meyer employs curved and loosely laid lines to portray landscape features in the foreground, aligned and angled strokes to portray features in the middle distance and outlines that are lightly marked with horizontal strokes to portray distant features. What is also noteworthy about Meyer’s approach is his use of deeply etched lines in the foreground that are designed to create rich blacks compared to the much finer lines representing the distance.