Auguste Lepère, “La France”, 1912, after Rodin

Auguste Lepère (aka Auguste Louis Lepère) (1849–1918)

“La France”, 1912, wood-engraving  printed from two plates in an edition of 130 impressions (this is copy number 104) after Auguste Rodin’s (aka Pierre Auguste Rodin) (1840–1917) high-relief monument to the explorer, Samuel Champlain (1574–1635)—interestingly, the sculpture was modelled on the superb sculptress and Rodin’s muse, Camille Claudel (1864–1943)—on the exterior wall of the lighthouse at Crown Point (aka Chimney Point), New York (see Janet Biehl [2023], “The Rodin Sculpture at Crown Point” [https://www.aflcr.org/the-rodin-sculpture-at-crown-point/]), pencil signed at lower-right and numbered (104/130) at lower-left.

Wood engraving printed in pale tan (olive-brown) and dark tan on tissue-thin China paper (papier serpente) and backed with a support sheet

Size: (sheet) 30.6 x 23cm; (image borderline) 15.1 x 11.5cm.

Lettered in plate: (left) “A^.Lepère/ d’après”; (lower left of centre) “A/ RODIN”; (upper centre) “LEXX JVILLET MDCIX LE FRANCAIS S. CHAMPLAIN/ A DECOVVERT LE LAC OVI PORTE SON NOM/ LE III MAI MIMXII/ LES ETATS DE/ NEW YORK ET/ DEVERMONT/ ELEVANT CE/ MONVMENT/ VNE DE-/ LEGATION FRANCAISE/ A SCELLE/ CETTEFIGVRE/ DE LA/ FRANCE”.

Pencil inscribed below the image borderline: (left) “104/130”; (right) [signature of the artist; compare with: https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/auguste-lepere-1849-1918-signed-wood-engraving-%20%20%20%201317-c-b8a499e91c].

Texier-Bernier 526 (GM Texier-Bernier 1931, “Auguste Lepere: Peintre et Graveur”, Paris, cat. no. 526).

See also the description of this print offered by the Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/33307/france.

Condition: a strong and near faultless impression with wide margins laid upon an archival support of millennium quality washi paper. Beyond a small tear to the lower right corner of the margin, the sheet is in an excellent condition with no holes, folds, abrasions or stains.

I am selling this remarkable pencil signed wood-engraving printed from two printing blocks after an almost forgotten sculpture by Rodin attached to a former lighthouse in New York—surprisingly, the sculpture was so forgotten that as late as 2006 even “the Rodin Museum in Paris had been unaware of it” (see Janet Biehl [2023], op. cit.)—for AU $279 in total (currently US $172.88/ EUR 167.74/ GBP 140.69 at the time of posting 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. Note that payment is in Australian dollars (AU $279) as this is my currency.

If you are interested in purchasing this very beautiful wood-engraving that I understand (and may be very wrong) showing the personification of France as a liberty leading woman, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

Francis Scott King, “The Sibyl”, 1887, after Frederick Stuart Church

Francis Scott King (1850–1913)

“The Sibyl”, 1887, wood engraving after Frederick Stuart Church’s (1842–1924) painting, published in New York in 1887 by Harper & Brothers as an original wood-engraved illustration to William M. Laffan’s (ed.) “Engravings on Wood, by Members of the Society of American Wood Engravers”.

Note that Archive.org offer an online view of this print and its context in the publication; see: https://archive.org/details/gri_33125015065655/page/n63/mode/2up.

See also the description of this print offered by The New York Public Library Digital Collections: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e4-4708-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.

Wood engraving printed on heavy wove paper with full margins as published.

Size: (sheet) 35.5 x 46.3 cm; (image borderline) 15.6 x 30 cm.

Inscribed in plate within the image borderline: (lower left corner) “[E?].S.CHURCH NY 85”; (lower right corner) “F.S.King.Sc”.

Letterpress text below the image: (left) “The Sibyl.—Copyright, 1887, by F. S. King.”

