Harris Schrank Fine Prints

Rembrandt – The Rat Catcher

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn 
1606 Leiden – Amsterdam 1669

The Rat Catcher   1632

etching; 140 x 125 mm (5 1/2 x 4 7/8 inches)

Bartsch 121, White/Boon third (final) state (of three); Hind 97

watermark

double-headed eagle (Hinterding, vol. 2, p. 109, variant A.a.b, vol. 3, p. 177 ill.)

provenance

P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London (their stock nos. in pencil on verso C 14174 and C 30912)

private collection; sale, Sotheby’s, London, March 19, 2013, lot 52

A fine, early impression of this rare print; in excellent condition with small margins all round.

The first state of this print (before the shading to the right of the box of rat poison the boy is holding) is known in only two impressions; the second state (with the shading on the box but before additional shading in the foliage over the rat killer’s head) is known in one impression (Rothschild Collection, Paris). The plate is not in existence.

The watermark in this impression is known to Hinterding only in the unique second-state impression in the Rothschild collection in the Louvre; this confirms that this is indeed an early pull from the plate in its final state.

Rembrandt’s Rat Catcher is composed of elements he used earlier, e.g., the pedlar himself was after the Man with Hands Behind His Back (Bartsch 135) of 1631; and the man in the house resembles bearded characters in Rembrandt paintings of the period. The lightly etched landscape and farmhouse in the distance create a sense of depth, and represent a rather rare appearance of landscape for Rembrandt in the 1630s.

The rat catcher was frequently depicted by artists before Rembrandt, and even more frequently after Rembrandt’s version, including many copies clearly derived from Rembrandt’s composition.

Rembrandt – The Rat Catcher – detail

Edward Hopper

1882 Nyack – New York 1967

Evening Wind   1921

etching on wove paper; 6 7/8 x 8 1/4 inches (sheet: 9 1/2 x 10 5/8 inches)

signed in pencil at lower right Edward Hopper; annotated by the artist on verso:

etching $35 / “The Evening Wind” / Edward Hopper /3 Wash. Square / New York

Levin 77; Zigrosser 9

provenance

private collection

Notes:

In a footnote to Zigrosser’s The Etchings of Edward Hopper he refers to Evening Wind as having seven states; this is corroborated by the Philadelphia Museum web site which shows their seven states of The Evening Wind (Zigrosser was curator of prints at Philadelphia). These may be progress proofs, one to a state; we have not encountered other proof states of the print, and know of no  definitive documentation of the states of Hopper prints. In all likelihood, then, our impression is of the definitive state. The drawing for the print is at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Gail Levin, in her Edward Hopper: The Complete Prints, writes that his later etchings were often carefully worked out in preliminary drawings, and notes “The evolution of Evening Wind to etching from preparatory drawing has meant a sharper focus on the nude woman in the foreground through elimination of the distracting definition of background details…” (p. 12). The basic composition from the drawing, and through the states, however, was unchanged.

Charles Meryon

1821 – Paris – 1868

L’Abside de Notre-Dame – The Apse of Notre-Dame, Paris   1854

etching with engraving and drypoint on thin laid paper; 163 x 300 mm (6 7/16 x 11 3/4 inches)

annotated in pencil at lower left “B. 50 [!] 1^e non termine”

Burty 52; Delteil 38 third state (of eight); Schneiderman 45 third state (of nine)

watermark

CONTRIBUTIONS DIRECTES

provenance

Émile Galichon (1829-1875), Paris (Lugt 856; cf. also Lugt 1058f, which mentions his posthumous 1875 sale of Meryon.)

his sale, Paris (expert Clément), May 10-14, 1875

Phillipe Burty (1830-1890), Paris (Lugt 413; cf. the entry Lugt 2071 which mentions the sales of Burty’s collection)

his sale, Sotheby’s, London, April 27ff., 1876

possibly Francis Seymour Haden, London and Arlesford (cf. Lugt 1227 et al.; not stamped but annotated in pencil verso “Haden”)

Lugt refers to the sale (April 27 ff., Paris) of Burty’s first state impression of L’Abside; this is incorrect since the first state is unique (it is in the National Gallery, with an extensive provenance not including Burty); quite certainly Lugt is referring to our impression (which is also incorrectly noted as a first state in pencil on the recto, lower left). (Lugt: Dans cette vente figurait son œuvre exceptionnel de Meryon, 217 pièces en états variés, dont nous citons : L’Abside de Notre-Dame, 1^r ét. £ 17….)

Phillipe Burty was an eminent art critic and collector; he was among the first to recognize the genius of Meryon, and wrote the first catalogue raisonne of his work.

Burty wrote of L’Abside: “The view of Notre-Dame…is a magisterial sight. The church of Notre Dame seems to have exerted a great attraction on the dreamy spirit of the artist. It has dictated to a poet [Victor Hugo] one of the beautiful books of our generation; it has inspired in Meryon his most beautiful plate.”

Redon – Le jour enfin paraît

Odilon Redon (1840-1916), Le jour enfin paraît, lithograph, 1896, signed in pencil upper left, plate 24 from the portfolio  The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Troisieme Serie, on chine appliqué. Printed by Vollard, Paris, published by Auguste Clot, Paris, edition of 50. Reference: Mellerio 157, only state.  In good condition, slight light staining, a small repaired tear bottom and right edges, 10 1/2 x 6 3/8″ , the  sheet: 22 1/4 x 15 1/4 inches.

