Raphael Sadeler I’s etching (with engraving), “Landscape with a Chapel”, c1590

Raphael Sadeler I (1560/61–1628/32)

“Landscape with a Chapel” (Rijksmuseum title) (aka “Mountain Landscape with a Wooden Bridge and a Chapel on a Rock’ [TIB title]), c1590, after a drawing by Paul Bril (c1553/4–1626) in the Duke of Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth.

Etching and engraving on fine laid paper backed with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 26.3 x 33.7 cm; (plate) 206 x 27.4 cm; (image borderline) 19.8 x 27.3 cm

Inscribed on plate within the image borderline: (lower right) “P Bril inuent: R. Sadeler scalp.”

TIB 7101.200 (Isabelle de Ramaix [ed.] 2006, ‘The Illustrated Bartsch: Raphael Sadeler I”, vol. 71, Part 1 [Supplement], Abaris Books, p. 287); Nagler 1835–52, no. 138, 2; Le Blanc, no. 125; Wurzbach, no. 125, 2; Hollstein 1980, vol. 21, no. 218; Edquist, p. 319, no. 48a.

The Rijksmuseum offers the following description of this print:

(transl.) “A hilly landscape with a wooden bridge in the foreground. Two travelers walk towards a chapel on the right in the background.”

(http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.168902)

State i (of i) Note: the crisp linework with no sign of wear to the plate suggests that this is a lifetime or an early impression.

Condition: richly inked and in excellent condition (apart from a patch of restoration in the upper margin) with generous margins. The sheet has been laid onto a support sheet of archival (millennium quality) washi paper.

I am selling this museum quality impression—radiant with strong contrasts of light and dark—that literally invites the eye to stroll along the portrayed pathways into the far distance, for AU$345 in total (currently US$246.53/EUR213.96/GBP188.14 at the time of posting this listing) including 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 early masterpiece of landscape etching (with engraving), 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

What I love about 17^th century landscapes, like this superb example, is that the context in which they were created helped to shape the meanings that they project. For instance, the composition of this print is based on a drawing by Paul Bril whose underpinning interest in landscape fits into the tradition of “Weltlandschaft”/ “World Landscape” (i.e. to portray a landscape from a great height as if the view were a crystallisation of the cosmos complete with allegorical narratives), the period style of Mannerism (i.e. a leaning to portray the landscape with a theatrical touch) and the notion of the landscape as having an inner soul of natural forces—a way of looking at landscape termed “Lady Landscape”. Mixed into this contextual brew helping to shape this landscape is Raphael Sadeler’s personal leaning to the 17^th century notion of “Quietism” (i.e. creating spiritually tranquil scenes replete with vanitas and memento mori symbolic moral guides—for example, the broken tree trunks in the foreground, the path with a dangerously frail bridge and the spotlit chapel with ringing bells on the escarpment).

Hieronymus Cock’s etching, “Landscape with Mercury and Argus”, 1558

Hieronymus Cock (aka Jérome Cock) (c.1510–1570)

“Landscape with Mercury and Argus”, 1558, after the drawing by his brother, Matthijs Cock (aka Matthys Cock; Matthijs Wellens de Cock; Matthijs Kock; Matthias Cock) (c.1510/5–1548), from the series of 12 etchings, “Landscapes with Biblical and Mythological Scenes”, published in 1558 by Hieronymus Cock.

Note also that the drawing by Hieronymus’ elder brother, Matthijs, which this etching is thought to be based depicted a “Landscape with the Flight into Egypt” that was once in the Lugt Collection but its location is now unknown.

Etching on fine laid paper with watermark, "Arms", trimmed along the image borderline.

Size: (sheet) 22.4 x 32.1cm.

Inscribed on plate within the image borderline: (lower left with partial losses to the text) "[Mer]curius [Argum] interficit"; (lower left of centre) "Cock fecit 1558".

Lifetime impression of the only state

Hollstein Dutch 14 (F W H Hollstein 1949, “Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts c.1450-1700”, Amsterdam); Riggs 1977 43 (Timothy Allan Riggs 1977, “Hieronymus Cock, Printmaker and Publisher”, New York, Garland Press, pp. 273–9, cat. no. 43).

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Landscape with Mercury on a road and holding the head of Argus in his left hand, Argus' body lying on the ground, fields at left, a city along a bay and mountains in the background. 1558 Etching”

(http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3024499&partId=1&searchText=landscape+with+Mercury+and+Argus&page=1).

See also the description of this print by the Rijksmuseum:

(transl.) “Hilly landscape with a harbor town in the distance. Right before Mercury, who cut off the [head of] giant Argus. Mercury holds his head in his hand. In the clouds Juno rides in her carriage drawn by two peacocks. Picture from a series of 13 landscapes with biblical and mythological scenes”

(http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.collect.95838).

Condition: an exceptionally rare lifetime impression that is richly inked and well-printed. The sheet is trimmed along the borderline with restored paper losses, closed tears and other small repairs, backed with thin conservator’s paper.

I am selling this lifetime impression of the utmost rarity by one of the most important 16^th century printmakers for AU$650 (currently US$478.12/EUR415.05/GBP364.72 at the time of posting this print) including 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 simply magnificent Renaissance etching from the start of the Occidental landscape tradition, 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 the time that this etching was executed, artists leaned towards two different approaches to portraying the landscape.

The first approach—as employed here—is to portray a largely imagined landscape from a great height as if it were an exemplary extraction of the cosmos with allegorical narratives being played out. This first approach is known by the German world, “Weltlandschaft”, or “World Landscape” (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_landscape), was initiated by Joachim Patinir (c1480–1524). According to Dominique Allart (2013) in the “must have” exhibition catalogue, “Hieronymus Cock: The Renaissance in Print”, this approach to landscape was “… to stimulate the imagination, sometimes at the expense of all visual plausibility” (p. 343).

The second approach, which also plays a role in this etching, but to a lesser extent, is driven by the idea of a “Lady Landscape”—a not so politically correct mindset in which the landscape’s natural forces are perceived as femininely evil with a façade of beauty (see Udo Becker 2000, “The Continuum Encyclopedia of Symbols”, Continuum, p. 169). Artists who approach the landscape with this mindset tend to employ focal points in the landscape where the veil of external appearance is stripped bare, such as natural arch shown here in the distant mountain allowing the eye to explore the mountain’s subterranean depths. Although I may be very wrong in my reading of this particular landscape, I see Cock’s approach to rendering the superficial details of this vast panorama—e.g. the trees, roads, streams, cattle and even the mythological figure of Mercury holding the head of the now headless Argus (see Ovid, Metamorphoses I 723)—as being underpinned by natural forces that are bulging the superficial details like muscles flexing beneath them.