Condition: a well-printed and near faultless impression in a near pristine condition with no tears, holes, folds, abrasions, significant stains—there is faint age-toning to the edges of the sheet—or signs of handling.

I am selling this large and exquisitely rendered wood engraving, for a total cost of AU$204 (currently US$135.13/EUR123.07/GBP104.99 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. Note that payment is in Australian dollars (AU$204) as this is my currency.

If you are interested in purchasing this exceptionally fine wood engraving—note the artist’s skill in modelling the silhouette edges of the figure so as to integrate the figure with its background rather than using an outline that would have separated the figure from its immediate surroundings—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

Timothy Cole’s wood engraving, “Detail from Leonardo da Vinci’s (unfinished), ‘The Adoration of the Magi’”, c1885

Timothy Cole (1852–1931)

“Detail from Leonardo da Vinci’s (unfinished), ‘The Adoration of the Magi’”, c1885, artist’s proof wood-engraving after Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), printed by JC Bauer in 1892 in preparation for a limited edition of 125 proof impressions. This particular impression (acquired from the liquidation of the inventory held by Kennedy Galleries) is a proof taken before (or in addition to) those signed by Bauer—one of the finest printers of wood engravings in New York at the close of the 19^th century—and features as an illustration for the famous historical account of art by WJ Stillman & Timothy Cole (1909), “Old Italian Masters” (New York, The Century Co.), page 181.

Wood engraving on tissue-thin (Japan) paper with letterpress annotations (lower left) and a relief printed diagram of Da Vinci’s painting (lower right), backed with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 42.5 x 33.7 cm; (image borderline) 18.5 x 12.2 cm

Inscribed on plate within the image borderline: (lower left) “T COLE FLORENCE” (indistinct)

Letterpress testimonial text by Bauer in the lower left margin: “This impression, taken by hand on Japan paper, is one of one hundred and twenty-five copies printed by me from the original wood block in the year 1892. / Professional Proof-printer for Wood-engravers."

Condition: very rare, exceptionally well-preserved and well-printed artist’s proof impression with full margins and printed annotations, backed with a support sheet of archival (millennium quality) washi paper. The print is in excellent condition, but there are several inventory pencil notations and a loss to the left edge of the tissue-thin (but backed) Japan paper.

For an excellent account of the printing of Cole’s wood-engravings by Bauer, see Scott Ponemone’s blog post, “New School Wood Engravers: Forgotten 19th-Century Celebrities”: http://www.scottponemone.com/new-school-wood-engravers-forgotton-19th-century-celebrities/.

For those who may be unfamiliar with Leonardo’s approach to portraying subjects, his following advice to painting students is interesting as it underpins the composition of this image:

(transl.) “When you have to draw from nature take your position three times the height of the object distant from it” (from Da Vinci’s collection of precepts called the “Book of Painting"; see WJ Stillman & Timothy Cole 1909, “Old Italian Masters”, The Century Co, New York, p. 181).

Although I love Da Vinci’s rule and see its merit, I share Stillman & Cole’s (1901) reservation that such advice to painting students is invariably restrictive to creative invention:

“Of the nearly one thousand rules in this code of laws of art [from Da Vinci’s “Book of Painting”] there are many which are astonishing from the evidence they give of his unsurpassable accuracy of perception of the facts of nature, and many which only show the limitation of his views on art, and as a system would have no other result than that of crippling the student who should attempt to obey them” (ibid).

Regarding the scans that I have taken of this wood-engraving, I need to point out that the details showcased here are VERY tiny areas of the print. In short, Cole’s engraved lines are so fine that they verge on being microscopically small.

I am selling this very rare proof impression by one of the most famous of the reproductive wood engravers of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries for a total cost of AU$234 (currently/approximately US$157.64/EUR145.61/123.38 at the time of posting 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. Note that payment is in Australian dollars (AU$234) as this is my currency.

If you are interested in purchasing this small masterpiece of wood engraving, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

Carl Schwarzburger’s wood-engraving, “Fern-Tree Gully”, c1886

Carl Schwarzburger (1850–?)

