Jules Jacquemart’s etching of a crystal ewer

Jules Jacquemart (aka Jules Ferdinand Jacquemart) (1837–80)

“Plate 45: Aiguiere de Crystal de Roche”, 1865, from the series “Gemmes et Joyaux de la Couronne au Musée du Louvre”, printed by Auguste Delâtre (1822–1907) and published by Henry Barbet de Jouy.

Etching with plate/surface tone on laid paper with full margins (as published).

Size: (sheet) 54.5 x 37.1 cm; (plate) 430 x 29.7b cm; (image borderline) 39.8 x 27 cm

Inscribed within the image (lower centre) “Jules Jacquemart delin. et Sculpt.”

Lettered above the image (upper left corner) “PL. 45”; (upper centre) “MUSÉE DU LOUVRE.”

Lettered below the image (centre) “Imp. Delȃtre, Paris.”

To see the complete series see Elizabeth Legge gallery: http://www.leggeprints.com/jacquemart/index.htm

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

"A rock crystal vase decorated with foliated scrolls and a handle in the shape of a term bending backwards." (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3533121&partId=1&searchText=jacquemart+Aiguiere+&page=1)

Gonse 157.IV (Gonse, Louis, “Jules Jacquemart”, Gazette des Beaux-Arts)

Condition: large, flawless impression in near pristine condition (i.e. there are no tears, holes, abrasions, folds or foxing, but there are a couple of small spots) with generous margins.

I am selling this remarkable illustration of a crystal ewer from the Louvre collection for AU$118 (currently US$89.89/EUR82.26/GBP73.31 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world. If you are interested in purchasing this large etching of the highest order of technical skill, 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

The Chalcographie de Louvre commissioned Jacquemart to execute this and the other illustrations for Henri Barbet de Jouy’s “Gemmes et Joyaux du Louvre” in two folio volumes (see FL Leipnik’s [1924] “A History of French Etching”, p. 118). The Chalcographie’s choice of Jacquemart as the reproductive illustrator is easy to understand, as through his career he had produced 400 plates recording collections of precious stones, medals, daggers, swords, bronze busts statuettes, ceramics and paintings. In short, Jacquemart had established his reputation based on his high level of technical skills even if his reproductive prints of other artists’ artworks were (to quote Leipnik) “scarcely above mediocrity” (p. 118).

Regarding Jacquemart’s technical skills, Leipnik offers the following insightful assessment of Jacquemart’s proficiencies:

“Jacquemart’s marvellous achievement is the still unrivalled reproduction of the surface texture of … the perfect suggestion of the dull glimmer of gold, of the pale sheen of silver, of the vibrating lustre of china, of the liquid fire and the prismatic rays of faceted stone and the grain of leather; and the inimitable rendering of the translucent, opalescent or opaque qualities of these various materials.” (ibid)