Romare Bearden (1911-1988), Jamming at the Savoy, 1980-81, colored etching and aquatint. Reference: Gelburd and Rosenberg (2, p. 9); GG #95 (p. 29). Signed, titled and numbered (124/180), from the edition of 180. The full sheet, in excellent condition, 16 5/8 x 23 3/4, the sheet 22 1/2 x 30 1/8 inches.

A fine, fresh impression, with colors vivid.

This print can be provided framed or in the mat.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Maisons au Bord de la Mer, etching, 1936, numbered bottom right (26/66) and inscribed in the bottom margin by Suzanne Laboureur (see below). Reference: S. Laboureur 511, third state (of 3), from the edition of about 48 pulled in 1977 at the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the artist. In excellent condition, the full sheet, printed on a heavy cream wove paper, 10 14 x 8 5/8, the sheet 15 x 11 inches.

A fine impression.

At the bottom of the sheet Suzanne Laboureur, Laboureur’s wife, writes that the completed edition, numbered 18 to 66, was done on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the artist, who died in this house in 1943. (see detail below)

The site is that of the beach at Poudrantay (commune of Penestin, Morbihan).

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Une Marmite, engraving, 1916, signed in pencil lower left; titled, dated and inscribed epreuve de 1er etat bottom margin edge [with the initial and date in the plate]. Reference: S. Laboureur 149, first state (of 4); only 8 or so impressions in the first state (this may be the first); in the published state, with lettering at the bottom, there were 135 proofs. In very good condition (the margin at right cut a bit ragged and close to the plate mark, but still away from it), 7 x 5 1/2, the sheet 8 1/4 x 6 3/8 inches.

A fine impression, printed on a thin cream laid paper.

This is obviously a wartime print, with the two soldiers at the corner viewing an explosion behind them. This is a plate from a series called Des Petite Images de la Guerre sur le front Britannique.

A relatively early example of Laboureurs adoption of the cubist idiom, done in engraving.

Honore Daumier (1808-1879), Les Grandes Celebrites de la France, lithograph, 1939, plate 2 from the series Les Saltimbanques, from La Caricature Provisoire (also published later in Le Charivari, 1843). Reference: Daumier Register 620, second state (of 5). With lettering, and the initials (in the plate lower left). Printed on a wove paper. In good condition (formerly folded across the middle, now flattened) , 11 1/2 x 8 7/8, the sheet 13 1/8 x 10 inches.

A very good impression.

An impression of Les Grande Celebrites de la France was shown in the Metropolitan Museum’s show Seurat’s Circus Sideshow (At The Met Fifth Avenue, FEBRUARY 17MAY 29, 2017) as an example of art which helped lead to Seurat’s masterpiece.

Here’s a translation of the print’s text, from the Daumier Register:

Original Text:
Vous voyez ici les grandes clbrits de la France littraire, musicale et artistique, ils ont tous 36 pieds au dessous du niveau de la mer…….

Translation:
Here you see the great celebrities of literary, musical and artistic France. They are 36 feet tall – measured below sea level.

Honore Daumier (1808-1879), Dup, lithograph, 1832, from the series Celebrites de la Caricature, plate 171. Reference: Delteil 45, Daumier Register 45, only state. In generally good condition (with what appears as stains on recto but characterizing impressions of this print), with hand coloring in the contrived coat of arms below (possibly the coloring caused the staining), on wove paper, 11 x 6 1/2 inches.

Provenance:

G Cognacq (Lugt 538d, stamp verso)

R. Gaston-Dreyfus (initials stamp verso)

Ramus, Charles F. Collection

Nehorayan, A. Collection. New York, NY (impression noted in the Daumier Register)

Sothebys New York, February 13, 1980

An impression catagorized as rare by the Daumier Register.

From the Daumier Register: This lithograph is a portrait of Dupin. The coat of arms created by Philipon shows a money bag (corruption), a weather-vane (wryneck) and a pair of worn out shoes (insinuation to Dupins useless march to the Duc dOrlans). The text shows that he is able to plead for and against the same cause.

DUPIN, Andr-Marie-Jean-Jacques, an, (1783-1865) was President of the Chamber of Representatives as well as Attorney General. Apart from that he held numerous other important Government positions. He was portrayed by Daumier both in a terracotta sculpture and in several lithographs. The abbreviation DUP is an insinuation to his limited intelligence. Nevertheless, Dupin was a well-known lawyer who adeptly defended Marshal Ney as well as the republican poet and singer Branger.

Dupin surely must be considered one of the more important politicians of his period, showing a certain trend towards liberal political ideas. It was he who suggested to the future King, the Duc dOrlans, to choose the name Louis-Philippe rather than Philippe VII. In 1832, he was nominated member of the Acadmie Franaise and became President of the Chamber.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Portrait, 1917, engraving, signed in pencil lower left and numbered lower right (28/40). Reference: S. Laboureur 170, third state (of 3), from the edition of 40 in this state (54 proofs pulled overall). In excellent condition, 4 3/8 x 3 1/4, the sheet 9 1/2 x 7 1/4 inches.

A fine impression, printed on a cream laid paper.

An excellent example of Laboureurs adoption of a cubist idiom, using engraving lines to accentuate the linear quality of cubism; a small portrait that works splendidly.

Frederick Garrison Hall (1879-1946), Beach and Willows, etching, c. 1920, signed in pencil by the artist (?) and annotated "by HPH". Reference: Elton Waylon Hall: Frederick Garrison Hall: Etchings, Bookplates, Designs; Beach and Willows, 1972: Etching no. 5; also The Print Connoisseur, 1921, Vol. 1, NO. 3, p 229 No. 7. Only state known, edition of 50. 6 1/2 x 10, the sheet 10 1/2 x 14 inches. In very good condition.

A fine impression, printed on a wove paper.

Other impressions of Beach and Willows can be found in the Boston Public Library, Library of Congress, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Yale University Art Gallery.

After studying art and architecture at Harvard, F.G. Hall spent about three years abroad, mostly in Paris (from about 1909-1912), eventually returning to Boston where he married Evelyn Ames (daughter Oliver Ames, governor of Massachusetts). Hall became a popular and well-known figure in the Boston art world, producing paintings, etchings, and bookplates (and also playing the harp, leading to a friendship with Harpo Marx, who commissioned several paintings from Hall. He was particularly influenced by the work of Charles Meryon, but it’s also clear – certainly from Beach and Willows – that he was also influenced by Rembrandt and his followers in the British Etchers tradition.

(After) JAN VAN DER BRUGGEN (Brussels c1649 1690 Paris), A Drunken Night Cap, Wine is a Mocker, mezzotint, c. 1720, with artist’s name Mieris lower left in the plate, engraver’s initials JHL lower right in the plate. In generally good condition (water stain verso not visible recto), with small margins, 9 x 7 3/8, the sheet 10 1/4 x 7 3/4 inches.

A fine impression, possibly before letters, on old laid paper with a high crown (?) watermark.

This composition was initially conceived in a drawing (now lost) by Frans Mieris, then engravedby Hendrik Bary (Hollstein 11); later executed in mezzotint by Jan Van der Bruggen in reverse of the initial drawing and engraving, and here again made in mezzotint after Van der Bruggen (also in reverse of Mieris/Bary).

The Bary engraving was extensively lettered with the title, taken from Proverbs (20,1): Wine is a mocker.

The young woman in a drunken stupor is being (in line with the 17th century Netherlands saying) "crowned with a piss-pot" (fortunately empty in this instance) by a drunken fool. This was a popular subject in Dutch art and theatre; the classical source for the story is of Socrates being drenched by his angry wife Xanthippe.

After the Bary engraving of the Mieris drawing, others continued to portray the legend, including this mezzotint after the Van der Bruggen print; there was even an English version by James Wilson in 1772 with the title Dick Funny and Mrs Drowsy or the Punch Bowl Night Cap."

Frank Arthur Nankivell (18691959), [Walking in the Woods at Night], drypoint, c. 1910, signed in pencil lower right. Printed on a cream laid paper. In good condition, with margins (slight light staining). 10 x 8, the sheet 11 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches.

A fine impression of this great rarity; no edition is known or indicated. Printed with extensive burr on the drypoint work, and carefully placed plate tone darkening the woods, but wiped to highlight the house in the woods and the foreground.

This impression was exhibited in the International Fine Print Center New York (IPCNY) 2013 exhibit The Armory Show, commemorating the Centennial of the 1913 Armory Show in New York.

Nankivell was born in Australia, and studied art at Wesley College, Melbourne. He later travelled to Japan and earned a living as a cartoonist in Tokyo. Nankivell left Japan in 1894 (although his art shows a debt to Japonisme) to study art in San Francisco, and left for New Yorkin 1896 where he worked on magazines as a popular and influential cartoonist devoting his work mainly to social and political subjects. He became friendly with a number of artists including Walt Kuhn, who nominated him for membership in the Association of American Artists and Sculptors, and Arthur B. Davies, who employed Nankivell as a printer. Nankivell remained in New York until 1913. Nankivell later became a member of the New York CircumnavigatorsClub, which was open only to those who had circumnavigated the globe longitudinally, by land and/or sea. Other members included Ernest Hemingway and Harry Houdini. Nankivell had about 7 paintings, and an etching, in the landmark1913 Armory Show; several of his works are in the collection of The Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Le March aux Fleurs ou la Rencontre, 1914, Engraving. Sylvain Laboureur 127, second state (of 2). Edition of 35. Signed, titled, and numbered 2/35 p in pencil. Signed and dated in the plate, lower left.

Image size: 11 1/8 x 13 9/16 inches (283 x 344 mm); sheet size 12 7/8 x 16 3/8 inches (327 x 416 mm).

A superb impression, with rich burr and delicate overall plate tone, on cream wove paper; full margins (6/8 to 1 3/8 inches); slight light toning within the original mat opening, otherwise in excellent condition.

One of Laboureurs most successful and earliest essays in his adaptation of cubism.

Jean-Emile Laboureur, Les Deux Chaumires, etching, 1927-8, signed in pencil lower left, numbered and annotated “imp” lower right. Reference: S. Laboureur 356, second state (of 4). In excellent condition (apart from paper folded back slightly at left and right), 4 1/2 x 6, the sheet 10 x 13 inches.

A delicately printed, fine impression of this early state, before the initial in the plate. There were 7 impressions taken of this state, and about 80 impressions in all.

Sylvan Laboureur notes that this site is at Kerfahler (a commune of Penestin), now a well known camping area in western France.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Printemps Breton, 1926, drypoint, roulette, aquatint, etching; signed in pencil lower left and numbered lower right (37/50) with the imp inscription (printed by the artist). Reference: S. Laboureur 324, second state (of two), from the lifetime edition of about 50 (another edition of about 248, posthumous, was made in 1959 in conjunction with the publication of the volume Laboureur en Briere. In excellent condition, the full sheet, 3 1/8 x 5 1/8, the sheet 9 5/8 x 12 5/8 inches.

A fine impression, printed on a wove BFK Rives paper (with the watermark BFK).

Laboureur utilized anumber of techniques on this small plate to achieve an extraordinary aesthetic effect. The dark sky was created using a roulette tool, ordinarily used in preparing a plate for a mezzotint, which makes tiny pin-pointed marks in the plate which can hold ink; this tool was also used for the large dark field at the bottom center of the composition. The light gray field at the right just under the line of bushes and trees was done in aquatint. The outlines of the trees appears to have been done in etching; the darkening of the trees in drypoint (with associated burr). There is even evidence of engraving in the straight lines darkening the trees at the right. In all, a complex, and marvelously successful little print, by a master of the medium.

In all this print has appeared in at least 17 exhibits, mostly in France.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Le Promenade au Phare, engraving, 1925, signed in pencil lower left and numbered lower right (24/70) [with the initial in the plate lower left]. Reference: S. Laboureur 302, third state (of 3), published by Henri Petiet, with his blindstamp, in very good condition, on a cream laid paper with margins, 6 1/2 x 7, the sheet 8 x 10 1/2 inches.

A fine impression, with a light veil of plate tone overall, perhaps a bit darker toward the bottom of the sheet.

Henri M. Petiet was an illustrious Paris publisher and print dealer; his stamp (Lugt 2021a) is at the lower left.

This cubist/mannerist composition displays Laboureur’s astonishing skill with the engraving tool (the burin); engraving seems to have been the perfect method for his aesthetic at this stage in his career.

The “phare” at the center of the composition is the lighthouse.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Sur la Marne, engraving, 1924, signed in pencil lower right [with the initial lower right in the plate]. Reference: S. Laboureur 277, third state (of 4), before the letters below the image, before the large edition in the fourth state as an illustration for an article by Claude Roger-Marx. With full margins, 7 x 5 1/4, the sheet 11 x 9 inches.

A fine impression, printed on a cream Arches paper (with the Arches watermark).

In addition to the cubist idiom this print, with its elongated figures, illustrates Laboureur’s interest in Mannerism – perhaps first ignited in his studies of the French, Italian and German old master prints during his early years in the print rooms in Dresden, Berlin, and Munich.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), La Petite Plage, 1926, etching and engraving, signed in pencil lower left [inscribed lower margin as a trial proof; also with initials and date in the plate]. Reference: S. Laboureur 327, third state (of 3), from the total printing of about 91. In generally good condition, with a mark (probably in the paper) upper left just above the plate mark (also a few light staining spots well away from image, printed on an old laid (ledger?) paper, the full sheet with wide margins, 5 x 6 3/8, the sheet 9 x 13 1/2 inches.

A very good impression of this rather interesting beach scene, with two women apparently exhausted after their tennis match resting at the left, children playing in the middle, and other beachgoers towards the right of the composition and on a porch on the house in the background.  Very fine, subtle engraved (or possibly drypoint) lines are used to create shading effects on the figures, the clouds, the rooftops.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Jeune Fille au Chapeau Blanc, 1921, etching and engraving. Reference: S. Laboureur 223, third state (of 3), edition of 30, about 47 impressions pulled in all. Signed lower left, numbered (15/30) lower right and inscribed imp (printed by the artist); also titled lower left near the edge in pencil [also with initials and date in the plate]. In excellent condition, remains of prior hinging verso, the full sheet with deckle edging, 6 1/2 x 4 5/8, the sheet 10 1/4 x 7 1/4 inches.

A fine fresh impression of this attractive inhabitant of Croisic. Printed on a cream wove paper, with a carefully wiped light plate tone.

