Dujardin’s etching, “Les deux chevaux”

Karel Dujardin (aka Carel Dujardin; Carel du Jardin; Karel Du Jardin; Bokkebaart) (1626 –78)

“Les deux chevaux” (Two Horses), 1652

Size: (sheet) 15.9 x 16.2 cm

Etching on fine laid paper trimmed on the platemark with thread margins

Inscribed within the image: (upper left) "K. D. I. fe"; (lower right corner) “4”.

Bartsch 4-II (166); Hollstein VI (“Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts ca. 1450-1700”, vol. VI [Amsterdam, 1952]).

The British Museum does not have this rare print in its collection, but the BM has a copy of it in reverse by the famous French printmaker, Charles Meryon (1821–68) (see http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1441972&partId=1&searchText=Dujardin+Les+deux+chevaux&page=1)

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has a copy of this print and offers details and description it, but the quality of their impression is comparatively poor (see https://art.famsf.org/karel-dujardin/les-deux-chevaux-19633012118). The Metropolitan Museum of Art also has a copy, but again their impression has noticeable flaws (see http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/399291).

Condition. A superb, museum quality, impression in faultless condition (i.e. there are no stains, foxing, tears, holes or folds).

I am selling this rare, high quality impression for AU$161 in total (currently US$123.33/EUR109.21/GBP93.25 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this superb impression that really should be in a museum, 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

About ten years ago when I purchased this print, I was deeply fascinated by images of cows and horses and the plight of the rural poor. If I were asked—which I never was—why I had an interest in such scenes, I would have stumbled for rational words, as my world was far removed from the images that I loved to contemplate. To be honest, the more flies that an artist portrayed and the more muck, piss and poop that was portrayed, the happier I was.

Interestingly, I asked my best pal—a wonderful lady with whom I have gone out painting every Saturday morning for the last fifteen years—for a “proper” answer as to why anyone, including artists, would be captivated by bucolic images and I had a reply that I wasn’t expecting: “Did you know that years ago, jockeys in Ireland who needed to lose weight would immerse themselves in manure?” Well … I didn’t. Then our live-in polymath Googled this practice and discovered that the joy of being thoroughly bedded down in poop was not limited to Irish jockeys. Isaac Ling, for instance, advises that when “… riders at Tijuana racetrack in the 1920s … saw the fermenting mountain of horse manure out the back of the racetrack that was ‘as big as a grandstand’ (the proceeds of year upon year of mucked-out stables being dumped in the one spot), they didn't just see a big pile of horse shit, but instead their own private sauna” (https://www.punters.com.au/news/Extreme-jockey-weight-loss-tactics_140371/). Fascinating stuff what some artists, jockeys and viewers love!

Alexandre Calame’s lithographs

Alexandre Calame (1810–1864)

LEFT IMAGE

"Landscape with Pine", c.1850-60, printed and published by François Delarue (fl.1850–60s)

Lithograph on tan chine-collé washi paper on heavy wove white paper

Size: (sheet) 45.5 x 54 cm; (image) 30.1 x 40.2 cm

Lettered in the plate below the image: (lower left) “François Delarue, Ëditeur, r. J.J. Rousseau, 18, Paris.”; (lower centre) “A. Calame / 9”; (lower right) “Imp. Fois. Delarue, Paris.”

Condition: excellent impression in near pristine condition (i.e. there is no foxing, stains, tears, holes or abrasions but there are signs of handling in terms of a few superficial marks). This print is in superb condition for its age.

RIGHT IMAGE

“Rocky Landscape”, c.1850-60, printed and published by François Delarue (fl.1850–60s)

Lithograph on tan chine-collé washi paper on heavy wove white paper

Size: (sheet) 32.1 x 22.4 cm; (image) 19.7 x 15.3 cm

Inscribed with the artist’s signature within the image (lower right).

Lettered in the plate above the image: (upper left) “OEUVRES DE A CALAME”; (upper right) “No. 58.”

Lettered in the plate below the image: (lower left) “Esquisse peinte.”; (lower centre) “Imp. Fois. Delarue, Paris.”; (lower right) “François Delarue, Edit, r. J.J. Rousseau, 18, Paris.”

