Gallery of prints for sale

Monday 13 August 2018

Raphael Sadeler I’s engraving (with etching), “Landscape with a Rowboat”, c1598


Raphael Sadeler I (1560/61–1628/32)

“Landscape with a Rowboat” (TIB title) or “Landscape with the Emblem of the Donkey Laden with Delicacies” (Rijksmuseum title), 1598–99, from the series, “Emblems in a Landscape”, after a lost drawing by Matthias Bril the younger (1550–1583), published as an illustration in Giovanni Andrea Alciato’s (aka Alciati) (1492–1550) “Emblemata” (1599), in Venice, with privilege from Pope Clemens VIII (1536–1605).

Etching and engraving on fine laid paper with small margins and backed with a support sheet.
Size: (sheet) 23 x 29.2 cm; (plate) 21.4 x 27.8 cm; (image borderline) 20.2 x 27.5 cm
Inscribed on plate within the image borderline at lower edge: (centre) “Matth: Bril inuen: Raph: Sadeler scal. Cum priu. Pontif.”
Lettered on plate below the image borderline:  “Septitius populous …/ …// …/ …// …/ …// …/ …pauper alit.”
Lifetime impression (based on the crisp lines showing no sign of wear) of the only state

TIB 2006, 7101.198 (Isabelle de Ramaix [ed.] 2006, ‘The Illustrated Bartsch: Raphael Sadeler I”, vol. 71, Part 1 [Supplement], Abaris Books, p. 283); Nagler 1835–52, no. 141; Le Blanc, no. 124; Wurzbach, no. 128; Hollstein 1980, vol. 21, no. 216; Sénéchal 1987, no. 57; Edquist, p. 311, no 39a

The Rijksmuseum offers a description of this print:

Condition: a superb, crisp, richly inked and well-printed impression with small margins (approx. 1 cm), backed on a support sheet of archival (millennium quality) washi paper. There is a minor printer’s crease (i.e. a crease occurring during the printing process) at left otherwise the print is in a near pristine condition (i.e. there are no tears, holes, abrasions, significant stains or foxing).

I am selling this superb and exceedingly rare lifetime impression that not even the British Museum online repository appears to hold for the total cost of AU$330 (currently US$240.54/EUR210.59/GBP85.68 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing important 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


At first glance this very beautiful landscape executed in the late 1500s may seem to be as conceptually unchallenging as are the activities of the people portrayed in it (viz. a traveller resting while his goods-laden donkey munches on thistles; men in a rowboat revealing their awkward efforts to traverse a stream). Of course, after careful study of what is shown, images from this time were seldom simple in terms of the meanings that they project. Certainly, this image meets this description as what is depicted is loaded with symbolism. Note for instance, the enormous nesting stork—symbolic of maternal vigilance, good fortune and a long life—crowning the top of the tower on the left while the stork's mates fly overhead. More critically important in this scene, however, is the moral imperative that would have been clear to 16th century viewers regarding the chap with his donkey as the Rijksmuseum explains: “This is the representation of an emblem in which the moral of the story shows that rich people always find a reason to complain despite their wealth.”











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