Laboureur here uses engraving to accentuate the cubist quality of the composition; the woman’s hair appears to be in etching but most of the rest of the print is engraving.

Honore Daumier (1808-1879), Un Homme a La Mer lithograph, 1843, [with initials in the plate]. Reference: Daumier Register 1036, plate number 14 from the series Les Canotiers Parisiens, published in Le Charivari, third state (of 4), before publication in Le Charivari, a sur blanc impression, in very good condition, with margins, on wove paper, 9 1/2 x 10 1/4, the sheet 10 1/2 x 13 5/8 inches. With the letters, addresses of Pannier (lower left), Aubert (lower center).

A fine strong impression.

Translation of the text from the Daumier Register:

Original Text:
UN HOMME A LA MER.
– Harponne le donc plus vigoureusement . . . nous ne pourrons pas l’avoir sans a! … – Et toi, tiens lui bien les jambes en l’air, c’est l’important! . . il n’y a rien qui enrhume comme de se mouiller la plante des pieds! . . . . .

Translation:
MAN OVERBOARD!
– Harpoon him more firmly!…. we can’t get him otherwise! And you, hold his legs up in the air, that’s very important…. There is nothing in the world that makes you catch a cold faster than by getting your feet wet.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), L’Employe des Pompes Funebres (The Mortician), color etching, 1902, signed and annotated (essai l’eau forte in 2 planches) in pencil lower left [also signed and dated in the plate lower left]. Reference: Sylvan Laboureur 29, only state (a line plate, then color plate(s). Printed on a cream laid paper with the watermark ARCHES. In excellent condition, the full sheet with deckle edging, 7 3/4 x 9, the sheet 10 3/4 x 14.

Provenance: Alfred Beurdeley, Paris (Lugt 421, stamp lower right recto); Eric Carlson, New York

A fine fresh impression of this early Laboureur rarity. A trial proof in colors.

S. Laboureur notes that there were three impressions of the line plate made before colors; then some trial proofs, then a numbered grouping (1-10); approximately 20 impressions altogether. The line plate has been canceled.

Although this impression is annotated as being made in 2 plates, and the Laboureur catalog raisonne also notes “deux planches”, the publication “Jean-Emile Laboureur: A Centenary Tribute” (French Institute/Alliance Francaise, New York, 1977) lists this print as made with three plates. The coloring is so complex that the latter number may well be correct.

Note: This print is currently on hold.

Lea Grundig-Langer (1906-1977), Judengasse in Berlin (Jewish Quarter in Berlin), 1934, signed and dated in pencil lower right, titled lower center, cycle name (Unterm Hakenkreuz) lower left). In excellent condition, printed on a heavy cream wove paper, the full sheet, 9 3/4 x 12 7/8 inches, the sheet 16 1/2 x 21.

Provenance: Galerie St. Etienne, New York, NY.

A fine fresh impression, printed with carefully drawn plate tone.

Lea Langer was born in Dresden in 1906 where her family was part of the Jewish community. She studied at the city’s Decorative Arts and Crafts Academy before progressing, in 1924, to the prestigious Saxon Art Academy: here she was admitted into the Masterclass of Otto Gussmann where fellow participants included Otto Griebel, Wilhelm Lachnit und Hans Grundig. At the Academy she also got to know Otto Dix, whom she would come to regard as one of the most influential of her mentors.

She remained at The Academy till 1926, when she left the Jewish Community, joined the Communist party, and shortly thereafter married Hans Grundig. Her work was banned by the Nazis, who put her in prison for a short time; she later emigrated to Palestine, then back to Europe and eventually East Germany, where she was active politically while teaching and practicing her art.

Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), Merry-Go-Round, etching, 1930, signed in pencil lower right and numbered “24” lower left. In very good condition, with margins (cut irregularly, and with some ink smudges, as is customary for prints printed personally by Marsh).  Printed in black on an ivory laid paper. Reference: Sasowsky 99, sixth state (of 6); an estimate of about 50-60 impressions printed (surely an exaggerated estimate).  6 7/8 x 9 3/4, the sheet 8 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches, archival matting.

Provenance:

Downtown Gallery, with their stamp verso, and stamp dated Nov. 12, 1931.

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Crossett, with their stamp verso (not yet in Lugt).  A substantial part of Crossett’s distinguished and large print collection is now part of the Mead Museum collection at Amherst College.

A fine rich impression of this iconic Marsh image.

One would suppose that the girls on this merry-go-round should be amused; after all this is just a ride at an amusement park (presumably Coney Island, in New York City). But in fact they’re terrified – the horses are wild, ferocious beasts, and then there’s that frightening creep on the horse toward the right. Perhaps Marsh is making a social statement (as well as a wonderful aesthetic one), here at the dawn of the Great Depression.

By this stage in his career Marsh was routinely eliminating the ground from his compositions, and heightening their impact by directly confronting the viewer with the action at eye level. The merry-go-round motif became a favorite for Marsh, and he returned to it a number of times in the late ’30’s and early ’40’s, both in etching and painting.

Merry-Go-Round was one of the plates selected by the Whitney Museum for re-printing in a Whitney-stamped edition of 100 long after Marsh’s death, as part of a fund-raising effort; these lifeless re-strikes fail to capture the vitality and richness of the lifetime impressions.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Bachelor’s Fare, engraving, 1916-1920, signed lower left, numbered lower right and inscribed “imp” in pencil. Reference: S. Laboureur 169, third state (of 3), from the total printing of 38 in all states. In excellent condition, the full sheet printed on a laid paper with a Horn in Shield watermark; 6 1/4 x 5, the sheet 9 x 7 inches.

A fine crisp impression of this early cubist-influenced engraving.

An illustration for this print was done as early as 1914; the print may have been started around 1916 and, as with so many of the war-time Laboureur prints, engraved in it’s definitive state and printed later, probably 1920.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Au Balcon, engraving, 1917-1919, signed in pencil bottom left, numbered (8/35) and inscribed imp bottom right, titled bottom left margin. Laboureur 181, third state (of 3), from the total printing in all states of about 45.  In good condition (browning at bottom edge),  with margins, 7 3/4 x 4 7/8, the sheet 11 1/4 x 8 3/8 inches.

A fine impression.

One of Laboureur’s iconic images, the aesthetic structure to be reprised a few years later in Le Balcon sur la Mer (1923).

The dating of this print, like a number of the prints interrupted by the War, is unclear; the date shown in the print itself (1918) may be when the print was engraved; prints of the later states may have been printed a year or so later, with the final state printing in late 1920.

Martin Lewis (1881-1962), Little Penthouse, drypoint, 1931, signed in pencil lower right [signed in the plate in a rectangle lower left]. Reference: McCarron 91, only state. Printed for inclusion in the Deluxe Edition of American Etchers Volume XI (Martin Lewis) by the Crafton Collection, NY, and distributed by P&D Colnaghi in London in 1931. The total number of recorded impressions is 84. In fine condition, withfull margins, 9 7/8 x 6 13/16 inches, the sheet 11 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches.

A fine glowing impression, printed on a cream laid paper.

Martin Lewis was born in Victoria Australia, and in his late teens moved to Sydney, where he received his only formal art training. In 1900 he came to the US, first to San Francisco, but eventually to New York, where he worked as a commercial artist and etcher (and became friends with Edward Hopper, among other artists). In 1920 he traveled to Japan, where he studied art for two years; the influence of his Japanese experience can perhaps be felt in thequiet dignity, and stately composition,of Little Penthouse.

James Whistler (1834-1903), Venus, 1859. Etching and drypoint, printed in black ink on laid paper, an impression in the second (final) state: there was no published edition. 6 x 9 inches (15 x 22.6 cm) sheet 73/8 x 117/8 inches (18.8 x 30.3 cm) Reference: Kennedy 59; Glasgow 60

A study of Héloïse, ‘Fumette’, asleep in bed, her head pressed into the pillow and the bedclothes covering her lower legs. This is one of three portraits Whistler made of Fumette in 1859: one of the others shows her standing and in the third only her head and shoulders are depicted. Venus is a work in the Realist tradition, and may be compared with Courbet’s nudes of the same period. The artist may also have had in mind Rembrandt’s study of Antiope in his etching Jupiter and Antiope.

Venus was never published and there is no record of it being shown until 1898 when it was included in an Exhibition of Etchings, Drypoints and Lithographs by Whistler at H. Wunderlich & Co., New York. To have been overlooked for exhibition until so late in Whistler’s life might suggest that the subject was considered improper. Frederick Wedmore, whose catalogue of Whistler’s etchings was published in 1886, certainly disapproved of the image and described it as ‘the nude seen by Mr Whistler with rather common eyes, for once – an animal, whom sleep has overcome’.

James Whistler (1834-1903), Penny Passengers, Limehouse, 1860. Etching and drypoint, signed in pencil with a butterfly and inscribed imp, printed in black ink on laid paper, trimmed at the platemark, leaving a signature tab, an impression in the second (final) state, one of only six recorded, 31/4 x 81/8 inches (8.2 x 20.7 cm)

Provenance: Otto Gerstenberg, stamp verso [Lugt 2785]

Reference: Kennedy 67; Glasgow 71

The buildings on the far bank of the Thames and the ship and their masts moored there show the distinctive draughtsmanship of the period 1859–1860 when Whistler worked in Limehouse and made an etching there which was published in the Thames Set. Penny Passengers, Limehouse is very rare, with only five impressions known, all but our impression in public collections. It shows in outline a group of passengers waiting for the ferry to cross the river. Whistler inscribed the impression from the Samuel P. Avery collection Thames – Limehouse (now in the New York Public Library).

Albrecht Dürer

1471 – Nuremberg – 1528

Melencolia I 1514

engraving; 239 x 187 mm (9 3/8 x 7 5/16 inches), with wide margins

Bartsch 74, Meder 75 state IIb (of IIf); Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum 71

Watermark: small jug (Meder 158)

A very fine impression, in excellent condition.

provenance:

library of the Magdalenenkirche, later university library, Wrocław (formerly Breslau) (Lugt 2371b)

C.G. Boerner, Neue Lagerliste 6, Düsseldorf 1952, no. 38

private collection, Germany

Among the dozens of interpretations of the elements of Melancholia are these insights – in his essay on Melencolia – by the eminent art historian Erwin Panofsky:

“Dürer’s Melencholia is neither a miser nor a mental case but a thinking being in perplexity, her face overcast by a deep shadow, made more impressive by the startling white of the eyes. The wreath on her head is woven of water-ranunculus and watercress, both plants of a watery nature, to counteract the bad effects of “dryness” associated wth the melancholy humor. The mature and learned Melencholia typifies Theoretical Insight which thinks but cannot act. The ignorant infant, making meaningless scrawls on his slate and almost conveying blindness, typifies Practical Skill which acts but cannot think.”

Howard Cook (1901-1980), Chrysler Building (Chrysler Building in Construction) – –1930, Wood Engraving.

Duffy 122. Edition 75, only 50 printed. 1931, signed in pencil, annotated “imp” and dated; printed by the artist

Image size 10 1/16 x 6 11/16 inches (256 x 170 mm); sheet size 11 7/8 x 9 inches (302 x 229 mm).

A superb, black impression, on thin cream wove Japan paper, in excellent condition.

By the early 1930s, Cook’s prints of New York, especially its skyscrapers and bridges, were widely known and often reproduced in such magazines as Harpers and The Atlantic Monthly. The first solo exhibition of his prints was held in 1929 at the Weyhe Gallery in New York.

While Cook’s lithographs of New York were made in collaboration with the printer George Miller, he insisted on printing his woodcuts and etchings himself. Cook lived in New Mexico for much of his life, and only took up residence in New York for varying periods between 1930 and 1938; nonetheless, he remains most renowned for the prints he produced of what he described as “the endearing serrated skyline of the most exciting modern city in the world”.

Here Cook shows the Chrysler Building before the addition of its famous art deco “crown.” For a brief period after it was finished and before the completion of the Empire State Building in 1931, it was the tallest building in the world. Cook’s perspective of the illuminated building, seen from below, enhances a sense of its looming monumentality; this is further reinforced by the dark geometric forms of the smaller surrounding buildings.

Martin Lewis (1881-1962), Rainy Day, Queens, drypoint, 1931, signed in pencil lower right [also signed in the plate lower right]. Reference: McCarron 94, only state, from the edition of about 70. In very good condition, 10 5/8 x 11 7/8, the sheet 13 1/2 x 15 7/8 inches.

Provenance:

Estate of  Edward G Kennedy (?) (with stamped initials EGK verso, cf. Lugt 857)

A fine rich impression of this iconic image, printed in black ink on an ivory laid paper.

Lewis described this location as “Skillman Ave. Queens”; it is probably at the intersection of Skillman Avenue and 49th Street.

Martin Lewis was interested in Japanese art early in his career, and in 1920 visited Japan, where he stayed for nearly two years.  Rainy Day, Queens owes much to this influence: the careful placement of compositional elements, for example, and the atmospheric effects of rain, frequently found in Japanese prints and in Lewis’s Japan-based prints (e.g., Fishing Boats in the Rain, M. 41, and Showers on the Bay, M. 46).

Emile-Alfred Dezaunay (1854-1938)

Jeune Fille de Rosporden, c. 1890

etching and aquatint printed in color on cream-colored laid ARCHES paper; Reference: Morane 66.

plate: 278 x 199 mm (11 x 7 7/8 inches) 

numbered 2/50 and signed in pencil

Timbre sec : Ed. Sagot éditeur (L. 2254).

Sybil Andrews (1898-1992), Sails, linocut in colors, 1960, signed (twice), titled, and inscribed “TP” in pencil.   Reference: White 50. In good condition, two sheets, each image 7 1/8 x 9, each sheet 10 5/8 x 11 inches.

Consisting of two sheets, unattached, each with the entire image, and placed one atop the other.  The bottom sheet: signed in pencil twice and inscribed “TP”; the top sheet annotated “sample printing”.  Each sheet printed on tissue-thin laid Japan.

A brilliant vividly colored presentation, as achieved through the juxtapositioning of two proof impressions of this print, presumably by the artist.  As typical for Andrews’ impressions, the printing is on an exceedingly thin Japan paper. The top proof impression is comparable to the definitive edition, with the colors true and fresh. But the colors are strengthened even further when the proof is juxtaposed on the bottom (signed) proof, which is itself a slightly more lightly colored version of the print. Together, the print(s) achieve a striking, even three dimensional effect.