“Fern-Tree Gully”, c1886, wood engraving after an unacknowledged photograph of tree-ferns near Healesville in Victoria, Australia, by Nicholas John Caire (1837–1918), “Fairy Scene at the Landslip, Blacks’ Spur”, c1878 (see https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/framing-nicholas-caire-fairy-scene-at-the-landslip-blacks-spur-c-1878-2/)—with a touch creative invention by Schwarzburger, especially regarding the inclusion of a swagman into the composition making his way through the dense forest of tree-ferns with his dog—from the first volume of the “Picturesque Atlas of Australasia”, published in Sydney in three volumes of forty-two parts between 1886 and 1888 by The Picturesque Atlas Publishing Co., edited by Andrew Garran (1825–1901).

Interestingly, the National Gallery of Victoria in its wall didactic describing Caire’s photograph which inspired this engraving advises: “The ancient associations of tree ferns were of particular interest to the colonial audience, with ‘fern fever’, or pteridomania, sweeping the British Empire. The photographer expressed his enchantment with such landscapes, he wrote of their ability to bestow a feeling of ‘ecstatic bewilderment’ to anyone who visited.”

Wood-engraving on wove paper with wide margins as published.

Size: (sheet) 45.5 x 34.7 cm; (image borderline) 27.7 x 18 cm.

Inscribed within the image borderline: (lower right) “C Schwarzburger fe”

Lettered below the image: (centre) “FERN-TREE GULLY.”

Condition: a strong and near faultless impression with generously wide margins. Beyond significant but pale foxing in the margins, the sheet has no tears, holes, abrasions or folds. 

I am selling this large and very beautiful wood-engraving exemplifying the fascination with tree-ferns in the late 1800s leading to phenomenon known as “fern fever” (or pteridomania), for AU$213 in total (currently/approximately US$142.15/EUR132.33/GBP112.07 at the time of posting 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. Note that payment is in Australian dollars (AU$213) as this is my currency.

If you are interested in acquiring this marvellously engaging image of a swagman with his accompanying dog finding their way through a lush tree-fern forest—possibly with the goal of finding future employment at the end of their trek—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

Georges Régnier’s wood-engraving, “La Classe de danse”, 1938, after Degas

Georges Régnier (1878–[after] 1938)—note that the Louvre Museum (Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, Chalcographie) offers brief descriptions of four wood engravings that the museum holds by this artist: https://collections.louvre.fr/recherche?author%5B0%5D=12375.

“La Classe de danse” (aka “The Ballet Class”; “Un Cours de Danse”; “A Dance Class”), 1938, pencil-signed and annotated artist’s proof wood engraving after Edgar Degas’ (1834–1917) painting, “La Classe de danse” (1873–76) in the Musée d’Orsay (see https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/oeuvres/la-classe-de-danse-1151).  Note that the Louvre Chalcographie published an edition of this print with the Chalcographie’s blind-stamp, but this impression is a signed proof-state impression before the later edition. See the description of this print offered by the Louvre Museum: https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl020535275.

Wood-engraving on fine Japanese washi paper, hand-signed and inscribed in pencil with annotations.

Size: (sheet) 42.7 x 36.7 cm; (image borderline/plate) 33.9 x 29.9 cm.

Lettered in plate within the image borderline: (upper left) “REGNIER SC.”

Inscribed in pencil by the artist below the image borderline/platemark: (left) “épreuve d'artiste”; (right) “[…] G. Regni[er]/ 1938”.

Condition: a strong and well-printed (near faultless) impression in an excellent condition with wide margins and no tears, holes, abrasion or significant stains. Note that the sheet has naturally occurring imperfections in the paper.

I am selling this large and magnificent wood-engraving that is pencil-signed and inscribed as an artist’s proof impression (“épreuve d'artiste”) after one of Degas’ most famous paintings, for a total cost of AU$266 (currently US$177.79/EUR160.87/GBP141.61 at the time of 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 exceptionally rare wood-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