Archive for January, 2023

Apollo

Tuesday, January 31st, 2023

HENDRICK GOLTZIUS (1558-1617)
Apollo
engraving, 1588, on laid paper, without watermark, trimmed to or on the borderline, some pale foxing and staining, some minor defects, otherwise in good condition. Literature: Bartsch 141; Hollstein 131; Strauss 263; New Hollstein 151, Sheet 346 x 258 mm.

A very fine, rich impression of the first state (of two).

PROVENANCE:
Frstlich Hohenzollern’sche Museum, Sigmaringen (Lugt 2759).

Goltzius was at the height of his fame as an engraver and publisher in 1588, the year of the Apollo engraving. The inscription here encircles Apollo’s head like a halo. Such a bravura play on the conventions of engraving is a hallmark of Goltzius’s Mannerist style.

Here are notes on this print from the RISD publication and exhibit The Brilliant Line:

By the 1580s, Hendrick Goltzius had radically altered the engravers formulas for producing shape, volume, and tone. Rather than a single contour around the figure, here lines terminate to form the figures outline. Lozenges made from crossed swelling lines on Apollos body are interspersed with dots to moderate the transition from dark to light. Also evident is the s-curve, a mark used by Albrecht Drer, but now swelled to follow the complicated volumes of clouds and activate the surface with swirling movement. Goltziuss inventiveness as a calligrapher is also on display in the inscription around Apollos head, which describes the Sun Gods ability to dispel shadows and illuminate the globe.

The exaggerated musculature of the sculptural Sun God and the twisting bands of clouds around the figure were inspired by the style of Bartholomeus Spranger, court artist to Emperor Rudolf II at Prague, whose drawings were sent to Haarlem.

The Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist

Tuesday, January 31st, 2023

ANTONIO DA TRENTO (CIRCA 15101550) AFTER PARMIGIANINO (1503-1540),The Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist, chiaroscuro woodcut, printed from two blocks in grey and sand, circa 1527-30. Reference: Bartsch 7, Takahatake 26, on laid paper, watermark Hand and Flower (see watermark illustration in Takahatake, The Chiaroscuro Woodcut in Renaissance Italy, fig. 5, p. 272; similar to Briquet 10765, Genoa, circa 1524-27), with narrow margins, in very good condition; block & sheet 346 x 265 mm.

Provenance:
With Colnaghi & Co., London (their stocknumber C. 24975 in pencil verso).
Sir Lawrence Gowing (1918-1991), London; then by descent in the family.

A fine, early and delicate impression, in a rare colour variant.

The Hand and Flower watermark found in the present impression has been recorded by Takahatake in early impressions of Ugo da Carpis Hercules chasing Avarice (version B, B. 12) and the Massacre of the Innocents (B. 8), both dated circa 1520-27.

The attribution of this unsigned print was first proposed by Giorgio Vasari, who listed it among the four that Antonio da Trento produced in close collaboration with Parmigianino between 1527 and 1530 (see discussion of this print in Takahatake, The Chiaroscuro Woodcut in Renaissance Italy, 2018, p. 105).

The Anglers – rare early state

Tuesday, January 31st, 2023

ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE (1610-1685)
The Anglers
etching, circa 1647-53, on laid paper, without watermark, a very fine impression of the rare third/ fourth state (of seven), printing with a light plate tone, with traces of burr on the bridge and elsewhere and fine wiping marks, with narrow margins, in very good condition. References: Bartsch, Hollstein, Godefroy 26, plate 113 x 166 mm., sheet 116 x 169 mm.

Provenance:
Richard Fisher (1809-1890), Hill Top, Midhurst, England (Lugt 931 & 2204); his sale, Sothebys, London, 23 May 1892, lot 583 ( 2,12; to Gutekunst).
With H.G. Gutekunst, Stuttgart.
Dr. Eduard Trautscholdt (1893-1976) Leipzig, Dsseldorf (director at C.G. Boerner since 1947); presumably acquired from the above; then by descent.
With C.G Boerner, New York; sold on behalf of the descendents of the above.
Private American Collection; acquired from the above.

This very fine rare early example is before the later Picart edition, before the shadows on the plate were accentuated with fine close lines. The composition was essentially complete in the earliest states; in the third state the sky was covered with very fine, spaced horizontal lines, and the contours of the fisherman’s sleeve as well as the horizontal beam over the first pair of pilings on the left were completed.

This is considered one of Van Ostade’s only landscape etchings. Along with Van Ostade’s very few landscape paintings, is suggests the influence of Rembrandt.

Old Putney Bridge

Tuesday, January 17th, 2023


James Whistler (1834-1903), Old Putney Bridge, 1879, etching and drypoint, signed in pencil with a large, elaborate shaded butterfly, lower right and inscribed imp (also signed with the butterfly in the plate), printed in dark-brown/black ink on laid paper, watermark ProPatria, an impression in Glasgow’s seventh (final) state, published by The Fine Art Society, probably printed in 1881, 8x 11 3/4 inches, sheet 12 1/8 x 16 1/8 inches. Reference: Kennedy 178; Glasgow 185.

Provenance: Kraushaar Gallery, New York

A fine impression, with wide margins.

The Fine Art Societys relationship with Whistler began with the new etchings of the Thames he made in 1879, following a visit from Ernest Brown who had joined the staff of the gallery. The plate is on a large scale and shows the change in the artists approach to the Thames since the etchings he had made in Wapping and the docks in the summer of 1859. The central motif is the old bridge, by this stage somewhat dilapidated. It was shortly to be demolished and replaced by the new bridge of Cornish granite which was opened in 1886. Whistlers instinct for preservation and his interest in Japanese art combine in this work, which successfully incorporates both the Western tradition and the influence of Japan. This impression was probably printed in 1881 or earlier and is printed on a full sheet signed with a large butterfly with veined wings. The printing of the edition was not completed until 1889. The Fine Art Society received 21 impressions in 1885, twelve in 1887 and a further six in 1887. The cancelled plate was delivered to The Fine Art Society in 1889, after Whistler had taken a print showing the cancellation, but the plate’s current whereabouts are unknown. The work was first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1879.