Andrews Sails – bottom sheet (signed twice, inscribed “TP”)

Andrews Sails – top sheet (inscribed “sample printing”)

Pierre Bonnard

1867 Fontenay-aux-Roses – Le Cannet 1947

Rue, le soir, sous la pluie – Rainy Street at Evening 1895–99

lithograph printed in five colors on thin wove paper; 255 x 350 mm (10 1/8 x 14 inches)

signed and numbered in pencil at lower right no 95

Roger-Marx 66; Bouvet 68; Johnson 10.10

provenance

Emile Laffon, Paris (Lugt 877a)

This print is from Bonnard’s album Quelques Aspects de la vie de Paris, published by Ambroise Vollard and printed by Auguste Clot in an edition of 100. Although the date given on the cover is 1895, Johnson concludes that since the whole set was not exhibited until 1899 and a sketch for one of the plates (Place, le soir, Bouvet 64) is dated 1899, the album was not completed and published until 1899.

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.

Martin Lewis – Shadow Dance

We can offer a large collection of over 100 Martin Lewis  prints  and drawings, to be sold “en bloc.” The collection includes all the iconic and best known prints as well as many great rarities, a number of drawings, and a sampling of canceled plates.   Inquiries are welcome; by e mail at hschrank@nyc.rr.com, or by phone at 212 662 1234.

To view the collection please tap this link:   VIEW PDF

Martin Lewis (1881-1962, Shadows, Garage at Night, drypoint, 1928, signed in pencil lower right[also signed in the plate lower right].Reference: McCarron 69, only state, from the total printing of 49. In excellent condition, the full sheet, 9 7/8 x 11 7/8, the sheet 12 3/4 x 15 inches.

A very fine impression, printed in black ink on a cream wove paper.

A”noir”rural scene, presumably from the Danbury, Connecticut area, with the focus on cars, and shadows.

Gerald Geerlings (1897-1998), Black Magic, etching and aquatint, 1929, signed in pencil lower right, titled and annotated (New York, 1928) lower left margin. Reference: Czestochowski 6, fourth state (of 4), from the edition of 100. In excellent condition, with full margins (slight rippling at outer margin edges), 11 3/4 x 6 1/2, the sheet 17 x 12 1/4 inches.

A fine glowing impression, printed on a greenish laid paper with the watermark TG Head & Co.

According to the web site of the Philadelphia Museum of Art this etching and aquatint portrays the Warwick Hotel (on West 54th Street and 6th Avenue, in New York), completed in 1927.  Perhaps not.

Benton Spruance (1904-1967

Riders of the Apocalypse––– 1943, Lithograph.

Fine and Looney 222. Edition 35. Signed, dated, titled and annotated Ed 35 in pencil. Initialed in the stone, lower left.

Image size 12 11/16 x 16 3/8 inches (322 x 416 mm); sheet size 15 5/8 x 19 1/4 inches (397 x 489 mm).

A superb impression, on off-white wove paper, with full margins (1 1/4 to 1 5/8 inches); in excellent condition. Printed by Cuno.

Exhibited and Reproduced: The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock, Stephen Coppel, The British Museum, 2008, catalog p. 205.

Collections: British Museum; Free Library of Philadelphia; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Theodore Roussel (1847-1926), The Gate, Chelsea; etching and drypoint, 1889-1890, signed on the tab and inscribed imp [also signed in the plate lowere right]. Reference: Hausberg 33, fourth state (of 4), from the total printing of about 43 impressions. In excellent condition, trimmed by the artist all around on the plate mark except for the tab, 8 1/8 x 6 1/2 inches.

A fine impression, printed on a light cream wove paper with plate tone (wiped to brighten the gate and doorway area) and substantial burr in the drypoint work.

According to Hausberg, “The gate and house behind it still stand today at No. 4 Cheyne Walk. It is located in a row of the oldest and most elegant buildings on Cheyne Walk – the segment that has changed the least since Roussel’s time.

Hans Sebald Beham (1500-1550), Four Evangelists, engravings (4), 1541 [initialed, titled and numbered in the plates]. References: Bartsch 55-58, Pauli, Hollstein 57-60; 57 and 58 3rd state, 59 and 60 fifth state (of 5),  In excellent  condition, each plate trimmed along or just outside of the borderline,  1 3/4 x 1 1/4 inches.

Fine rich impressions.

Sebald Beham was born in Nuremberg in 1500. In 1525 he and his brother Barthold, together with Georg Pencz, were thrown out of Nuremberg following an investigation into their agnosticism, but they returned the next year. Sebald continued to get into trouble: he was expelled again for publishing an essay on the proportions of the horse which was taken from Durer’s unpublished Art of Measurement.

Note: photos of St. Mark and St. Matthew available on request.

Theodore Roussel (1847-1926), The Avon on the Road to Bexhill, drypoint, 1919, signed in pencil  and dated (15.7.19) lower left [also signed in the plate]. Reference: Hausberg 115, fourth state (of 4), from the total printing of about 22 impressions, about 12 in this state. In excellent condition, printed on a very thin laid Japon with margins, 4 1/2 x 5 7/8, the sheet 6 x 7 3/4 inches.

A very fine impression with substantial burr from the drypoint work.

According to Hausberg “Bexhill lies just west of St. Leonards-on-Sea, where Roussel lived from 1914. The River Avon does not flow near the area, so the Avon of the title may be a satirical reference to the tiny rivulet pictured in the print or a misidentification by the artist.”

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), L’île Lacroix, à Rouen, etching, aquatint, maniere grise, drypoint, burnishing, c. 1887. Signed and numbered (No. 1) in pencil lower left, annotated 1er étāt lower right. Delteil 69, second state (of 2). In very good condition, with full  margins (traces of foxing), 4 1/2 x 6 1/4, the sheet 10 3/4 x 13 inches.

A fine impression of this great rarity.

Delteil notes that only a few impressions were made of the first state, and eight impressions of the second.

Although Pissarro himself notes that this is an example of the first state, Delteil shows that in the second state Pissarro burnished the trees and hills at the left, and the water in the lower left corner, as in our example. This would not, of course, be the first known instance in which Pissarro mis-stated the state of the print in his pencil notations.

A related drawing for this composition is at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The plate was cancelled after an edition of posthumous impressions was printed in 1907; they are not, of course, comparable in quality to the rare lifetime impressions, such as the present example.

James Whistler – The Doorway

James Whistler (1834-1903), The Doorway, drypoint, etching and roulette, 1879-80, signed with the butterfly on the tab and inscribed “imp”. Reference: Kennedy 188, seventh state (of 7); Glasgow 193, twenty (of 20).  From the First Venice Set. In very good condition, trimmed by the artist around the plate mark except for the tab, printed on a simile Japon paper, 11 1/2 x 8 inches.

Provenance:

P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London (their stock number in pencil on verso C. 335)

A very fine impression, printed in brown ink.

The passageway at the center of the architectural framing device is still partly open and a window allows some light to come in from behind into the darkened interior of the Pallazzo Gussoni on the Rio de la Fava. The rhythm of the windows, further accentuated by the changing of the orientation of the ironwork, makes the ornate architecture the manifest subject of this print.

This is Whistler print is most dramatically and fully conceived after a number of earlier states. The girl at the center of the composition, in the doorway, was re-worked progressively in the early states, but probably never completely resolved to the satisfaction of the artist, as suggested by his completely burnishing out the figure in Glasgow’s 17th state. He then re-drew the figure entirely, in drypoint, making her a bit smaller, with her features now rather clear and holding a thin cloth (as in the earliest states) in the water. In previous states Whistler left the area below the doorway relatively clear of etching or drypoint, allowing a space for plate tone and various wiping effects.  In this late state he drew in dense networks of overlapping drypoint lines to dramatize the shadows of the doorway and the motions of the water on the canal; this technique presages the use of drypoint in the Amsterdam plates (see, for example, Pierrot, K. 407).  The dramatic movement of the water thus contrasts with the stillness of the architecture, making this one of Whistler’s most engaging and fully realized compositions.

The Doorway – Detail

Francisco Goya (1746-1828), Picador Caught by a Bull, lithographic crayon and scraper, 1825. Harris 284, Delteil 287, from the edition of 100 [signed Goya in the plate lower left], printed by Gaulon, Bordeaux, from the set The Bulls of Bordeaux. In exceptionally fine condition, the matrix flawless, slight light stain, the full sheet (remains of prior hinging edges verso); 12 1/4 x 16 1/4, the sheet 15 1/2 x 20 1/8 inches.

A fine rich, black impression, printed on a cream wove paper.

Provenance: H.J. Thomas (Lugt 1378); estate of Albert Gordon. Lugt writes of Thomas: “Monsieur Henri Thomas ne fait pas l’uvre de tel ou tel matre, son but est que ses cartons offrent, en preuves exceptionnelles, un ensemble de ce que l’art de la gravure a produit de plus remarquable toutes les poques et dans toutes coles.

Goya was perhaps the first major artist to make use of the lithographic technique, in 1819 at the age of 73. His earliest experiments were with transfer lithography, using pen on transfer paper, but his “mature” work, after 1824, was done directly on the lithographic stone. He initially made five Bordeaux lithographic bulls, but discarded one of the lithographs after having taken a proof and, apparently, been dissatisfied with it.

In late 1825 Goya wrote to his friend Joaquin Ferrer, who was living in Paris at the time, sending an impression of the first of the Bulls (Corrida de novillos) and asking him if this and the other three bullfighting lithographs could be sold in Paris. Ferrer wrote that another edition of the Caprichos would have greater appeal. Goya responded “I understand and accept what you tell me about the prints of bulls but I rather had in mind that they should be seen by art connoisseurs who abound in that great court [Paris} and the great number of people who have seen them, not counting Spaniards, thought it would be easy [to sell them].” So Goya’s Bulls of Bordeaux did not appeal to the French taste of the period.

Goya wrote Ferrer that “I’ve no more sight, no hand, nor pen nor inkwell, I lack everything – all I’ve got left is will.” But with the creation of the Bulls of Bordeaux, Goya had produced one of the great monuments of printmaking.

Detail

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

1606 Leiden – Amsterdam 1669

The Artist’s Mother: Head Only, Full Face 1628

etching; 63 x 66 mm (2 1/2 x 2 5/8 inches)

Bartsch 352, White/Boon second (final) state; Hind 2; The New Hollstein 6 second (final) state

This rare little plate is one of the earliest to be generally accepted as the work of Rembrandt. It is still experimental; the artist has not managed to get the tonal balance in the biting of the two states correct. The face, which was etched first and was never bitten deeply, is considerably paler than the hood, which was added later.

Further, the unusual composition makes the print look almost like a fragment; the head of the woman is oddly anchored slightly to the lower right of the image and points to Rembrandt’s early tendency to begin drawing with his etching needle without having a clear idea of the size or position of the intended image. In this case, although the first state (of which a unique impression survives in Amsterdam) shows that the artist used black chalk to develop a version that would have included part of the figure’s upper body, in the end, the artist cut away more than an inch of the plate just below her chin, reinforcing the idiosyncrasy of the portrait. Another print that Rembrandt made of his mother in etching and drypoint the same year (Bartsch 354) and in etching and engraving in ca. 1631 (Bartsch 343) demonstrate his rapid progress in a range of printmaking techniques.

Rembrandt’s mother provided a readily available female counterpoint to his own self-portraits. But his choice of her as subject matter also reflects a growing market at this time for images of old people, their time-worn faces providing a contrast to the long-established taste for comely young women. This aesthetic interest might also relate to the contemporary “picturesque” taste for such dilapidated old structures as ruins and humble farmhouses as well as peasants and beggars. The popularity of these motifs, frequently addressed by Rembrandt himself, might be explained in some cases by their familiarity, as well as by their freedom from complex or morally burdensome religious, historical, or literary themes.

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

1606 Leiden – Amsterdam 1669

Jacob’s Ladder, an illustration to Piedra gloriosa 1655etching and engraving with drypoint; 115 x 70 mm (4 1/2 x 2 13/16 inches)

Bartsch 36B, White/Boon third (final) state; Hind 284; The New Hollstein 288b third state (of four)

provenance

Heneage Finch, 5th Earl of Aylesford, London and Packington Hall, Warwickshire (Lugt 58)

John Heywood Hawkings, London and Bignor Park, Sussex (Lugt 3022)

Walter Francis, 5th Duke of Buccleuch, London and Dalkeith, Scotland (Lugt 402)

Kennedy Galleries, New York (their stock no. in pencil on verso a12846)

John William Bender, Kansas City (Lugt 1555b)

A very fine, rich impression with deep burr, with the lower sides of the stepladder burnished in, and the whole dense lower area printed effectively with the utmost care; before the plate was reworked in drypoint.

Jacob’s Dream is one of four etchings that Rembrandt composed on one plate, intended to be cut into four for use by the publisher as illustrations to a book by his friend, the rabbi, scholar, publisher, and diplomat Menasseh ben Israel (1604–1657). (The other images show The Statue of Nebuchadnezzar Overthrown; David and Goliath [B.36C]; and Daniel’s Vision [Bartsch 36A, C, and D respectively].) This work, written in Spanish and titled Piedra gloriosa de la estatua de Nebuchadnesar, was published in Amsterdam in 1655. It is a mystical tract in which a series of episodes from the Book of Daniel are seen to presage the coming of the Messiah. It also incorporates appeals for greater tolerance of the Jewish population. As Jan Piet Filedt Kok put it: “The Jews of the 17th century were obsessed with the coming of the Messiah, which they looked forward to in the expectation that it would put an end to the misery and suffering of the Jewish people. In a time of persecutions in Portugal, Spain and Poland this was not to be wondered at”.

Jacob’s Dream shows the sleeping patriarch, his head resting on a stone, as he dreams of a ladder upon which angels ascend and descend to and from heaven. It was the only one of the four subjects in the illustrations that Rembrandt had treated previously.  Menasseh understood the work to be an allegory of the fall of the enemies of Israel, writing in the text that “you will see how three angels descend a staircase … and another who is at the top and ascending, representing the fall of the three preceding monarchies and the escalation in which we experience the last” (quoted in Michael Zell, Reframing Rembrandt: Jews and the Christian image in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 2002, p. 74).