Condition: excellent impression in pristine condition (i.e. there is no foxing, stains, tears, holes or abrasions). This print is in perfect condition.

I am selling this pair of lithographs (one that is very large and the other is small) for AU$169 in total (currently US$128.99/EUR114.23/GBP97.50 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this pair of lithographs by one of the major Swiss artists of the 19^th century, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

These prints have been sold

In the nineteenth century the notion of the sublime seen in landscape was a current preoccupation amongst artists with a leaning towards Romanticism.

Indeed, this pair of lithographs by one of Switzerland’s the best known artists, Alexandre Calame, exemplifies an artist wish to communicate the heart-stopping awe experienced when trying to comprehend Alpine grand vistas. As is normally the case when artists present feelings of spiritual transcendence, Calame uses plunging perspectives and the juxtaposition of landscape features to connote spatial depth (e.g. a large craggy rock in the foreground may be abutted beside tiny landforms in the far distance). What I find especially appealing about Calame engagement with the sublime, however, is his use of a golden hue in these lithographs that presents the portrayed landscape as otherworldly.

Of course, Calame was not the first to use such a golden cast to colour his artwork. There was an ongoing convention of leaning artworks towards sepia or brown. In fact, the ‘miroir noir”, or Claude glass, was an optical device designed specifically to help artists to “give the object of nature a soft, mellow tinge like the colour of that Master” (viz. Claude Lorrain) (quote from Red William Gilpin cited in the marvellous book by Anthea Callen [2015], “The Work of Art: Plein-air Painting and Artistic Identity in Nineteenth-century France”, p. 61).

“Dwarf Halberdier with a Greyhound” after Paolo Veronese

After Paolo Veronese (also known as Paolo Caliari) (1528–88) by an unidentified printmaker

“Dwarf Halberdier with a Greyhound”, 17–18th century

Etching on paper with fragments of wood in the paper and cut within the plate marks. I would normally propose that this is wove paper as I am unable to see chain-lines within it, but I suspect that the paper may be an early imported paper. I am mindful that Rembrandt made many of his prints on what scholars term “Oriental papers” imported from India, China and Japan. Moreover, the Japanese papers are often buff coloured like this sheet and seldom show the screen pattern of the mould from which they were cast.

Inscribed within the plate (upper right) “Paolo Caliari pinx”, (sheet) 13.4 x 8.1 cm.

Condition: crisp and well-inked impression trimmed within the plate marks in excellent condition but with remnants of mounting hinges (verso). I am selling this finely executed study after Veronese for $137 AUD (currently US$104.53/GBP79.02/EUR92.68 at the time of posting this print) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world. If you are interested in purchasing this remarkably beautiful etching by an oldmaster, 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 acquired this stunning print many years ago from a dealer in Holland whom I had previously purchased many prints before but this is the only one that he stated unequivocally: “This is a beautiful print” and added “my wife likes this one!” The admiration that he felt towards this very small print is easy to understand: it really is a superb image. For me the lightness of its execution and its expression of open space captures not only the spirit of Veronese but also that of Tiepolo.

Before concocting an appropriate descriptive title for this print (I have been unable to locate this etching in my research to find its “correct” title) I did a little exploratory fact finding about the custom of showing dogs and dwarf courtiers—especially ones carrying a sword—in the paintings of this time. Rather than discovering that such subjects were simply as representation of what court life was like at the time, I found that Veronese was even hauled over the coals (metaphorically speaking) for featuring them in his religious paintings—specifically “Feast in the House of Levi”. Regarding this painting, the following snippet of questions from the Inquisition and answers from Veronese are fascinating:

“Q. And who are really the persons whom you admit to have been present at this Supper?

A. I believe that there was only Christ and His Apostles; but when I have some space left over in a picture I adorn it with figures of my own invention.

Q. Did some person order you to paint Germans, buffoons, and other similar figures in this picture?

A. No, but I was commissioned to adorn it as I thought proper; now it is very large and can contain many figures.”

My painting: “View from the window of an apartment in Sydney”

Over the next few days I thought I would post a few pics of the paintings that I have been working on. This small aquarelle pencil and oil on canvas (27 x 23cm) shows a view of Sydney (towards Potts Point?) from the window of an apartment where we were staying.