A fine impression of this iconic portrait.

The printing at the bottom of Le Jour: Le jour enfin paraît . . . et dans le disque même du soleil, rayonne la face du Jésus-Christ (Day Appears At Last, . . . and in the Very Disk of the Sun Shines the Face of Jesus Christ).

From Artists and Their Prints: Masterworks from the Museum of Modern Art: Odilon Redon, an individualist who believed in the superiority of the imagination over observation of nature, rejected the Realism and Impressionism of his contemporaries in favor of a more personal artistic vision. After a discouraging experience studying academic painting in Paris, he returned to his hometown of Bordeaux, where he began making etchings in 1864. Later, returning to Paris, he was encouraged by a fellow artist to try lithography and was introduced to Lemercier, a renowned Parisian workshop. He soon discovered that the unique qualities of this technique enabled him to achieve infinite gradations of tone, fine-line drawing, and rich depictions of light and dark. Also, through the possibility of editioning, he found a vehicle for broadly distributing the intimate imagery of his drawings.

During his lifetime, Redon made close to thirty etchings and two hundred lithographs, working almost exclusively in black and white. His reputation flourished, due, in part, to the availability of his prints. He became a celebrated figure in fin-de-siècle Paris, greatly admired by artists and writers of the Symbolist movement with whom he shared an enthusiasm for the fantastic, mystical, and sublime forces found beneath the surface of everyday life. Using nature as his starting point, Redon imagined new worlds through his enigmatic creations, such as The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity.

The majority of Redon’s lithographs are found in albums based on thematic or literary subjects. He was greatly inspired by such authors as Edgar Allan Poe and Gustave Flaubert, whose unusual sensibilities were well suited to the artist’s own. Redon was so moved by Flaubert’s 1874 prose poem The Temptation of Saint Anthony that he created three separate projects based on it.

Harper Montgomery and Sarah Suzuki, Deborah Wye, Artists and Prints: Masterworks from The Museum of Modern Art, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2004, p. 48

Redon – Le Jour – Detail

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778), Quirinal Hill, etching, 1745,  [signature lower right, enumeration of locations in the print at margin bottom, in the plate]. 1745. Focillon 95, Wilton-Ely 98. From the Varie Veduti di Roma Anticha e Moderna. In compromised condition: laid down, light stain, tear bottom right, trimmed to or just within plate mark, rubbed area upper right near edge).  5 x 7 1/2 inches.

A fair impression.

The Quirinal Hill consists of: 1. Pontifical Palace, 2. Church of St. Mary Magdalen, 3. Palazzo della Consulta, 4. Palazzo Rospigliosi, 5. Pontifical Stables and Barracks of the Bodyguard. The Pontifical Palace is today the residence of the President of the Italian Republic.

The small views of Rome of the Varie Vedute, made at the outset of Piranesi’s career, were not re-issued in later editions of his collected works, since the plates were sold directly to publishers by Piranesi. They were used to illustrate guidebooks to Rome until the mid-1760′s.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778), Veduta dell’interno del Tempio di S. Stefano Rotondo (Interior view of the Church of San Stefano Rotondo), etching, 1756. First Edition, from the series Le Antichita Romane, Bouchard e Gravier 1756, section XXV, figure 2 [signed, numbered and titled in the plate]. References: Focillon 192, Wilton-Ely 327.  In good condition, with margins,  5 1/2 x 8, the sheet 6 1/4 x 9 inches.

A very good impression, printed on a stiff cream laid paper.

Piranesi developed the plates of the Antichita Romane (Roman Antiquities) after eight years of careful study and excavation. His aim, as with all his archaeological publications, was both to record the vanishing past, and to inspire designers to emulate these past achievements.

James McBey, The Pool, 1914

James McBey (1883-1959), The Pool, etching and drypoint, 1914, signed in pen lower right and numbered (I) lower left margin. Reference: Hardie 150. [also signed and dated June 1914 in the plate lower right]. From the edition of 50 (plus proofs). In very good condition, with margins, printed on laid white paper, 9 1/2 x 14 1/8, the sheet 11 1/8 x 15 5/8 inches.

Provenance: Harris Whittemore (Lugt 1384a, with his stamp lower left recto]

A fine impression, with much burr from the drypoint work.

McBey made about nine states of one impression each in the evolution of The Pool; most changes were minor, and the last few were touches of drypoint on and under some of the barges, and on some of the people; he also burnished marks in the water in his later proof impressions. This impression is numbered I, from the edition of fifty.

This is the Pool of London, from a warehouse near the south end of the Tower Bridge, looking toward warehouses and wharves on the north bank. It is not the Thames of Whistler, calm, unruffled, but a river of bustling activity.

Martin Hardie wrote, comparing The Pool to McBey’s The Lion Brewery, “Both have made record prices for the artist’s work in the saleroom….Decorative, attractive, masterly though [The Lion Brewery] it be, I cannot allow, for a moment that it has the vital significance and atmosphere of The Pool.  In this latter plate you find, stronger and intensified, the feeling of life and movement that began with the Moroccan Set; and movement is a very subtle thing to capture in a network of etched lines.”

McBey – The Pool, detail

McBey, The Pool, detail