Harris Schrank Fine Prints

John Marin (1870-1953), St. Germain-Des-Pres, Paris, etching, 1906. Signed in pencil lower right and titled lower left [also signed and dated in the plate]. Zigrosser 47, only state, from the edition estimated by Zigrosser of about 25. Printed on wove Japan paper, with wide margins, a deckle edge at top, in very good condition (paper loss lower right corner, paper crease lower left margin), 8 x 5 5/8, the sheet 13 x 9 inches.

A fine impression, printed with plate tone.

Marin lived and worked in Europe from late 1905 to 1909, mostly in Paris but also in Venice, Rouen, Amsterdam, London.  Although he was familiar with Meryon, his etchings were more impressionistic and “loose”; many see similarities with the etchings of Whistler, and Marin was surely aware of and influenced by Whistler. But, according to Zigrosser, in contrast to Whistler, Marin’s lines were “nervous and passionate and occasionally too roving and restless to be realistically convincing.” One can see hints in Marin’s architectural renderings such as St. Germain-Des-Pres of the beginnings of an evolution toward modernism, which blossomed only a few years later.

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Rotherhithe, etching and drypoint, 1860 [signed and dated in the plate lower left]. Reference: Kennedy 66, third state (of 3), Glasgow 70, sixth state (of 6). Published, in the definitive state, as part of the Thames Set. In very good condition, with margins, 10 7/8 x 7 7/8, the sheet 13 x 9 7/8 inches.

A fine impression, printed in brownish/black ink on a cream laid paper with the watermark KF.

Rotherhithe is the area opposite Wapping on the banks of the Thames. The site of the image is the Angel, an inn in Bermondsey, very near Rotherhithe. Although Tower Bridge dominates the view up-river from the narrow balcony, in the distance St Paul’s Cathedral is visible beyond the bend of the river.

Rotherhithe is one of Whistler’s most iconic early images; it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1862, and then was titled Wapping in its later 1871 publication as part of the Thames Set (a series of 16 etchings). The copper plate is in the Freer Gallery of Art.