For anyone interested in purchasing this painting on unstretched canvas, I am asking a mere AU$500 with free postage to anywhere in the world. To make the transaction easy, please email me at oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com and I will send you a PayPal invoice.

Godefroy Engelmann’s lithograph after Abel de Pujol

Godefroy Engelmann I (1788–1839)

“Tête d'Ëtude d'après le Tableau de St. Etienne”, 1817 after Alexandre Denis Abel de Pujol (1785–1861)

Lithograph on wove paper

Size: (sheet) 49.4 x 34.9 cm

Lettered in the plate: (lower left) “E: Parizeau élêve de Mr, David.”; (lower centre) “Tête d'Ëtude d'après le Tableau de St. Etienne / peint, par Mr Abel de Pujol — Salon de 1817.”; (lower right) “Lith de G: Engelmann. / Chez Ostervald L’aine’ rue Pavée St. Andre ‘des Arts No.3”

Condition: crisp impression in marvellous condition (i.e. there are no holes, tears, folds or foxing). This is an exceptionally rare and very large lithograph.

I am selling this exceptionally rare and very large lithograph for AU$139 in total (currently US$105.85/EUR93.73/GBP80.95 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this neoclassical master print by the artist that patented chromolithography, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

At first I was perplexed by this beautiful neoclassical portrait, as the inscribed title seemed to suggest that this finely rendered face with its bare shoulder and cute kiss-curl was of Saint Etienne (aka Saint Stephen). My bewilderment was not so much about delicate facial features and mild eroticism in the depiction of Saint Etienne—who is famous as the first Christian martyr (presuming I have my facts right)—but rather that Saint Etienne should be a man. Of course, once I translated the French text and studied the content properly I quickly realised that this head is a study for a figure featured in Abel de Pujol’s painting: “Preafication de Saint Etienne” (1817) (see an image of the painting at: http://www.patrimoine-histoire.fr/images/Patrimoine/Paris/eStThomasdAquin/ParSTdA81c.JPG).

To give a context for the significance of Abel de Pujol’s painting, Stephen Bann (2013) in “Ways Around Modernism” offers the following wonderful summary:

“Abel de Pujol's star has waned (to put it mildly), but in 1817 it could scarcely have been brighter, since the painting [“Preafication de Saint Etienne”] had tied for first prize in the category of history painting in the first (and last) major competition of the Restoration, supervised by the Académie des Beaux Arts at the request of the king himself. In other terms Abel de Pujol's work had achieved in 1817 just the measure of official acknowledgement that Ingres was looking for (though not finding) before his success with Louis Ill/ at the Salon of 1824 and his election to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in the following year.”

Andrew Miller’s 18th century mezzotint of Veronese’s “Venus with a Mirror”

Andrew Miller (c.1690/fl.1739–63)

“Venus with a Mirror”, 1740 after a painting by Paolo Veronese (1528–88) published by John Bowles (1701?–79).

Mezzotint engraving on fine laid paper with small margins

Size: (sheet) 37.5 x 27.8 cm; (plate) 36.4 x 25.2 cm; (image borderline) 31.2 x 24.9 cm

Lettered below the image borderline: (lower-left corner) “From a Capital Picture of Paulo Veronese.”; (lower-right corner) “And.w Miller Fecit.”; (lower centre) two columns of poetry in two lines, beginning: “Veil, Happy Fair One! ... / Printed for John Bowles at the Black Horse in Cornhill 1740.”

This rare print is not in the collection of The British Museum, nevertheless, the museum offers 73 other prints by Miller: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?people=114724&peoA=114724-2-60

Note that the British Museum in providing biographical details about Miller advise: “His work is very rare.”

For solid biographic details about Andrew Miller, see “A Dictionary of Irish Artists” (1913): http://www.libraryireland.com/irishartists/andrew-miller.php

Condition: excellent impression in marvellous condition (i.e. there are no holes, tears, folds or foxing).

I am selling this superb quality and very rare mezzotint for AU$144 in total (currently US$109.66/EUR97.10/GBP83.87 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this subtlety executed old master 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

Only a top mezzotint artist could make this fine print, as the medium is so technically demanding. Miller was trained in the time-consuming craft of a mezzotint engraver by the famous and prolific specialist in this medium, John Faber, Jr. (1684–1756).

