Bernard Romain Julien’s pair of lithographs, “The Charging Chasseur” and “The Wounded Cuirassier”, after Géricault

Bernard Romain Julien (1802–1871)

(left) “The Charging Chasseur” (aka “Officier de chasseur à cheval de la garde impériale chargeant”, 1814–71

(right) “The Wounded Cuirassier” (aka “Le Cuirassier blessé quittant le feu”), 1814–71

Both lithographs are after Théodore Géricault’s (1791–1824) paintings and were printed by François Delarue (fl.1850s–1860s) and published by Ernest Gambart (1814–1902) in Paris.

Colour lithographs printed on heavy wove paper and lined with a support sheet.

Size: (each sheet) 68 x 53 cm

Each lithograph is signed in the plate below the image by the artist and inscribed:  “Imp. Fois. Delarue, Paris”

See a (brief) description of “Le Cuirassier” (“The Charging Chasseur”) at the Rijksmuseum: http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.130348

Condition: both sheets have small tears (addressed with restorations to make them virtually invisible) and each sheet has been laid upon a heavy archival support sheet.

I am selling this pair of huge and magnificently executed lithographs by the famous master lithographer of the 19^th century, Bernard Romain Julien, for [deleted]. Postage for these prints is extra and will be the actual/true cost.

If you are interested in purchasing these monumentally large prints, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy. 

These print have been sold

These images are so well known that they are almost icons of nineteenth century art. What makes them special is certainly that they have the capacity to grab attention and invite the imagination to take the viewer into the portrayed reality of the scene. They are also milestones in art history marking the shift from cool objectivity, grand intentions and pictorial cleanliness of Neo-Classical compositions to the dynamic diagonals, emotionally charged marks and intimately personal visions of Romanticism.

Pietro Aquila’s etching (1674) after Annibale Carracci’s fresco in the Palazzo Farnese

Pietro Aquila (1650–1692)

“Plate 5: Jupiter and Juno; the flaying of Marsyas; Boreas and Oreithyia”, 1674, after Annibale Carracci’s (1560–1609) fresco in the Farnese Gallery (west wing of the Palazzo Farnese), from the series of 24 engravings, “Galeriae Farnesianae Icones”, published in Rome by Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi (1627–1691).

Etching with engraving on heavy laid paper lined with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 34.5 x 71.3 cm; (plate) 29 x 68.4 cm; (image) 26 x 67 cm

Lettered on plate below the image borderline: (left) “Annibal Carraccius pinx. in. Aedibus Farnesianis”; (left of centre) “Marsyas ab Apolline victus, et excoriates / Io. Iacob de Rubeis formis Romae ad Temp. S. Mariae de Pace cu Priv. S. Pont.”; (right of centre) “Et soror et coniunx SATURNIA DIVA TONANTIS / iungor in amplexus, thalamo veneranda pudico; / aethereisque simul tedis calefacta mariti, / aera per liquidum, rerum primordia voluo”; (right) “5 / Orithya à Boreȃ rapta, et in ventum conuersa / Petrus Aquila delin et sculp.”

Le Blanc p. 53 (Ch. Le Blanc 1854[–1889], “Manuel de l'amateur d'estampes, contenant un dictionnaire des graveurs de toutes les nations”, 4 vols., Paris)

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Plate 5: View from one of the painted walls in the Galleria Farnese; at centre, in a squared frame, Zeus and Juno; Juno, joining Zeus in a bed, a peacock to left; to left, in a roundel, Apollo slaying Marsyas; to right (Metamorphoses 6:382-400), in a roundel, Boreas kidnapping Areithya (Metamorphoses 6:692-722); several nude male figures seen standing and seated by the scenes; c.1674 Etching with some engraving”

(http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3297388&partId=1&searchText=Petrus+AQUIlA+marsyas&page=1)

See also the description of the print at the NGV: https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/34364/

Condition: crisp, richly inked and well printed early impression showing no sign of wear to the printing plate. The print has been laid down on an archival support sheet as there are significant signs of use at the edges (i.e. battered corners, tears and surface marks) but these issues are mainly in the margins.

I am selling this huge etching translating a section of Carracci’s fresco in the Farnese Gallery into a composition of line and dot for [deleted] at the time of posting this listing). Postage for this print is extra and will be the actual/true cost.