The book with Rembrandt’s etchings survives in only five known copies. Other editions exist but these contain often crude engravings after Rembrandt’s original designs, sometimes with significant adjustments to the images. Current scholarship suggests that these are the work of the Jewish artist Salom Italia, who had made an engraved portrait of Menasseh in 1642. Rembrandt’s choice of etching and drypoint for book illustration, although reinforced by engraving, was somewhat unusual since they tend to deteriorate much more rapidly than engraving or woodcut, both of which are thus better suited to producing enough impressions for a book edition. It seems most likely, therefore, that Rembrandt’s etchings were replaced for practical reasons. In the first instance, however, Menasseh did entrust this politically and religiously complex project to Rembrandt, who was neither Jewish nor a professional illustrator. Furthermore, Rembrandt’s illustration of the text “reflects an exceptional degree of cooperation. The alterations Rembrandt agreed to make, even if they involved compromising his aesthetic convictions, attest to an uncharacteristic willingness to revise his work to accommodate Menasseh’s directions … Menasseh, moreover, always under financial pressures, which were particularly acute during this period, could hardly have afforded to pay the fee Rembrandt could command” (ibid., pp. 84f.).

Given that a number of surviving individual impressions, like this one, exist outside the book, and that Rembrandt experimented with some of them on a range of different supports, including vellum and Japanese gampi paper, it seems clear that he used this commission to create highly idiosyncratic prints that could stand on their own. All of these prints, with their rich plate tone and selective wiping, are not accidental trial proofs but were clearly pulled by Rembrandt to satisfy the requirements of a highly sophisticated group of collectors. This is ultimately the reason for their survival, even though they count among the rarest and most sought-after of the master’s prints.

Charles Meryon (1821-1868), Le Pont au Change, 1854, etching. Reference: Delteil/Wright 34 fifth state (of twelve), Schneiderman  40, fifth state (of 12) [with the signature, date and address in the plate in the margin below]. On old very fine and thin laid paper with a “Contribution Directes” watermark. In very good condition, with margins 6 1/8 x 13 1/8, the sheet 7 1/8 x 13 3/4 inches.

Provenance: J.H. Wrenn (with his stamp verso, Lugt 1475), and then by descent.

A extremely fine, richly printed atmospheric impression, in a brownish/black ink, printed personally by the artist, with a veil of plate tone, wiped selectively in places such as the wall and faces of the buildings at the right.

From a point of view at water level we can see the Pompe de Notre Dame (the old water pump) beyond the bridge, and the Palais de Justice and Tour de Horloge on the Isle de la Cite at the right. In the water a man, presumably drowning, reaches toward a boat, but those in the boat are turned in the other direction, looking toward the balloon marked Speranza (hope) in the sky. On the bridge a hearse and a parade of mourners walk toward the left, as a group of soldiers at the far left marches toward them.

Meryon made a few changes in the figures and clouds in the next state (the 6th), and removed the balloon in the seventh state; then, in 1859-60 he famously added a flock of huge birds to the sky – this was variously interpreted as the result of the influence of Poe (The Raven), or as evidence of Meryon’s continuing mental instability after his stay at the institution Clarenton; and of course there were other possibilities. Indeed, the meanings of the print in this earlier state – the ironies of the conjunction of the balloon Speranza, the drowning man and those turning away from him, and the funereal procession, for example – have been the subject of much speculation as well.

It is however indisputable that Le Pont au Change, particularly in this early state,  is one of the most dramatic and beautiful of Meryon’s compositions, and a great icon of mid-19th Century printmaking.

John Sloan (1871-1951)

Costume Ball & Carnival of the Artists & Writers Dinner Club – 1933, Linocut.

Morse 277. No edition, printing unknown but assumed very small. Signed in pencil lower right, beneath the wolf’s hand-like paw.

Image size 19 x 12 inches (483 x 305 mm); sheet size 19 x 12 1/2 inches (483 x 318 mm).

A fine impression, in dark brown ink, on the full sheet of heavy, cream wove paper. A reinforced crease in the top left corner; a minor nick in the bottom center sheet edge and a small loss in the bottom right sheet corner; slight yellowing to the sheet edges left and right, not affecting the image. otherwise in very good condition. The image printed to the sheet edges top and bottom, with small margins left and right; the sheet size (19 x 12 1/2 inches) is consistent with impressions in the collections of Library of Congress and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Very scarce; we find no record of this print appearing on the art market. 

The poster copy reads: “Costume Ball & Carnival of the Artists and Writers Dinner Club . Webster Hall . 119 E 11th St. Friday Eve. Dec. 15. Heywood Broun . Master of Ceremonies . Stage Stars . Nat Mattlin & Orchestra . Tickets $1.00 now $1.50 at the door . For Sale . Breevort and Algonquin Hotels.”

Webster Hall has in fact continued its storied history to the present day as a venue for numerous recordings, concerts, and events. In 2008 the building was officially designated a New York City landmark, recognized for its significant role in the cultural development of New York City’s Greenwich Village.

Theodore Roussel (1847-1926), A Street in Ventnor, Isle of Wight, etching, soft ground etching, drypoint, 1912, signed in pencil on the tab and inscribed “imp” (printed by the artist) [also signed in the plate lower left]. Reference: Hausberg 102, third state (of 3), from group of about 30 impressions in this state, 37 overall;  in excellent condition, trimmed by the artist outside of the platemark except for the signature tab, 4 x 2 3/4 inches.

A fine impression, printed with tone.

Roussel visited the Isle of Wight in the summer of 1912, filling two sketchbooks with drawings; based on the dating of the drawings and an early proof of “A Street in Ventnor” he probably made the etching from the sketches and memory after the summer trip.

Roussel was of course a Whistler student and acolyte, as evidenced by his approach toward printmaking as well as the reverential trimming of the impression and use of the signature tab. Roussel was born in Brittany, studied in Paris, but settled in Britain. A painter, he began printmaking at about the age of 40. Beyond his fame as one of the most talented of the Whistlerians, he also gained notoriety for inventing a series of printmaking techniques and approaches, including the invention of an inking method known as the “Roussel medium”, several color etchings, and occasional etching of frames and mounts.  A Street of Ventnor is interesting insofar as Roussel appears to have used a soft ground technique to create an impressionistic portrait of the thoroughfare.

Gerald Leslie Brockhurst (1890-1978), James McBey, etching, 1931, signed in pencil lower right [also signed in the plate, in reverse, lower right just under the borderline, and titled just under the borderline lower left]. Fletcher 69, ninth state (of nine), from the edition of 111. In excellent condition, the full sheet, 7 1/2 x 10 1/2, the sheet 14 7/8 x 11 inches.

Provenance:

Kennedy Galleries, New York (with their stock number A55738

Unidentified collector (initials TW lower left margin recto, not in Lugt)

A fine impression, printed in black on a cream wove paper.

Gerald Leslie Brockhurst was one of the outstanding British artists of the early 20th Century, hugely popular in the ’20’s and early ’30’s. Today he is still renowned for his poignant images of young women and girls and several portraits of contemporaries, including this portrait of James McBey (1883-1959), one of the most distinguished of the Scottish and British Etchers.

Elyse Ashe Lord (1900-1971), Couple Celestial Nymph I, c. 1930, color etching, soft ground, drypoint; signed lower right in pencil and numbered by the artist lower left. In very good condition, the full sheet, 11 3/4 x 12 1/4, the sheet 17 x 16 inches.

A fine impression, with strong colors and plate tone. Printed on a light laid ivory Japan paper.

Elyse Ashe Lord developed her unique artistic style exclusively around oriental subject matter. Her art was inspired by both Chinese art and various aspects of oriental culture. Although E.A.Lord never actually travelled to China, she used Chinese paintings, embroideries and wall hangings, together with objects from surrounding Eastern countries, as the sources for her images. The highly individual style which Elyse Lord created reflects both this source material and the influences of Art Deco and early 1920’s fashion.

In particular, Elyse Lord is unusual in combining the technique of drypoint with woodcut colour printing. She uses the drypoint design almost as the Japanese would have used a key block in multiple block colour printing. The colours would then be added by over-printing the drypoint design using colour-inked wood blocks, precisely as displayed by this unique series of progressive proofs. Elyse Lord would always supervise the difficult process of printing her plates and blocks, in person. [I am indebted to Michael Campbell, of Campbell Fine Art, for these biographical notes on Lord.]

Grant Wood (1891-1942),  Approaching Storm––– 1940, Lithograph.

Cole 16. Edition 250. Signed in pencil.

Image size 8 7/8 x 11 7/8 inches (225 x 302 mm); sheet size 10 3/4 x 14 1/4 inches (273 x 362 mm).

A superb, well-inked impression, on off-white wove paper, with margins (7/8 to 1 1/4 inches), in excellent condition.

The artist’s last print, published by Associated American Artists, 1940.

Reproduced: American Master Prints from the Betty and Douglas Duffy Collection, The Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington, D.C., 1987.

Collections: Albrecht-Kempler Museum of Art, Akron Art Museum, Art Complex Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center, Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Metropolitan Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, New Britian Museum of American Art, Phoenix Art Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, Saint Louis Art Museum, Spencer Museum of Art, Springfield Museum of Art, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, University of Iowa Museum of Art Digital Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art.

William Strang (1859-1921), Le Bourg de Batz, etching and drypoint on copper, 1913, signed in pencil lower right [also signed and dated in the plate].  Reference: Binyon 654, only state, edition of 58. In very good condition, printed in black/brown ink on an ivory laid paper, with full margins, 16 3/4 x 13 3/4, the sheet 20 x 17 1/2 inches.

A fine strong impression of this large composition.  Printed with a light veil of plate tone.

Le Bourg de Batz is a commune in western France; the town lies between the Bay of Biscay and its salt marshes, which Strang illustrates. The historic church of Saint-Guénolé or Winwaloe (towards the left of the composition), largely dating from the 15th century, stands in the town centre. The church contains a 16th-century sculpture of the Madonna and Child, and its 17th-century belfry provides a significant local landmark. Climbing to the top of the tower gives a good view over the salt marshes and the Le Croisic peninsula.

William Strang (1859-1921), Mother Earth, 1897, etching, drypoint, aquatint (listed in Binyon as etching mezzotint); signed in pencil lower right, and signed by the printer David Strang and inscribed “imp” lower left. Reference: Binyon 312, 35 proofs. With the notation in pencil lower margin “406 (312) final state.” In excellent condition, with margins, 7 3/4 x 6, the sheet 10 1/8 x 7.

A fine impression, printed with carefully wiped plate tone, so that the figure of Mother Earth and children is stands out; much tone is left on the top and central hilly area, and a subtle veil of tone left on the houses and field toward the foreground.

Printed in a brownish/black ink on an ivory laid paper with the watermark Dickenson & Co. 1814.

James Whistler (1834-1903), J.H. Woods’ Fruit Shop, Chelsea, etching and drypoint, 1887-88. Signed with the butterfly on the tab and annotated “imp,” also signed with the butterfly in pencil verso and numbered “1”. References: Kennedy 265 second state (of 2), Glasgow 327 second state (of 4).  Trimmed by the artist around the plate mark except for the tab, in excellent condition. Printed in black ink on ivory laid paper, 3 3/4 x 5 1/8 inches.

A fine impression of this great rarity; the print was never published.  Glasgow accounts for four impressions.

watermark: partial arms of Amsterdam(cf. Spink/Stratis/Tedeschi, watermark nos. 12ff.)

This is before the third state in which heavy shading was added around the woman at the center, and the heads of figures at right and left of the figure are defined. In Glasgow’s fourth state the shading and the figure were removed; no impression is known of this state, but the state is inferred from the cancelled plate.

According to Glasgow “Joseph Henry Wood had a greengrocer’s shop at 1 Park Walk (off the Fulham Road), Chelsea, London in 1887. By 1888 he was at 391 Fulham Road.”  This is one of a number of Chelsea shop fronts etched by Whistler. 

Elyse Ashe Lord (1900-1971), Celestial Nymph I, c. 1930, color etching, soft ground, drypoint; signed lower right in pencil and numbered by the artist lower left. In very good condition, the full sheet, 8 1/4 x 10, the sheet 17 x 13 1/2 inches.

A fine impression, with strong color and plate tone on the nymph and surrounding decorations, and with pencil additions in various places on the nymph by the artist (using the same pencil as with signing). Printed on a light laid ivory Japan paper.

Provenance:

Kennedy Galleries, New York (with their stock number A 32064)

Elyse Ashe Lord developed her unique artistic style exclusively around oriental subject matter. Her art was inspired by both Chinese art and various aspects of oriental culture. Although E.A.Lord never actually travelled to China, she used Chinese paintings, embroideries and wall hangings, together with objects from surrounding Eastern countries, as the sources for her images. The highly individual style which Elyse Lord created reflects both this source material and the influences of Art Deco and early 1920’s fashion.

In particular, Elyse Lord is unusual in combining the technique of drypoint with woodcut colour printing. She uses the drypoint design almost as the Japanese would have used a key block in multiple block colour printing. The colours would then be added by over-printing the drypoint design using colour-inked wood blocks, precisely as displayed by this unique series of progressive proofs. Elyse Lord would always supervise the difficult process of printing her plates and blocks, in person. [I am indebted to Michael Campbell, of Campbell Fine Art, for these biographical notes on Lord.]

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), Sudarium Held by Two Angels, engraving, 1513 [with the monogram and date on a tablet]. References: Bartsch 25, Meder 26, Strauss 69. In very good condition, trimmed on the platemark all around (a fold(s) visible verso, some slight thin spots verso). On a laid paper without visible watermark (Meder indicates no watermark on Meder a-c impressions). 4 x 5 l1/2 inches.

Provenance:

NATIONALMUSEUM , Cabinet des Estampes, Stockholm (with their “doublett” stamp verso, Lugt 1935). The Nationalmuseum (Stockholm) had a substantial collection of Durer prints; duplicate examples were sold in auctions in Stockholm in 1903 and 1904.

A very good Meder b/c impression, with the scratch in the drapery at the left still visible; but before the scratch from the elbow to the drapery at the right.

ON RESERVE

James Whistler (1834-1903), J.H. Woods’ Fruit Shop, Chelsea, etching and drypoint, 1887-88. Signed with the butterfly on the tab and annotated “imp,” also titled by the artist in pencil verso.  References: Kennedy 265 first state (of 2), Glasgow 327 first state (of 4).  Trimmed by the artist around the plate mark except for the tab, in excellent condition. Printed in dark brown ink on laid paper, 3 3/4 x 5 1/8 inches.

A fine impression of this great rarity; the print was never published: Glasgow accounts for only a few impressions, and none of the first state (known only through an illustration in Kennedy).

