Jan Both’s etching, “View of a Stone Bridge”, c.1645

Jan Both (aka. Jan Dirksz Both) (1618/22–1652)

“View of a Stone Bridge” (TIB title) (aka "View of the Ponte Milvio”; “Le Pont de Pierre”), c.1645 (1636–1652 [BM]) from the series of six plates, “Six Horizontal Landscapes” (TIB) and “Views of Rome and its surroundings” (BM).

Etching on fine laid paper trimmed around the image borderline and backed with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 19 x 27.3 cm.

Inscribed in plate: (lower left corner) “Both fe”.

The British Museum offers the following description of this print: “View of the Ponte Milvio. Landscape with two mules stepping off the bridge at left, a man in conversation with three skippers in right foreground, and two barges moored on the banks of the Tiber at centre; from a series of six plates” (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Sheepshanks-1283).

State vi (of vi).

TIB 7(5).5(208) (Otto Naumann [ed.] 1978, “The Illustrated Bartsch 7: Netherlandish Artists”, New York, Abaris Books, p. 11, cat. no. 5 [208]; Hollstein 5.

Condition: a strong and well-printed impression, trimmed along the image borderline and laid upon a support of archival (millennium quality) washi paper.

I am selling this historically interesting and very beautiful etching of an ancient stone bridge, the Ponte Milvio (aka Ponte Molle; Pons Milvius; Milvian Bridge), spanning the River Tiber in Rome and the site of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (see https://www.printsandprinciples.com/2023/10/pietro-santi-bartolis-etching-aftermath.html; https://www.printsandprinciples.com/2023/06/nicolas-tardieus-etching-with-engraving_16.html; https://www.printsandprinciples.com/2023/06/nicolas-tardieus-etching-with-engraving.html) for AU$452 (currently US$227.68/EUR208.04/GBP179 at the time of this listing) including Express Mail (EMS) postage and handling to anywhere in the world, but not (of course) any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries.

If you are interested in purchasing this remarkable 17th century print by an artist that Clifford S Ackley (1981) in “Printmaking in the Age of Rembrandt” (Boston Museum of Fine Arts cat.) proposes was “searching for the black and white equivalent of the golden haze of southern light that vaporises or makes the forms of the landscape translucent …” (p. 176), 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