If you are interested in purchasing this spectacular masterwork of interpretative printmaking , 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

To my eyes, Michelangelo’s influence in this composition is unmistakable. Apart from the statuesque musculature and flawless skin of the naked chaps holding the bits of architecture together, the design itself has the ghost of Michelangelo’s hand on it. Note, for example, how the sequencing of embedded scenes is a remarkably similar visual device as that employed by Michelangelo for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel where he separated his sequence of scenes with trompe-l'œil architectural features. Perhaps even more interesting is that both artists have also used roundels as medallion-like embedded images, such as the grisly scene of Apollo flaying Marsyas alive shown on the left, to effectively “punctuate” a viewer’s reading of the composition as a whole.

Jacob Andreas Friedrich’s engraving from Scheuchzer’s “Physica Sacra”, 1731

Jacob Andreas Friedrich Snr. (aka IA Fridrich—the name with which he signs his prints) (1684–1751)

(Note: Friedrich Snr. shares the same first names as his son, Jacob Andreas Friedrich Jr. [1714-1779], who signs his prints: "Jac.Andr. Fridrich”, hence my attribution of this plate to the father.)

“Ostrich, Owl, Hawk” (Struthio, Noctua, Accipiter), 1731, plate CCXLIV (244), published by Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672–1733) in what is one of the most lavishly produced (and expensive) books devoted to the Bible: “Physica Sacra: Iconibus Aeneis” (Sacred Physics: Smaller Icons), Part 2, pp. 412–14 (2 adjoining pages).

Engraving on laid paper with full margins as published and with the adjoining letterpress text page with watermark.

Size: (each page) 35.8 x 22.7 cm; (plate) 31.4 x 20.1 cm

Lettered on plate at upper-right: “TAB. CCXLIV”

Lettered on plate below the image: (left) “LEVITICI Cap. XI. v. 16. / Struthio, Noctua, Accipiter.”; (right) the same text as inscribed on the lower left but written in German.

Inscribed on plate at lower-right corner: "I. A. Fridrich sculps.”

See another engraving from this publication at Sanders of Oxford: https://www.sandersofoxford.com/shop/product/levitici-capxiv-arnebeth-lepus/

Condition: a superb lifetime impression that is crisp, well-inked and well-printed. The engraving and its accompanying page of letterpress text is still joined by the glue of publication and both pages are in excellent/near pristine condition (i.e. there are no tears, holes, folds—beyond the centre fold of publication—nevertheless, there are faint spots and age-toning, especially near the edges).

I am selling this very full composition of birds—a veritable ornithologist’s treasure trove—from one of the most lavish publications ever made for ... [deleted]. Postage for this print is extra and will be the actual/true cost.

If you are interested in purchasing this remarkable print, 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

This is one of the original engravings published in the first (1731) edition of Scheuchez’s almost legendary, “Physica Sacra” (Sacred Physics). I use the word “legendary” as very few books were created with such care, expense and with so many engraved illustrations as this extraordinary book. 

For those unfamiliar with “Physica Sacra”, this huge publication was based on what we now know to be a flawed premise: Scheuchez believed that he had irrefutable proof that the events described in the Old Testament were all true because he had the fossilised remains of a victim of the Great Flood (see Genesis chapters 6–9). Sadly, when the “fossilised victim” was later examined by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier in 1811, Cuvier's findings revealed that the "victim" was in fact a large prehistoric salamander.

Aegidius Sadeler II’s etching, “Christ as the Man of Sorrows at the Column”, c1600, after Durer

Aegidius Sadeler II (aka Gillis Sadeler; Egidius Sadeler; Ægedius Sadeler) (c1570–1629)

“Christ as the Man of Sorrows at the Column” (TIB title), 1585–1627, plate 1 from the series of 16 plates, “The Engraved Passion”, after Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). This is an impression from the first state before publication by Marco Sadeler (fl1660s)

Engraving on fine laid paper trimmed close to the platemark and re-margined on a support sheet.