Provenance:

J. H. WRENN (1841-1911), agent de change, Chicago. Estampes. (his stamp, on each of the two hinges verso, Lugt 1475. 

This is before the second state in which short fine drypoint lines are added on the lower part of the window-panes at left along with more shading around the woman in the centre. In the third state much new etched shading is added around the woman in the centre. In Glasgow’s fourth state the shading and the figure were removed; no impression is known of this state, but the state is inferred from the cancelled plate.

According to Glasgow “Joseph Henry Wood had a greengrocer’s shop at 1 Park Walk (off the Fulham Road), Chelsea, London in 1887. By 1888 he was at 391 Fulham Road.”  This is one of a number of Chelsea shop fronts etched by Whistler. 

James Whistler (1834-1903), Lobster Pots – Selsea Bill, etching and drypoint, 1880-1, signed with the butterfly on the tab and inscribed “imp.” [also signed with the butterfly in the plate, and titled Selsea Bill, lower right].  Reference: Kennedy 235, Glasgow 241, fourth state (of 4). From the Twenty-Six Etchings (the Second Venice Set). In excellent condition, printed on a laid paper with a partial Strasbourg Lily watermark. 4 3/4 x 8 inches.

Provenance:

Bernard Buchanan MacGeorge (his stamp verso, Lugt 394

Henry Harper Benedict (his stamp verso, Lugt 1298)

Charles C. Cunningham (his stamp verso, Lugt 4684)

A very fine impression, printed in a brown ink with plate tone over all; wiped selectively so that the foreground is a shade darker.

Edvard Munch (1863-1944) Kristiania Boheme I (or Kristiania Bohemians I; Drinking Session/Drinking Bohemians), etching, drypoint and burnishing, 1895, signed in pencil lower right, also signed by the printer Felsing lower left. References: Willoch 9, Schiefler 10, Woll 15, third state (of 3). Kristiania Bohme I was included in the Meier-Graefe Portfolio, a portfolio of intaglio prints by Munch, printed by the firm of Angerer in Berlin in an edition of 65; impressions printed by Otto Felsing (including some such as this impression signed by him, were printed outside of the portfolio). In excellent condition, with full margins, 8 1/2 x 11 3/4, the sheet 15 5/8 x 21 1/4 inches.

A fine strong impression, printed in brown ink on an ivory wove paper.

The figures in the composition are probably a student named Holmsen at the right (with the hat); the writer Axel Maurer (1866-1925) in the center, and Munch himself in profile at the far left. Munch spent much of the 1880s with a group of young intellectual radicals, and often in these years he depicted himself and his friends as they discussed ideas, pursued women and wine in bars and cafs.

Oslo was called Kristiania (or Christiania) until 1925.

Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1685), The Dance in the Inn, etching, c. 1652-54). Reference: Hollstein 49, Godefroy 49, sixth state (of 9). In very good condition (possible strengthening or repair upper edge, slight rippling or handing folds), with small margins, larger at bottom, 25.7 x 32.2 cm.

Provenance:

A. J. Lamme (1812-1900), Rotterdam (Lugt 138, stamp verso). Lamme was a painter, who founded the Musee Boymans in 1849 and stayed as founding director to 1870. The sale of his collection was held in Amsterdam in 1901; the collection was described by Lugt as “beaucoup d’estampes de l’ecole hollandaise..”

Watermark: Foolscap with seven pointed collar; Godefry’s watermark number 22. Godefry notes “toutes les epreuves sur lesquelles il figure sont de qualite honorable and imprimee avec soin” (all the proofs with this mark are fine and printed with care); he dates the mark as used in the period 1680-85, the latter part of Van Ostade’s life.

A fine, lifetime impression, noted by Godefry as rare in this state.

The eminent Ostade collector and scholar S. William Pelletier (who owned one fine impression of the Dance, also a sixth state), noted that this “print, the largest executed by Ostade and in many ways the most carefully executed of his entire graphic production, led Rouir to call it the artist’s “Hundred Guilder Piece”, a reference to Rembrandt’s most famous etching” (which was completed a few years earlier).  The Dance is Ostade’s most complex print, and therefore has led scholars to various interpretations of the activities. For example Slatkes believed this print to be a wedding celebration. Stone-Ferrier suggested the leafy tree and branch on the floor are signs of an indoor May Day festival celebrating the transition from winter to spring. Whatever the interpretation, the composition is extraordinary.

This print is sold.

Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Nu Couché  1929, etching in black on grey/tan Chine-collé on heavy cream wove with deckle edges all around, signed and numbered (17/25) in pencil lower right. Reference:  Duthuit 194, only state, from the edition of 25. In very good condition, the full sheet (slight soiling toward edges, remains of prior hinging verso), 5 x 6, the sheet 11 1/8 x 14 5/8 inches.

Provenance:

Christie’s London, July 3, 2001. (Old Master, Modern, and Contemporary Prints)

In his small edition etchings and drypoints Matisse displayed a mastery of draftsmanship unmatched in modernist printmaking. Nu Couché  is a splendid example of Matisse’s genius.

James Whistler (1834-1903), Pierrot,  1889, etching, printed in brown on fine laid paper; trimmed to the platemark by the artist, signed with the butterfly and inscribed imp on the tab, also signed with the butterfly and inscribed verso [also with the butterfly in the plate, upper left]; Kennedy 407, fourth state (of five); Glasgow 450, sixth state (of eight) (cf. Margaret F. MacDonald, Grischka Petri, Meg Hausberg, and Joanna Meacock, James McNeill Whistler: The Etchings, a catalogue raisonné, University of Glasgow, 2011); Lochnan 408, 9 x 6 1/4 inches. Pierrot was never published, although it was clearly intended to be part of a (never published) Amsterdam Set. In very good condition.

Provenance:

James L. Claghorn (with [faint] stamp verso, Lugt 555c)

Also signed on the verso in pencil with the butterfly and inscribed “selected for [unclear but probably “Wunderlich”; several impressions were sent to Wunderlich, Whistler’s US dealer]

Also with initials RGO (?) in pencil, lower left verso (not identified in Lugt)

A very fine, evenly balanced impression, printing with subtle plate tone.  Printed in a brownish/black ink on an ivory laid paper.

This state is before the small patches of shading were added below the windows to the left of the main doorway. 

Apparently Whistler regarded Pierrot as his favorite among the Amsterdam plates. In a letter to Whistler Howard Mansfield, the famed collector, wrote:  “The impression you showed me of “Pierrot” is so fine…that I feel that I must have it. The fact that it is your favorite among the Amsterdam plates makes me wish to possess it in its greatest beauty.”

The scene shows dyers on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal in Amsterdam.  Although titled Pierrot or The Pierrot, and this character from the 17th Century Italian Commedia Dell’arte was experiencing a revival of interest in the late 1800’s, there is nothing apparent in the composition to suggest the fictional character; the figures depicted are workers, the main one simply a young boy wearing an apron, the other a woman rinsing a cloth in the canal.

As in the other Amsterdam views, the dark, tonal areas are no longer created purely by selective wiping – although there is much such wiping evident in the print – but by the extraordinarily dense networks of overlapping lines.

James Whistler (1834-1903), The Little Mast, etching, drypoint and burnishing, 1879-80, signed in pencil with the early shaded butterfly lower left and annotated “imp”. References: Glasgow 196, Kennedy 185. Glasgow’s third state (of 8). From the Twelve Etchings, The First Venice Set. With margins, 10 5/8 x 7 1/2, the sheet 12 3/8 x 8 7/8 inches. In very good condition.

Provenance:

Charles C. Cunningham (with his stamp verso, Lugt 4684

James Lawrence Claghorn (with his stamp recto lower right, Lugt 555c)

Kennedy Galleries (with their stock number a94365 verso)

A very fine early proof impression, printed on a Chinese paper, with a light veil of plate tone heightened toward the bottom.

In the third state the figure in the middle just to the right of the buildings at the left is drawn in in drypoint; in the fourth state it is taken out. Also, in the third state an additional row of drypoint lines is added above the diagonal shading to the right of group of figures in the foreground; this additional row of drypoint does not appear in the second state. So we have deemed this a third state impression.

Early impressions of the second and third state, such as our example, were not trimmed, but signed in the margin with a large veined butterfly and ‘imp.’ to show that Whistler had printed them. Early proof impressions such as this one were delivered to the Fine Art Society in 1881; Whistler took many years to deliver additional impressions – as late as 1889 – in later states.

The Little Mast shows  the view west down the broad Via Garibaldi to the Ponte de la Veneta Marina and the quayside, in the Castello area of the City of Venice, Italy.  It was near the Public Gardens, and also near Whistler’s lodgings during the summer of 1880, at the Casa Jankowitz. This view, drawn accurately on the copper plate, is reversed, as usual, in the print. (source: Glasgow)

James Whistler (1834-1903), The Beggars, etching and drypoint, 1879-80, signed with the butterfly and inscribed “imp”. Reference:  Glasgow 190, seventh state (of 17),  Kennedy 194, fourth state (of 9), from the First Venice Set. In excellent condition (tiny nick bottom margin; remains of hinges verso), with margins, 12 1/8 x 8 1/4 inches, the sheet 13 x 9 1/4 inches.

An exceedingly fine impression, printed on sturdy laid paper, with a Strasbourg Lily with a W watermark. With substantial plate tone especially towards the bottom of the composition, wiped carefully to highlight the figures at the end of the tunnel, and the figures in the forefront.

In this early impression Whistler has moved the lantern from the far left toward the middle of the composition; he has also configured the two figures in the foreground as an older woman and a young girl, and added shading to the butterfly at the upper left (but in the next state, he would burnish out the butterfly).

Whistler printed proofs of The Beggars both in Venice and London. He delivered five impressions to the Fine Art Society on 16 February 1881, thirteen on 6 April, four on 25 August, and six on 31 December.  These would have been impressions of the first seven states – mostly signed in the margin with the large butterfly with shaded wings (cf. Glasgow).  Our example is clearly one of these early impressions. The Fine Art Society begged Whistler to print the additional promised impressions over the succeeding years, up to about 1894 when the bulk of the edition was printed, in the last state.

James Whistler (1834-1903), St. James Place, Houndsditch, 1887, etching and drypoint, signed with the butterfly on the tab and inscribed “imp”. [also with the butterfly in the plate, upper center] In very good condition, trimmed on the platemark except for the tab by the artist. References: Kennedy 290 (only state); Glasgow 255, second state (of 2). 82 x 178 mm, 3 3/16 x 6 7/8 inches.

Provenance:

R.M. Light and Co., Santa Barbara, California

Dr. H. Malcolm Hardy, Shawnee Mission, Kansas (not in Lugt)

A fine impression of this great rarity, with two tiny penciled circles verso (indicating that Whistler thought a this was a particularly distinctive impression).

Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Night in the Park, etching, drypoint, burnishing, 1921, signed in pencil lower right and titled and priced ($30.) in pencil by the artist lower left corner recto. References: Zigrosser 20, Levin (plate 80), only state. In good condition, slight mat toning well outside of the plate mark. 6 3/4 x 8 1/4, the sheet 11 1/2 x 15 inches.

Provenance: Whitney Studio Galleries, 10 West 8th Street, New York (with their label; later becoming the Whitney Museum)

Hirschl and Adler, New York (with label)

A fine black rich impression, with plate tone carefully wiped on the sidewalk and in front of the man, and on the lamp at the top; and with a fine layer of plate tone left in the night sky.

Generally described only as an etching, Night in the Park has a substantial amount of drypoint work as well, particularly evident in the pathway, the sky, and throughout the foliage. And too, there is much evidence of burnishing, again evident in the pathway.  Some of Hopper’s most complex prints are known to have been created through a series of successive states or progress proofs; Night in the Park, although among his most complex prints, is known in only one state.

Hopper’s debt to Rembrandt, particularly the scenic etchings and drypoints such as his Three Trees, is obvious in Night in the Park.

Note: on reserve

Emil Nolde (1867-1956), Unterhaltung (Conversation), etching, 1906, signed and dated in pencil lower right and also signed by the printer Otto Felsing lower left. Reference: Gustav Schiefler 37, fourth state (of 4). A proof apart from the edition of only 20 and “some proofs” (Schiefler says: “einige probedrucke”) of this state. In excellent condition, on a heavy laid handmade paper with the (partial) watermark “V”, the full sheet with deckle edges, 6 x 7 1/2, the sheet 21 1/2 x 15 inches.

A fine exceptionally fresh impression of this superb composition, printed in a rich dark blue/green ink.

According to Schiefler only 5 proofs were made of earlier states, and the composition was essentially complete in the first state; the succeeding work consisted of brightening the tone of the sky, heightening the contrast of sky and sitters, and clarifying the imagery.

This is an early print  for Nolde (he became an artist at a rather late age), and was made in the year things started to work for him – in 1906 he was invited to join the Brucke in Dresden, his painting Erntetag caused a sensation at the Berlin Secession in the spring, and he met some of his most important patrons including Schiefler. He made a good number of etchings in this period, from 1904 to 1911, then another group in 1918 an 1922; there are hardly any after 1926.

Martin Lewis

1881 Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia – New York 1962

American Nocturne 1937

lithograph on wove paper; 250 x 365 mm (9 7/8 x 14 3/8 inches)

signed by the artist in pencil at lower right

McCarron 125 only state

provenance

Armin Landeck (artist and friend of Lewis)

Paul McCarron, New York

A fine impression of this great rarity, printed on a cream-colored wove paper; in very good condition with full margins.

McCarron notes that there were 17 recorded impressions of American Nocturne. In his label for this print (appended to the mat) McCarron notes that according to Lewis’s notebook only 8–14 impressions were made.

Lewis was born in Australia but immigrated to the United States in 1900, where he took on work as a commercial illustrator in New York. In 1915, he began to make etchings (and indeed, trained Edward Hopper in the technique). After a period in Japan between 1920 and 1921, Lewis returned to New York and began to produce drypoints inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e prints. From 1928 he began to make drypoints of New York City at different times of day and under different weather conditions. Kennedy Galleries offered him a solo show in 1929 and went on to publish 17 new prints by the artist over the next two years, a successful run that was only ended by the Depression; in 1932 Lewis retreated to Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

American Nocturne was made a year after Lewis’s return to New York but nonetheless suggests a kind of nostalgia for the small-town life he had left behind. There is ultimately nothing really charming about the image, however. Indeed, the shadowy black-and-white scene, with its row of identical rooftops and the man leaning into the window of the luxurious car suggesting a slightly sinister narrative, evokes the highly stylized effects of the American film noirs of this period.