For those that may be unfamiliar with this somewhat rare medium of mezzotint, the process begins “by roughening the plate with thousands of little dots made by a metal tool with small teeth called a ‘rocker’” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezzotint). If the plate were inked and printed at this beginning stage, the resulting print would be flat black image created out of thousands/millions of dots. To add light tones to the roughened plate, a metal burnisher is employed to literally scrape away the surface pitting until the various tones of the envisaged image are achieved. When the burnished plate is then printed, the resulting image has a soft, rich luminosity that would be difficult to achieve using any other printing technique.

Viktor Alexejewitsch Bobrof’s etched self-portrait

Viktor Alexejewitsch Bobrof (aka Viktor Alexeyevich Bobrov; Viktor Alekseyevich Bobroff; Viktor Alexeevich Bobrov) (1842–1918)

“Selfstportrait” (Self Portrait), c.1892, published by der Gesellschaft für Vervielfältigende Kunst, Vienna.

Etching and roulette with plate tone on cream wove paper

Size: (sheet) 39.2 x 29.2 cm; (plate) 31.8 x 29.6 cm

Lettered in the plate below the image (lower left) “Original-Radirung von V.Bobrof.”; (lower centre) “SELBSTPORTRAIT.”; (lower right) “Druck der Gesellschaft f. vervielf. Kunst, Wien.”

Condition: marvellous, richly-inked impression in pristine condition.

I am selling this marvellous self-portrait by Bobrof for AU$112 in total (currently US$85.32/EUR75.31/GBP65.03 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this beautifully executed etching, 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 information about this artist is thin—for instance, the British Museum does not hold any of the 100 etchings executed by him—fortunately, Sothbys offers some revealing insights (see http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/russian-paintings-l13115/lot.310.html). From the information that Sothbys provide, I now understand that this Russian painter and printmaker is famous for his repeated variations on a theme. Moreover, he is also famous for having been influenced by Rembrandt.

When I read about Rembrandt’s influence on Bobrof, I thought back to an Instagram follower who wrote to me requesting that I might like to offer a few thoughts/suggestions about his first attempt at etching—a copy of one of Rembrandt’s self-portraits. (I should say at this point that fortunately I am seldom asked for comments on artworks as I find the task unnecessarily demanding on my grey cells.) The print was fine but he had missed a few important attributes of the original image. The short version is that the student was using too many lines to render the portrayed hair and I proposed only showing individual hairs when they lay in the half-lights.

The reason for me thinking about this follower’s request for a critique is that this self-portrait by Bobrof is clearly not a composition devised by Rembrandt. Nevertheless, the chiaroscuro/theatrical lighting and the confident command of the etching needle exhibits (to a limited degree) some of Rembrandt’s hallmarks. There is a critical element, however, that separates the two masters: Bobrof does not employ a visual device, such as a projecting hand or piece of the surrounding architecture, to link the pictorial depth of the image with that of the physical space of the viewer. In short, Bobrof’s marvellously executed and highly creative composition is like a stone wall which can be looked at but not fully engaged with. By contrast, the “secret” of a good Rembrandt is that the image “reaches” out to viewers so that they feel welcomed into the pictorial space of the image.

Allaert van Everdingen’s etching, “The Knoll”

Allaert van Everdingen (1621–75)

“La Butte” (The Knoll), 1636–75

Etching on fine laid paper trimmed to the image borderline.

Size: (sheet) 13.4 x 18.9 cm

State iii/iii (based on a pencil inscription verso)

Inscribed with the artist’s monogram at lower left edge: “AVE”.

Bartsch II.216.100; Hollstein 100.II

The British Museum offers the following description of this print: “The hill; two peasants seated next to a large boulder at centre; a third peasant walking past them and the hut at right; at left a wild stream passing a tall tree; in left background a monastery on a hill.” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1634435&partId=1&searchText=+Everdingen&page=6)

Condition: crisp and richly inked impression, trimmed to the borderline in good condition. Verso shows an ink setoff from when the original printer left this impression on top of another still wet impression (a fascinating piece of historical evidence about the printing practice at the time). There are remnants of mounting and inscriptions from previous collectors (verso).