Size: (support-sheet) 26.9 x 21.2 cm; (sheet trimmed unevenly) 9 x 5.5 cm

State i (of iii?) (before addition of the publication details of Marco Sadeler)

TIB 1997 7201.425 SI (Isabelle de Ramaix, “The Illustrated Bartsch”, vol. 72, Part 2, Supplement, p. 320); Bartsch VII.33.3 (copy) (Adam Bartsch 1803, “Le Peintre graveur”, 21 vols, Vienna); Meder 1932 3 (copy) (Joseph Meder 1932, “Dürer Katalog”, Vienna).

The British Museum offers the following description of a later state of this print:

“Plate 1: Christ as a man of sorrows. Christ tied to a column on a platform at left, the Virgin and St John looking at him from below at right, three empty crosses on a hill in background at right; after Dürer”

(http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3040971&partId=1&searchText=aegidius+sadeler+man+of+sorrows&page=1)

Condition: a lifetime impression that is crisp and well-printed in excellent condition (i.e. there are no tears, holes, significant abrasions or significant stains) apart from golden age toning. The sheet is trimmed close to the platemark and has been re-margined with an archival support sheet.

I am selling this lifetime (first state) impression in reverse after Dürer’s engraving of the same subject for AU$378 (currently US$300.07/EUR240.75/GBP212.47 378 at the time of posting this listing). Postage for this print is extra and will be the actual/true cost.

If you are interested in acquiring this small print that is so finely rendered that to see the linework a magnifying glass is necessary, 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

Although this remarkably fine engraving by Aegidius Sadeler is a copy in reverse after Albrecht Dürer’s famous engraving executed a century before (see  https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/43261/) the subject, “The Man of Sorrows”, was a part of a long tradition of depicting this subject dating back to the early Byzantine icons of the 13^th century featuring what is termed, “Imago Pietatis” (i.e. Christ of Pity) (see http://caravaggista.com/2011/08/albrecht-durer-and-the-man-of-sorrows/).

From what I understand about this tradition, there were two manifestations of the subject. The first is to represent Christ before his passion looking at the viewer with a look of betrayal. The second, shown here, is to represent Christ after his passion with downcast eyes alluding to his suffering.

Like most of the earlier representations of “The Man of Sorrows”, Christ is shown with the attributes of his passion (i.e. enduring suffering):

• the column on which Christ was scourged;
• the instruments of Christ’s torture—the birch reeds, flagellum, crown of thorns and the cross, but the nails that are usually featured are not represented in this image even if the holes in his feet and hands are testament to their presence;
• his nakedness and wounds—note the blood spurting from wound created by the soldier’s lance;
• his companions at death—the Virgin and St John.

Domenico Cunego’s engraving, “Head of a Youth, from Raphael's ‘School of Athens’", 1783

Domenico Cunego (1727–1794)

“Head of a Youth, from Raphael's ‘School of Athens’", 1783, plate 16 in the series of 52 plates after studies by Anton Raphael Mengs (1728–1779) of Raphael’s (1483–1520) fresco, “The School of Athens" (1509–11).

Note: This impression may be from an earlier publication than the print from the 1830 edition held by the Harvard Museum of Art (object number M25119) as this impression has the plate number (“16”) hand inscribed in ink at the upper right outside the image borderline rather than printed on the plate within the borderline on the left.

Engraving with etching on heavy laid paper with wide margins lined with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 59 x 44 cm; (plate) 49.5 x 35.3 cm; (image borderline) 42.3 x 30.1 cm

Lettered on plate below the image borderline: (left) “Eq. Ant. Raph. Mengs del.”;

(centre) “RAPH. SANCT. Vrb. pinxit in aed. Vatic.”; (right) “Dom. Cunego sculp. Rom. 1783.”

Inscribed in brown ink by an old hand at upper right: “16”

State i (of ii) (before the addition of the number “16” at upper left).

See the description of this print offered by the Harvard Museum of Art: https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/148731?position=8

See also the explanation of the series of prints by Cunego offered by (Spanish) “Discover Art”: http://www.descubrirelarte.es/2015/09/27/rafael-visto-por-mengs.html

Condition: crisp impression with only minor traces of handling and a thin area at the back of the sheet (visible only when the print is held up to the light). These issues are addressed by the sheet having been laid on an archival support sheet. There are previous collector’s notes inscribed outside the image borderline in brown ink and pencil (recto).