Claude Flight (1881-1955), Swing Boats, circa 1919-1921, color linoleum cut on very thin Japan paper, signed and numbered by the artist lower left. In very good condition, with the full colored margin outside of the borderline (with slight imperfections typical of these British futurist linoleum proofs, i.e., border edge somewhat rough-cut, small loss upper left corner, a printing fold toward the middle of the image, slight wrinkling upper right).  The sheet 10 x 12 3/4 inches.

Provenance: The Redfern Gallery, 27 Old Bond Street, London (with their label affixed to the mat).

A fine impression, with the colors fresh and balanced. Printed in cobalt blue and crimson oil paint and black printing ink.

Although the stated edition of this print is 50, according to the numbering of the artist, the print appears only infrequently on the market, and in widely varying condition and appearance – some impressions are very dark, some too light, some rather lacking in balance. We feel the present impression represents an excellent example of the print in virtually all respects.

Flight was a leader of the British Futurist movement, and a teacher at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art (his pupils included Lill Tschudi, Cyril Power, and Sybil Andrews). Flight regularly exhibited at The Redfern Gallery, as well as abroad.

A swing boat, colloquially known as a “shuggy boat” in the north east of England, is a fairground ride in which pairs of riders pull ropes to swing back and forth. Swing boats were one of the earliest fairground rides, common in the Victorian era. The boats were originally powered by hand, but steam-driven versions began to be introduced in the 1880s. Examples of Victorian-style manually-operated swing boats are still popular and are generally seen in traveling “period” fairs.

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Sketch After Cecil Lawson’s “Swan and Iris,” etching and drypoint, 1882. Reference: Glasgow 247, Kennedy 241. Glasgow’s 5th state (of 6). In very good condition, with the sewing holes at the right, printed on an antique laid paper with a Strasbourg Lily watermark. 5 1/4 x 3 1/4, the sheet 7 x 4 1/2 inches.

A very fine impression of this relatively rarely encountered sketch, printed in a grey/black ink with substantial burr from the drypoint work, and with a layering of plate tone.

Cecil Lawson (1851-1882) was a painter, the husband of an elder sister of Whistler’s eventual wife Beatrice. The etching is after an unfinished Lawson painting; it was used in the memoir of Lawson published by the Fine Art Society, in 1883.

This is fifth state (of 6), before the several diagonal lines and one short, almost horizontal line are added to the lower edge of the dark shading on the left side of the arch, and extend into the bevel on that edge. This impression is particularly fine insofar as the upper left arch, and the sails of the boats at the top, are darkened with a fine layer of plate tone, accentuating the burr of the drypoint.

This is not signed in the plate, although the iris itself is reminiscent of a variation of Whistler’s butterfly.

Montparnasse Street– 1931, Etching

Duffy 128. Edition 50, only 25 printed. Signed, dated, and annotated imp and 50 in pencil.

Image size 4 7/8 x 9 7/8 inches (124 x 251 mm); sheet size 7 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches (191 x 343 mm).

A fine, rich impression, on cream laid paper, with full margins (1 1/4 to 1 7/8 inch), in excellent condition. Printed by the artist. Scarce.

Collections: NMAA, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, UNM.

Anders Zorn (1860-1920), At the Piano, etching, 1900, signed in pencil lower right. Reference: Asplund 160, Hjert and Hjert 108, second state (of 2), from the edition of 60-70.  Printed on an ivory laid paper, in very good condition (some repaired tears, loss at bottom edge), 7 7/8 x 5 3/4, the sheet 14 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches.

A fine delicately printed impression.

The sitter is Mrs. Anna Burnett Hardin; the plate was made at the home of Charles Deering, an industrialist and patron of Zorn’s, in Evanston, Illinois. Two pencil drawings are in the Zornmusset and another in the Art Institute of Chicago.

J a m e s= M c B e y– – – 1 8 8 3 – 1 9 5 9

Palazzo Dei Cammerlenghi–   1926, Etching.

Edition 60, 20. Signed in ink. Numbered AI, indicating the first impression of the American edition of 20 [also signed and dated October 1925 in the plate lower right]. Reference: Hardie and Carter 231, only state (there were about 11 trial proofs, where slight changes were made, before the published first state). 

Image size 8 3/4 x 5 3/4 inches (222 x 146 mm); sheet size 11 5/8 x 8 3/8 inches (295 x 213 mm).

A fine, rich impression in dark sepia ink with overall plate tone, wiped carefully to allow for a slightly darker tone in the water toward the bottom of the composition. With full margins (1 1/8 to 1 3/4 inches), on antique cream laid paper. Slight toning in the margins, otherwise in excellent condition.

This is the bend of the Grand Canal in Venice, seen from the Rialto.

Reproduced: Reflections & Undercurrents: Ernest Roth and Printmaking in Venice, 1900-1940, Eric Denker, Dickinson College, PA; 2012.

Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904),Vérité (petite planche), 1900, lithograph.  Hediard-Mason 156, first state (of 3). A proof of the first state before the edition published in La Revue de l’Art Ancien et Moderne. In excellent condition, the full sheet, 7 3/8 x 5 1/2, the sheet 13 x 9 7/8 inches (matrix 190 x 137 mm.).

A fine proof impression, printed on a light chine volant.

In the published state lettering at the bottom margin gave the name of the artist, the title, publication, and printer (Clot).

Martin Lewis ((1881-1962)

Snow on the “El”- – 1931, Drypoint and Sand Ground

McCarron 95. Edition 49 (including 5 trial proofs). Signed in pencil. Signed in the plate, lower left.

Image size 14 x 9 inches (356 x 229 mm); sheet size 17 11/16 x 12 9/16 inches (449 x 319 mm).

An exceptionally fine, richly inked impression, with velvety burr throughout, on cream laid paper, with full margins (1 3/4 to 2 inches), in excellent condition.

The location depicted is Twenty-third Street and Sixth Avenue, New York City. By the mid-20th century, a coalition of commercial establishments and building owners along Sixth Avenue campaigned to have the El removed. The El was closed on December 4, 1938 and came down in stages, beginning in Greenwich Village in 1938–39; the 6th Avenue Subway replaced it a couple of years later.

Collections: Addison Gallery of American Art, British Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Colby College Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art (Cornell University).

Theodore Roussel (1847-1927), Chelsea Children, Chelsea Embankment, etching, 1889, signed in pencil on the tab and inscribed “imp” [also signed in the plate]. Reference: Hausberg 32, only state, from the total printing of about 30 impressions. Printed in a reddish brown ink on a thin laid paper. In very good condition, trimmed by the artist on the platemark except for the tab, 7 1/2 x 5 1/16 inches.

A fine impression, printed with a veil of plate tone, wiped a bit less toward the sky making the sky darker than the street scene.

Hausberg notes that this etching “depicts, in reverse, a stretch of Cheyne Walk between Chelsea Old Church and Oakley Street with the Albert Bridge seen in the background.”

Albrecht Dürer

1471 – Nuremberg – 1528

The Four Horsemen ca. 1497–98

plate 5 from The Apocalypse

woodcut on laid paper; 395 x 279 mm (15 1/2 x 11 inches)

Bartsch 64; Meder 167 Latin edition of 1511; Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum 115

provenance

Paul Davidsohn, Berlin (Lugt 654, his stamp verso)

his sale, C.G. Boerner, Leipzig, sale 129, May 3–8, 1920, lot 1533.

A very good and evenly printing impression; in very good condition showing the borderline all round.

Illustrating the Revelation of St. John the Evangelist, chapter 6 verses 1–8, this composition counts among Dürer’s most famous images. As an icon of German Renaissance art it ranks at the same level as Dürer’s engravings of Adam and Eve and his three Meisterstiche of 1513–14.

Paul Davidsohn, born in Danzig in 1839, moved to Scotland in 1858 and then to London in 1862 where he was a merchant for 20 years, later moving to Berlin. Renowned for his Old Master print collection and connoisseurship, in his later years he also gained fame as a financier of the Silent Film era; e.g., he financed the early films of Hans Lubitsch. The sale of his collection at CG Boerner (which in that period held auctions) was the first great print sale after WWI.

Rembrandt, Harmenz Van Rijn (1606-1669), Christ Preaching (La Petite Tombe), etching, burin and drypoint, c. 1657. References: Bartsch, Hollstein 67, Hind 256, only state; Nowell Usticke’s first state (early) of three, New Hollstein 298, first state (of 2).  In excellent condition, with small margins all around, printed on a thin laid paper, 6 1/8 x 8 1/8 inches.

A fine balanced “black sleeve” impression, with strong burr on the drypoint, especially on the sleeve and garment of the man at the left, the garment of Christ, the arch, the wall and column upper right, beard of the man upper left, etc.

Provenance: Gerd Rosen, Berlin, sale 23 (1954), lot 1986

Dr. Otto Schäfer, Schweinfurt (with his stamp verso, not in Lugt)  his sale, Sotheby’s New York, May 13, 1993, lot 21

Exhibits (and Publications):

Radierungen von Rembrandt in Ingelheim am Rhein, exhibition Ingelheim 1964, cat. no. 13

Kunst und Können. Drei Graphische Techniken und ihre Meister aus der Sammlung Otto Schäfer, exhibition Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg / Städtische Sammlungen Schweinfurt, 1985-86, p. 240, cat. no. R-25, p. 241 ill.

In this print Rembrandt revisits the theme of his magnum opus, the so-called Hundred Guilder Print of ca. 1648 (Bartsch 74). This smaller, condensed version is one of the artist’s most balanced compositions. It has a classical serenity that has led scholars to point to the influence of Raphael’s Vatican fresco of Parnassus. Martin Royalton-Kisch notes that in 1652 Rembrandt sketched a version of Raphael’s work, well-known at the time through reproductive prints, in the album amicorum of his friend Jan Six. After establishing the overall scheme with a straightforward combination of horizontal and vertical elements, the artist enriched the details and atmospheric effects by going over the etched plate with a drypoint needle, thereby creating a lively “dialogue between clean etched lines and velvety drypoint lines fringed with rich burr” (Clifford Ackley, see reference below).

The Petite Tombe has traditionally been dated to ca. 1652. Based on his watermark research Erik Hinterding now proposes an execution date of ca. 1657 (cf. The New Hollstein: Rembrandt. Text, vol. 2, p. 270). Its somewhat confusing title was introduced by Gersaint in 1751 and later mis- understood as making reference to the “little tomb” on which Christ supposedly stands. In fact, this title refers back to Clement de Jonghe’s inventory where it is listed as “Latombisch plaatjen” (La Tombe’s little plate), a reference to Nicholas La Tombe who might have commissioned the work. Members of the La Tombe family are noted in documents relating to Rembrandt dating to between 1650 and 1658.

The early impressions of La Petite Tombe are sometimes referred to as “black sleeve” impressions because of the burr on the sleeve of the man standing left front, which creates a black effect; in later impressions this area whitens. In such impressions there is also burr on the beard of the man in the top left corner, and on Christ’s garments.

Rembrandt printed impressions of La Petite Tombe on both European papers (as in our example) and Japan papers. The latter, which tend to be less absorbent, produce washlike patches of tone where the drypoint burr would otherwise be absorbed by the paper, and the resulting look is painterly, soft and fluid. The European paper impressions have a clearly defined, structural, architectural look.  This impression is particularly well balanced, adding to the sense of calm reflectiveness among the listeners (as well as the child playing in the foreground).

literature:
Erik Hinterding, Ger Luijten, and Martin Royalton-Kisch (eds.), Rembrandt the Printmaker, exhibition catalogue, Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam/British Museum, London, 2000–01, no. 68 Clifford S. Ackley et al. (eds.), Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman, Etcher, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Art Institute of Chicago, 2003–04, nos. 136f.

John Marin (1870-1953), Brooklyn Bridge and Lower New York, etching and drypoint, 1913, signed in pencil bottom right and inscribed in pencil by the artist “Printed by John Marin/sent out by 291”  lower left margin. Reference: Zigrosser 106, second state (of two). Published by Alfred Steiglitz, 291 Fifth Avenue, New York. The full sheet, in very good condition, 6 7/8 x 8 7/8, the sheet 14 3/16 x 15 5/8 inches.

A very fine impression of this great rarity, printed with a veil of plate tone carefully wiped to lighten the center of the composition.

The composition was completed in the first state, known in only a few impressions; in the second state Marin added drypoint accents to the structures below the bridge, the boats in the river, the sky, and to the bridge as well.

Provenance:

Agnes and Eugene Meyer, Mount Kisco, NY; and then by descent to the family

Zigrosser called for an edition of 25 prints on Whatman paper plus a large edition after steel-facing on Van Gelder for the New Republic set in 1924. But he was mistaken in identifying this print as used in the New Republic set; Brooklyn Bridge Swaying No. 6 (Z 112) was initially used for that set but substituted after a few impressions by Downtown the El (Z 134). It is also not clear that the edition of 25 is accurate, for Zigrosser knew of only about a half dozen impressions, in major museums, and the print is virtually never seen on the market.

Brooklyn Bridge and Lower New York is among the earliest, if not the earliest, of the cubist-influenced prints Marin made after working for several years in a Whistlerian/realist idiom. When shown at Steiglitz’s 291 Gallery in 1913 Marin wrote some notes of explanation, including this statement: “I see great forces at work; great movements….In life all things come under the magnetic influence of other things; the bigger assert themselves strongly, the smaller ones not so much, but still they assert themselves, and though hidden they strive to be seen and in so doing change their bent and direction….While these powers are at work pushing, pulling, sideways, downwards, upwards, I can hear the sound of their strife and there is great music being played….And so I try to express graphically what a great city is doing.”

Marin’s modernist prints, done in the same year as the 1913 Armory Show, represent a new direction in American art.

FRANCISCO JOSE de GOYA y LUCIENTES (1746 – 1828)

LINDA MAESTRA (Pretty Teacher) 1799 Delteil 105; Harris 103)

Etching, burnished aquatint and drypoint, Plate 68 from the first edition of “Los Caprichos”. In good condition, the full sheet, 8 ¼ x 5 7/8, the sheet 11 3/4 x 8 3/8 inches.

A very good impression, with the fine grain aquatint contrating slightly with the highlights on the head and shoulder of the old witch, down the right side of the second witch.

Harris notes that in the later (posthumous) editions the aquatint wears down gradually until the plate prints as a pure etching with a slight general stain.

Goya’s commentary: The broom is one of the most necessary implements for witches; for besides being great sweepers, as the stories tell, they may be able to change the broom into a fast mule and go with it where the Devil cannot reach them.