I am selling this early etching capturing the spirit of the Nordic landscape for AU$125 in total (currently US$95.62/EUR85.66/GBP73.97 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this old master print with the rare ink setoff from another impression (verso), 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 is find fascinating about this artist’s landscapes is not simply that he portrays Nordic scenes with babbling brooks, lumpy rocks and lush trees. What really makes his landscapes special to me is that the babbling brooks, lumpy rocks and lush trees are invariably underpinned with a rigid framework of straight lines that make his landscapes compositionally strong. In this etching, for instance, note how the angles of the architectural features—the monastery in the far distance on the left and the two huts on the right—act like compositional “bones” that give structure to the image.

This print also has a “special” hidden attribute that can only be seen on the back of the print: an offset print (i.e. a mirror image in printer’s ink) from another impression of the same print left when the printer laid this impression on the other still wet impression. Ideally such an offset impression should never happen, as all printers know that freshly pulled prints should not be stacked on top of one another. Nevertheless, I love seeing such revealing acts of dreadful negligence by ancient printers. The German language has the perfect word for it: schottenfreude.

Flameng’s etching, “Deliverance of the Captives of Carcassonne”

Léopold Flameng (aka Léopold Joseph Flameng) (1831–1911)

“Délivrance des Emmurés de Carcassonne”(Deliverance of the Captives of Carcassonne), 1879, after a painting by Jean Paul Laurens (1838–1921) exhibited in the Salon of 1879, printed by Alfred Salmon (fl. 1863–94),” first published in “L'Art, 1879. This impression is from the sumptuous double volumes of MK Halévys “L’Eau-Forte”, 1888.

Etching on heavy cream wove paper (Japan/Arches)

Size: (sheet) 40.1 x 28.5 cm; (image borderline) 28.6 x 22.7 cm

Numbered above image: “Planche XXXIV”

Beraldi 1885-92 207; IFF 248

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Bernard Délicieux freeing prisoners from the Inquisition's jail in Carcassonne, after Laurens; the Franciscan friar stands on the left and addresses a crowd with both hands in the air while on the right a group of men is destroying the wall blocking the entrance of the jail; published in “L'Art, 1879” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3496274&partId=1&searchText=flameng+Laurens&page=1)

Condition: strong, well-inked and well-printed impression in good condition (i.e. there are no significant stains, tears, folds or signs of foxing, but there is a band of age-toning verso).

I am selling this original etching (with engraving) by Flameng for a total cost of ... [deleted] including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this fine print by one of the leading reproductive printmakers of the 19^th century, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

MK Halévy, in the first volume of “L’Eau-Forte” (1888), offers a good account of what is illustrated in this etching by Léopold Flameng after Jean Paul Laurens’ painting of the same name (now in the Luxembourg museum):

“The people of Carcassonne have just attacked the wall of the inquisitorial dungeons to release the prisoners. In the centre, Jean de Picquigny, reformer of Languedoc, stands watching the invasion which he cannot prevent; the brother-miner, Bernard Délicieux, strives to pacify the mob” (p. xvi). (For those unfamiliar with this incident, the “storming” of the prison occurred in 1303 involving not only the local folk of Carcassonne, but also those of Albi.)

At the time of executing this print, Flameng was famous as a reproductive printmaker (i.e. an artist who translates paintings and other artworks into prints). His reputation was established by his very first etching: a copy of Rembrandt’s “Hundred Guilder Print” (see his graphic translation at https://www.artsy.net/artwork/leopold-flameng-after-rembrandt-van-rijn-the-hundred-guilder-print). This print was so good that Charles Blanc exclaimed: “He has imitated Rembrandt to a point that would deceive the master himself were he to return to this world” (FL Leipnik, 1924, p. 119).

Although this graphic translation is far from the incredibly sensitive rendering of Rembrandt’s masterpiece, I wish to draw attention to his treatment of the children portrayed in this print. Few artists have the skill to render the fine facial features of children when they are bathed in light. Note for example how Flemeng creates white lines to represent the children’s blonde hair, a feat that is not so straight forward when one is making an image only using black lines.