I am selling this large and magnificently executed engraving for AU$152 (currently US$121.44/EUR97.22/GBP85.39 at the time of this listing). Postage for this print is extra and will be the actual/true cost of shipping.

If you are interested in purchasing this academic study after Mengs and Raphael, 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

Following in the academic tradition of the famous Czech painter, Anton Raphael Mengs, who made the original study of this youth after Raphael, Cunego’s translation of Mengs' study into a highly disciplined and formulaic matrix of contour strokes and dots celebrates the pursuit of idealised beauty where pimples, scars and other adolescent blemishes are not to be found. By design, this print was created as a technical showpiece of the highest order for art students to copy. Although Cunego’s interest in representing notions of classical perfection is clear, there are a few features of this print that I find interesting to contemplate.

Note for instance how the use of dark cross-hatched lines interspersed with lighter strokes in the rendering of the face gives the illusion of translucence and softness to the youth’s skin. This luminous effect is quite different to the treatment of the hair rendered in shorter strokes of much the same strength that, to my eyes, makes the hair seem almost opaque. Note also the different type of marks used to render the youth’s garment. Here, short strokes are creatively arranged in a way that groups them to suggest large broad sketchy zig-zag return strokes designed to give the impression of a vignette (i.e. a softening of the study at the peripheral edges).

Georg Pencz’s engraving, “The Good Samaritan”, 1543

Georg Pencz (c1500–1550)

“The Good Samaritan”, 1543

Engraving on fine laid paper trimmed along the platemark and re-margined on a support sheet.

Size: (support-sheet) 25.5 x 26.8 cm; (sheet trimmed unevenly) 7.5 x 11.4 cm

Signed with the artist’s monogram, "PG", and dated, “1543”, in the plate at upper right corner.

TIB 16 (8).68 (339) (Walter L Strauss & Jacob Bink et al [Eds.] 1980, “The Illustrated Bartsch”, vol.16, p. 105); Landau 1978 71 (David Landau 1978, “Catalogo completo dell' opera grafica di Georg Pencz”, Milan); Hollstein German 36 (F W H Hollstein 1954, “German engravings, etchings and woodcuts c.1400-1700”, Amsterdam); Bartsch VIII.339.68 (Adam Bartsch 1803, “Le Peintre graveur”, 21 vols, Vienna).

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“The Good Samaritan; tending to the wounds of the injured traveller in left foreground; in right background the man falling among thieves and the priest and the Levite walking past; at left the Samaritan taking the traveller to the innkeeper.”

(http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1519493&partId=1&people=111912&peoA=111912-2-60&page=1)

See also the description of this print at the Rijksmuseum: http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.31463

Condition: crisp, early impression (based on lack of wear to the plate) with replenished lower corners, trimmed along the platemark and re-margined on a support sheet. The sheet is in excellent condition for its age with only minor traces of handling and stains.

I am selling this very small and exquisite masterpiece of engraving by Pencz—one of the famous German Little Masters—for AU$403 (currently US$321.99/EUR258.94/GBP226.24 at the time of this listing). Postage for this print is extra and will be the actual/true cost of shipping.

If you are interested in purchasing this precious and exceptionally rare print of the famous parable of Good Samaritan, 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 guess that the fundamental tenet of the “Parable of Good Samaritan” (Luke 10: 25–37)—which I understand to mean that I need to be an actively compassionate chap regardless whether those that I engage with are strangers or even “foes”— is to be found in most religions. But, of course, the principle is morphed in different ways as can be seen daily in the world news regarding religious conflicts.

What I find fascinating about this print is that it is showcases (to my eyes) common Christian notions of how an actively compassionate person should behave, as shown by the Samaritan attending to the wounds of the young Jewish man in the foreground. Perhaps more interesting, this beautifully engraved illustration also hints that there may be consequences for those who are not actively compassionate: as revealed in the far distance with what must have been an “unhelpful” traveller assailed by thieves.

If one were to compare this illustration to the way that a Buddhist monk might portray the same parable, I have no doubt that the scene would be quite different. For instance, I suspect (and as I am not a Buddhist monk I can only speculate) that the meaning might shift from the notion of “reward” and “punishment” to a cleansing of the mind of self-gratification to more of a mindless/egoless holistic love.