Childe Hassam (1859-1935), The Athenaeum, Portsmouth, etching and drypoint, 1915, signed in pencil with the cypher lower right and inscribed “imp”, also titled in pencil lower left toward the sheet edge. [also signed, titled and dated in the plate, with “Dot”, center left] Printed on an antique Bible paper. Reference: Cortissoz/Clayton 14. In very good condition, with full margins, with the usual drying tack holes Hassam employed when printing personally, 8 1/2 x 6 inches, the sheet 11 7/8 x 9 1/4d inches.

A fine impression of this great rarity, with selectively wiped plate tone highlighting the upper windows of the building, with rich burr from the drypoint work at the left and right sides of the composition.

Cortissoz notes: “Done from nature in Miss Dorothy Whitcomb’s car.”

“The facade of the masterpiece by Charles Bullfinch….This is one of the three buildings by Bullfinch in this beautiful old American Town.” (Cortissoz)

Hassam loved to use old Bible paper for printing when possible; here the verses (from Psalms, CVIII and CIX) are on the left side of the sheet and the rest of the sheet was reserved for commentary.

This is a relatively early etching for Hassam, although he was not young when he created it – he began printmaking in earnest in mid-career, well after he had achieved renown as America’s great impressionist master.

Hassam – The Athenaeum, Portsmouth, the full sheet

John Marin (1870-1953), Brooklyn Bridge No. 6 (Swaying) = 1913, Etching.

Z112. Edition c. 12 (Steiglitz); 1924, unknown but small (New Republic). Signed in pencil. Signed and dated 13 and B.B. 6 in the plate, lower left.

Image size 10 5/8 x 8 3/4, the sheet size 14 x 10 7/8 inches.

A superb, richly inked impression, with selectively wiped platetone; on warm cream wove paper, with wide margins (1 to 1 5/8 inches), in excellent condition. Very scarce.

First published by Alfred Stieglitz in 1913, a small number of later impressions were printed as the work was slated to be included in the New Republic portfolio Six American Etchings. Only a few impressions were pulled before it was replaced by Marin’s Downtown, the El. Carl Zigrosser was unaware that Brooklyn Bridge No. 6 (Swaying) was ever included in the Set when he wrote the Marin catalogue; later, when he learned of it’s initial inclusion, he suggested that perhaps the plate had broken early in the run, and this hypothesis has been repeated through the years. But this is unlikely since the printer, Peter Platt (1859-1934), America’s most distinguished artists’ printer of the period, worked alone, and he was hardly prone to breaking copper plates. A more likely explanation is that Downtown the El was substituted because it is about the same size as the other prints in the set, whereas the Brooklyn Bridge No. 6 print is much larger; a plate of the same size would facilitate the printing of a large edition. Each of the plates was purchased by the NewRepublic, and the paper’s records for 1924-5, as well as the plates used for the set have been lost or destroyed.

Collections: PMA, MMA (Stieglitz Collection), MoMA (Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller).

Francisco Goya (1746-1828), Ensayos (Trials), etching, aquatint and burin, 1799. Plate 60 of the Caprichos, First Edition. Harris 95, Delteil 97. In very good condition (with the binding holes showing at left), printed in sepia on a soft but strong laid paper, 8 1/16 x 6 1/2, he full sheet, 12 1/16 x 8 3/4 inches.

A fine impression.

Harris notes that the fine grain aquatint in one pale tone contrasts with the highlights on the central figure’s chest, the cat and the skull in the foreground, and with the highlights on the ‘teacher,’ particularly in the early impressions where the aquatint forms a line across her stomach. In this impression these aquatint highlights are quite prominent, as is the line across the teacher’s stomach.

Goya’s commentary: “Little by little she is making progress. She is already making her first steps and in time she will know as much as her teacher. ”  The drawing in pen and sepia ink has a legend elucidating this note: “Trial of novice witches on their first flight and they  set to work with fear.”

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669), Sheet of Studies: Head of the Artist, a Beggar Couple, Heads of an Old Man and Old Woman, etc., etching, 1632. References: Bartsch, Hollstein 363, New Hollstein 115, Hind 90. In good condition (apart from traces of a diagonal fold, minor staining). Second state (of 2), 4 x 4 1/8 inches.

A fine early impression of this rare print.

Provenance:

ex Coll. Viscount Downe (?, with stamp verso, cf. Lugt 719a);

Helmut H. Rumbler (Frankfurt-am-Main, stock number 33004 verso)

C.G. Boerner (New York, Dusseldorf, stock number 28987 / RZ verso)

Gerardo Rueda (Spain, 1926-1996); Rueda was a painter and sculptor well known for his art collection as well as his own work.

Nowell-Eusticke rates its rarity RR+ (“a very scarce sheet of 1632”).

In addition to the large self portrait the sheet portrays a beggar couple, an old man, an old woman, and other elements. Such sheets, both in drawings and a number of etchings, belong to the tradition of “model books.”

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

1606 Leiden – Amsterdam 1669

Jan Lutma, Goldsmith 1656

etching, engraving, and drypoint on thin chine; 196 x 150 mm

Bartsch 276, White/Boon 276 first state (of three); Hind 290; New Hollstein 293 first state (of five)

provenance

John Malcolm, Poltalloch, Argyleshire, Scotland and London (cf. Lugt 1489)

British Museum, London, acquired from the above in 1895 (cf. for the museum’s stamps designated to the Malcolm collection Lugt 1780–81; all the above according to the annotated Colnaghi label on the old backing of the frame)

P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London (their stock no. in pencil on the verso C.21644)

Percival Duxbury (1872–1945), Bredbury, Cheshire (acquired from the above in 1936)

Lilian Honor Lewis (by descent; d. 2013)

New Hollstein lists three other impressions on Chinese paper.

Jan Lutma (c. 1584-1669) was a master gold and silversmith; he holds an object with a turned stem (possibly a candlestick) in his right hand, and on the table at his left is a drinking bowl.

Rembrandt used a fine needle to draw the portrait and furniture; then enriched the plate through hatching and drypoint. In this impression one can observe substantial drypoint burr, particularly in Lutma’s coat. In the second state Rembrandt added a window in the room (with a signature and date in the upper left pane), and shadows on the wall.

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn
1606 Leiden – Amsterdam 1669

Christ at Emmaus: the larger plate 1654

etching and drypoint;

Bartsch 87, White/Boon second state (of three); Hind 282; The New Hollstein 283 second state (of five)

provenance

August Artaria, Vienna (Lugt 33);

his sale, Artaria & Co., Vienna, May 6–13, 1896, lot 534, described as superbe épreuve avec beaucoup de barbes. Rare.

Julius Rosenberg, Copenhagen (Lugt 1519 and 1520);

his sale, C.G. Boerner, Leipzig, May 1–2, 1901, lot 178, described as prachtvoller Abdruck des zweiten Zustandes, mit starkem Grat. … Aus Sammlung Artaria.

Dr. Julius Elischer von Thurzóbánya, Budapest (Lugt 824)

P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London (their stock no. in pencil on the verso C. 12793)

Percival Duxbury (1872–1945), Bredbury, Cheshire (acquired from the above in 1936)

Lilian Honor Lewis (by descent; d. 2013)

An extraordinarily fine very early impression, with substantial burr from the drypoint work added in this state. Subsequent states are posthumous.

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Grand-mere (effet de lumiere), etching and drypoint, 1889, signed in pencil lower right, titled lower left, inscribed “No 3 – 2e etat” lower left in pencil. Delteil 80, second state (of 7). In good condition (slight rubbing in lower right margin at the signature), the full sheet, 6 5/8 x 10 1/4, the sheet 10 5/8 x 16 inches.

Printed in black on a tan/ivory moderate weight Japan wove paper.

A fine rich mpression of this very rare print, with substantial burr from the drypoint work.

Only one impression is known of the first state; this is one of three or four known of the second state. This state is before additional work on the face of the woman, additional lines delineating furniture and curtains, and aquatint work resulting in the overall greying of the appearance of the print.  The print was not editioned; about nine impressions were made of states one through six, and another 6 in the seventh state (there were  also 18 posthumous impressions made, easily identifiable by their uniform worn look, and stamped signature and number.)

The subject is the mother of the artist.

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Ponte del Piovan, 1879-1880, etching and drypoint, signed on the tab with the butterfly and inscribed “imp.” [also signed with the butterfly in the plate, toward the right on the bridge]  References: Kennedy 209, Glasgow 220, fifth state (of 6).It was published  (in the fifth and sixth states) by Messrs Dowdeswell and Thibaudeau with A Set of Twenty-six Etchings (the Second Venice Set) in 1886.  This is the impression cited and illustrated in Kennedy as the fourth state example; and noted as in the collection of W. Dowdeswell. 

In very good condition, trimmed around the plate mark except for the tab by the artist. Printed in a dark brown ink on a laid paper. With a tiny W and a “0” verso, possibly by Whistler; also annotated “second state” verso in pencil, 8 7/8 x 6 inches.

Provenance: letters SMS in pencil verso (not in Lugt).

Walter Dowdeswell (1858-1929), as listed by Kennedy (cf. Lugt 799). Dowdeswell was a London art dealer, and also a collector of Whistler’s work.

watermark: partial crowned shield with fleur-de-lis (cf. Spink/Stratis/Tedeschi, watermark nos. 284f.)

An extremely fine impression, with intense plate tone toward the bottom of the sheet, and with much burr on the drypoint work added for this state.

This impression was surely printed early in or before the edition, for prints from the edition typically show much wear in the drypoint work (so much so that Kennedy thought the worn impressions constituted a new state).

According to Glasgow, the Ponte del Piovan, Venice, Italy, “has been rebuilt several times, but the view is still remarkably unchanged. The etching was drawn from a gondola, looking north down the Rio de Ca’ Widmann to the Ponte del Piovan detto del Volto, with the Palazzo Widmann beyond. This view, drawn accurately on the copper plate, is reversed, as usual, in the print. 

Although Glasgow notes that approximately 44 impressions of Ponte del Piovan were published for the Second Venice Set edition, the print has appeared only rarely on the market in the last 25 years.

STANLEY W. HAYTER (1901-1988)
Facile Proie.

Set of 8 engravings, 1938-39. 250×325 mm; 9 7/8 x 12 3/4 inches (sheets), full margins, loose as issued, with the cover and . Each print signed and numbered 43/100 in pencil, lower margin. Numbered 43 in red pencil, on the justification page. Published by Guy Levis Mano, Paris. With the cover and container as issued, in generally good condition, some prints with slight spotting in margins, the outer cover with wear; the album in excellent condition.

Very good impressions of these scarce, early prints.  This is the initial edition; a restrike edition was subsequently published. Pictures of all the prints are available on request.

According to Hayter, only approximately 50 sets were made and the plates were abandoned in Paris in 1939. Black/Moorhead 116-123.

Hayter exhibited with the Surrealist group in Paris in 1933 and continued to exhibit with them throughout the 1930’s. He left the movement when Paul Eluard was expelled. Eluard’s poem Facile Proie (1939) was written in response to a set of Hayter’s engravings. Other writers with whom Hayter collaborated included Samuel Beckett as well as Georges Hugnet. Here’s the poem: 

Mets-toi hors de I'envol du couteau rouge et bleu 
Tiens-toi bleme et hagard dans I'armure muette 
II gele a del ouvert le feu a sa statue 
Du haut de ta stupeur vois les morts apparaitre 
Etoiles de granit que le vautour enseigne 
A se perdre a passer sans etre divisees 
Un squelette a forger dans I'abime sordide 
Dans le silence epais de la faim rassasiee 

Plante en pature prends bien garde tous tes songes 
Ne compenseront pas la gourmandise amere 
Du la bete au sourire encorne soeur jumelle 
Du bonheur assure par ta force innocente

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 Lowell, Massachusetts – London 1903), Nocturne: Palaces 1879–80, etching and drypoint printed in dark brown on off-white laid paper; 298 x 201 mm (11 3/4 x 7 7/8 inches), trimmed by the artist just outside the platemark all round; signed in pencil with the butterfly and inscribed imp on the tab; Kennedy 202 before first state (of eight); Glasgow 200 intermediary state between the first and the second (of twelve)

watermark: crowned shield with hunting horn and pendant letters wp

provenance

Frederick Keppel & Co., New York (their stock no. in pencil on the verso a10068)

Mrs. John D. Rockefeller

Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III

Dr. and Mrs. James W. Nelson

Linda Papaharis, New York

Samuel Josefowitz, Pully, Switzerland (acquired in 1988)

A superb impression with carefully modulated tonal wiping; with substantial burr from the drypoint work especially towards the top and bottom of the composition, in impeccable condition.

Before the row of small vertical strokes in the water immediately below the wall of the left palace, to the left of the patch indicating the doorway’s reflection. Those strokes are already visible in Kennedy’s first state but not yet in the second state described in the Glasgow catalogue. However, Glasgow’s second state does show a vertical band of short horizontal lines along the left edge of the shadow cast on the water by the bridge. These horizontal strokes are clearly missing in our impression, making it therefore an intermediary state between Glasgow’s first and second states.

The unique first state in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is annotated by the artist “1^st state 1^st proof”; while the composition is basically finished, it lacks any of the tonal wiping characteristic for this print and was never trimmed to the platemark. Apart from this unique “proof,” the present sheet can therefore be considered as the earliest known impression pulled from the “finished” plate.  We believe this is the only recorded impression of this new “second” state.

Each impression of Nocturne: Palaces is different from the others, in effect a monotype, expressing different times of night or day, temperatures, effects of light. Margaret MacDonald in her classic Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice amplifies:  “Nocturne: Palaces was a daring plate: difficult to print, relying heavily on the quality of the ephemeral drypoint lines…in the best impressions it is the inking of the plate that coordinates and unifies the widely dispersed lines of shading. The linear pattern of marks is unusual and the inking makes each print unique.”

James Whistler (1834-1903), The Embroidered Curtain 1889, etching and drypoint, printed in brown on laid paper; 240 x 159 mm (9 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches), trimmed on the platemark all round; signed in pencil with the butterfly and inscribed imp on the tab [also signed with the butterfly upper left], Kennedy 410 first state (of seven); Glasgow 451 first state (of ten)

watermark: Pro Patria

provenance

Robert Rice, his mark (not in Lugt) on verso of backing sheet

David Tunick, Inc., New York (his code in pencil on verso of backing sheet DT …)

Gordon Cooke Ltd., London

Samuel Josefowitz, Pully, Switzerland (acquired in 1989)

Literature

Sixty-Five Prints by James McNeill Whistler, sale catalogue, David Tunick, Inc., New York 1975 (Catalogue Number 7), no. 43

A very fine, shimmering impression of this great rarity; only a few other first state impressions are recorded, one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, another at the Art Institute of Chicago.

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Bridge, Amsterdam, etching, 1889, printed in brown ink on thin laid paper, signed with the butterfly on the tab and annotated “imp”, also signed with the butterfly on the verso and numbered 11. References: Kennedy 409, Glasgow 447, fifth state (of 5). In very good condition (slight nicks at edges), trimmed by the artist on the plate mark apart from the tab, 6 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches.

Provenance:

Vivian and Meyer P. Potamkin, Philadelphia;

sale, Sotheby’s, New York, May 11, 1989, lot 302 (the catalogue entry mentions a note on the mat which identifies this impression as formerly owned by Walter Steuben Carter and illustrated in the Kennedy catalogue; comparison with Kennedy’s plate for his third state and this impression, however, shows that the illustrated print is not identical with the present sheet)

Samuel Josefowitz, Pully, Switzerland

A very fine, shimmering impression of this great rarity.

This impression is included in the Glasgow inventory, ID number K4090301; only about 11 lifetime impressions in all states are known (three were also printed posthumously by Nathaniel Sparks).  

Although the structure of the composition was established in the first state, Whistler’s re-working of the plate through all five states, with the addition of myriad lines, shading, cross-hatching in both etching and drypoint, results in a radically altered look: the final state is a darker, more dramatic, indeed even stormier rendering of what in the first state appeared to be a relatively placid scene. Interestingly, Whistler left much of the area in the upper right corner of the composition unfinished, so that the bridge remains unattached – of course he would argue that this furthers the aesthetic intent, and of course he’s right.

Dusart – The Village Festival

Cornelis Dusart (1660-17040), The Village Festival, etching, 1685 [signed in the plate lower left “Corn. duSart fe/1685]. References: Bartsch 16, Hollstein 16, second state (of 3). In very good condition, 10 x 13 1/8 inches.

Ex. Collection Charles Ryscamp

A fine impression of this lively, complex composition.

In this monumental portrayal Dusart creates a deep perspective, with very dark figures in the foreground, most of the action in the middle distance, and in the farthest distance a church steeple, distinct only in early impressions such as ours. The inn’s banner identifies it as the “Gulde Schenk Kan” (Golden Tankard).

Dusart was a favored pupil of Adriaen van Ostade, and apparently inherited much of the contents of Ostade’s studio, for the inventory of his estate contained many drawings by Adriaen and his brother Isaak. As is evident by The Village Festival, Dusart was influenced by the Ostades, as well as other Dutch masters such as Jan Steen.

detail

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Instantes, 1911, a portfolio of six woodcuts, including the original paper wrapper, each print is signed and numbered (14/40) in pencil, printed in various colors. Reference: Laboureur 655 (1-6), only  state. Printed on soft wove paper. In very good condition, each print matted as issued, the largest about 7 1/4 x 5 1/2, the sheets 11 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches.

This set is one of only five in color pulled by hand. The first 10 sets were pulled by hand in black and white, the next five pulled by hand in color, the rest printed by press (5 in black, 20 in color).

Fine impressions of this rare set, with colors fresh.

Colors are yellow, violet, blue-grey, red, green, blue-green.

The portfolio cover is entitled “Instantanes: Suite de six nus dessines and graves sur bois par J.E. Laboureur.”

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Trois Contes Cruels, set of 9 color woodcuts, 1926, each signed in pencil, with the original portfolio wrapper. Reference: Laboureur 748, from the deluxe edition of 10,  printed in gold and silver, apart from the text (book) edition of 160 numbered copies; there was also an edition of 9 portfolios issued in black and white; printed on a soft cream wove paper.  In very good condition, with margins, the largest image is about 4 1/2 x 4, the sheets each 9 3/8 x 6 1/4 inches.

Fine impressions of this rare set.

According to Laboureur’s notebook entry, he had envisioned this project starting in 1912, and even decided upon the color variations to be used at that time.  Early drawings attest to this plan. Eventually – after 15 years – Laboureur completed the project in a modernist/cubist-influenced idiom quite different from his initial realist sketches.

Martin Lewis (1881-1962), Shadow Dance – – 1930, Drypoint and Sand Ground.

McCarron 88. Edition 109 (including at least 7 trial proofs). Signed in pencil. [Signed in the plate, lower right].

Image size 9 7/16 x 10 7/8 inches (240 x 276 mm); sheet size 13 1/8 x 14 7/8 inches (333 x 378 mm).

A superb, rich impression, on cream laid paper, with full margins (1 3/4 to 2 inches); in pristine condition.

One of Lewis’s great Precisionist works, and an icon of American printmaking, as well as a wonderful New York image. McCarron notes that initially Lewis named this Shadow Dance, Sunset, but then shortened the title.  In a note found on another impression it is mentioned that the man on the left is Lewis himself.  The setting is Park Avenue at 34th Street, Manhattan.

Reginald Marsh (1896-1954), Jersey City Landscape, etching and engraving, 1939, signed in pencil lower right [also signed and dated in the plate]. Reference: Sasowsky 187, third state (of 3); estimated printings in this state: 20. In very good condition, printed on an ivory laid paper, with margins, 7 3/4 x 11 3/4.

A strong impression. Only three proofs are known in the earlier states; the design was complete from the start. In the third state some engraving – a few lines and tiny buildings – was added just above the building at the far left.

The title is interesting: perhaps for Marsh the most interesting aspect of the Jersey City landscape was the Erie locomotive. The rest of the “landscape” consists of workers standing around or digging, and two women at the far right.

Detail

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Le Pont de Pierre, a Rouen, etching and drypoint, 1887. Reference: Delteil 66, second state (of 2).  Signed lower right in pencil, annotated lower left “No 4 Epreuve d’artiste Pont de Pierre a Rouen Zinc”.  In very good condition (tiny fox mark lower right), the full sheet with full margins, 5 x 7 3/4, the sheet 10 1/2 x 14 inches. Printed in black ink on a cream/tan laid paper.

A fine impression, with substantial burr from the drypoint work, with plate tone.

Delteil notes that Pissarro printed two impressions of the first state, and about thirty of the second; posthumous impressions are not known.

Rover dates the first state of Le Pont de Pierre as 1883, the period of Pissarro’s first visit to Rouen.

Whistler – The Little Nude, Reading

James Whistler (1830-1903), The Little Nude Model, Reading, lithograph, 1889-90; [signed with the butterfly in the stone]. Reference: Spink 33, Way 29, only state. Printed by Goulding, January 1904, on a medium weight ivory laid paper with the watermark OWP & AOL, Spink watermark #219. In generally good condition (irregular mat staining outside of the image, a small paper loss left edge) on a large sheet, 10 1/4 x 7 3/4, the sheet 14 3/4 x 10 1/4 inches.

Provenance:

Colnaghi, London (with their stock number C4540 lower right recto)

Unidentified collector (circular stamp lower left verso, not found in Lugt)

Kennedy Gallery (with stock number A97479 verso)

Initials in pencil DK and HNO verso (not in Lugt, possible stock refererences)

A good impression of this popular image. Little Nude Model, Reading sold better than any other lithograph in Whistler’s 1895-6 exhibition at the Fine Art Society, and only one impression remained in his estate in 1903.

A total of 28 impressions of The Little Nude Model, Reading were made by Way, and just after Whistler’s death an edition of 55 were printed by Goulding.

Francisco Goya – Disparate Pobre – Proof

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), etching, with burnished aquatint, drypoint and engraving, c. 1812; plate 11 from  Los Proverbios. References: Delteil 212, Harris 258. In very good condition, 240 x 352 mm., 9 7/16 x 13 7/8 inches, the sheet 280 x 380 mm., 11 x 15 1/8 inches.

A very fine, rare, proof impression, before the edition of c. 1854-1863, printed on cream wove paper.

In this proof impression the delineation of the aquatint is clearer and more vivid than in the published edition, and figures are shown in greater detail, allowing a fuller appreciation of their expressive qualities.

Detail

Detail

James Whistler (1834-1903), The Duet, lithograph, 1894, signed in pencil with the butterfly lower left margin (also signed in the plate upper left). Reference: Spink 104, Way 64, Levy 95, only state; 39 lifetime impressions printed. In very good condition (slight rippling right), printed on cream laid paper, with full margins, 246 x 165 mm, 9 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches, the sheet 280 x 196 mm, 11 x 7 7/8 inches.

Provenance:

Rosalind Birnie Philip (her stamp verso, Lugt 406).

Birnie Philip, Whistler’s sister-in-law and executrix, used two stamps on the lithographs in her collection. Lugt 406, representing the initials RBP in a square, was meant to indicate a lifetime impression (L 405, circle shaped, indicated a posthumous impression).

The Duet shows Beatrix Whistler and her sister Ethel at the piano in the Whistler’s Paris home. It is based on a rather sketchy drawing of the same subject made a few weeks earlier (Spink 96). The Duet, a much richer version of the earlier attempt, is one of Whistler’s most successful efforts in lithography.

We are pleased to offer an extraordinary group of George Bellows lithographs, from a private collection, representing all major areas of Bellows’s printed oeuvre, including iconic boxing images, examples of prints from the War Series, New York scenes, vignettes of American life, and portraits of the artist and his family and friends. A listing of these lithographs is shown below (some may not be available as this offering continues). These are being sold individually. Inquiries are welcome, via phone or e mail.

The Life Class, First Stone
Mother and Children (“June Again”)
Artists Judging Works of Art
Business Men’s Class (Business Men’s Class, Y.M.C.A.) Preliminaries (Preliminaries to the Big Bout)
The Life Class, Second Stone (The Model, Life Class)

Shower-bath

Dance in a Madhouse
Tennis (Tennis Tournament)
The Tournament (Tennis at Newport)
Sunday 1897 (Sunday, Going to Church)
In the Subway
The Hold Up, first state
Counted Out, Second Stone
Introductions
Introducing Georges Carpentier
The Black Hat (Emma in a Black Hat)
Married Couple
Billy Sunday
Between Rounds, Small, Second Stone
Business Men’s Bath
The Dead-Line (The Strikers)
Punchinello in the House of Death
The Irish Fair
The Return to Life
The Garden of Growth
The Crowd, second state
Farewell to Utopia
The Drunk, first stone
The Drunk, second stone
The Actress (Lady of 1860, The Actress)
Wedding
Dempsey and Firpo
Dempsey Through the Ropes
Anne in a Black Hat
Jean in a Black Hat, first state
Portrait of Mrs. Herb Roth

Drawing: Nude Study, Boy on a Raft

Howard Cook (1901-1980), Chrysler Building (Chrysler Building in Construction) – –1930, Wood Engraving.

Duffy 122. Edition 75, only 50 printed. 1931, signed in pencil.

Image size 10 1/16 x 6 11/16 inches (256 x 170 mm); sheet size 11 7/8 x 9 inches (302 x 229 mm).

A superb, black impression, on thin cream wove Japan paper, in excellent condition.

By the early 1930s, Cook’s prints of New York, especially its skyscrapers and bridges, were widely known and often reproduced in such magazines as Harpers and The Atlantic Monthly. The first solo exhibition of his prints was held in 1929 at the Weyhe Gallery in New York.

While Cook’s lithographs of New York were made in collaboration with the printer George Miller, he insisted on printing his woodcuts and etchings himself. Cook lived in New Mexico for much of his life, and only took up residence in New York for varying periods between 1930 and 1938; nonetheless, he remains most renowned for the prints he produced of what he described as “the endearing serrated skyline of the most exciting modern city in the world”.

Here Cook shows the Chrysler Building before the addition of its famous art deco “crown.” For a brief period after it was finished and before the completion of the Empire State Building in 1931, it was the tallest building in the world. Cook’s perspective of the illuminated building, seen from below, enhances a sense of its looming monumentality; this is further reinforced by the dark geometric forms of the smaller surrounding buildings.

Childe Hassam (1859-1935), Midsummer, etching, 1919, signed lower right and inscribed “imp” [also signed and dated in the plate]. Reference: Clayton/Cortissoz 150. In very good condition, with the usual drying holes and associated nicks at edges, printed on a cream wove paper with margins, 9 x 7, the sheet 9 1/2 x 11 3/4 inches.

A fine fresh and vivid impression of this great rarity.

Midsummer is printed on a sheet with a cancelled impression of The Greek Dance (C/C 91) verso; this was made a few years earlier (1916). Hassam is known to have saved preferred papers, and he may have felt, quite rightly, that Midsummer would have printed especially well on this paper (alternatively, he may have been running short on paper!).

Midsummer is rare; it is known to have been exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum in 1925, but only a few impressions are known to have appeared on the market.

Midsummer was made at Gloucester, Cape Ann.

Camille Pissarro (1831-1903), Rue Saint-Romain, à Rouen, 2nd Plate, 1896, signed, titled and inscribed No. 1 in pencil. Reference: Delteil 177, first state (of 2). In very good condition, with full margins, 7 1/2 x 5 1/2, the sheet 13 3/4 x 10 1/4 inches.

Provenance: unknown collector, with stamp (ES within a square) verso (Lugt 3498).

A fine fresh impression of this great rarity, printed on a cream wove paper.

This is one of only two proofs Pissarro made of the first state, each of which was numbered (1 and 2) titled and signed. In the second state Pissarro had about a dozen proofs pulled, of which five were signed and numbered.  Later a small posthumous edition of 6 was made, which was stamped and numbered.

In the second state of this print Pissarro removed much of the sky, lightened the street, took out the cart on the street and the woman toward the right, and made other small changes. But it is possible he was not satisfied with this second state (which looks unfinished, as opposed to our first state, which is a fine coherent composition), for he made another (third) plate of the same subject shortly thereafter in a small edition (10), and even made a fourth plate just after that one (printed in only 2 lifetime impressions).

Peggy Bacon (1895-1987), The Swiss Restaurant, 1918, etching and drypoint, signed, titled and annotated “For Sandy” in pencil.  Reference: Janet Flint 17, only state, no edition known. In very good condition, with margins, 5 7/8 x 7 7/8, the sheet 8 3/8 x 9 3/4 inches.

A fine rich impression with substantial burr from the drypoint work.

The Swiss Restaurant was a favorite eating place for students of the Art Students League, near Carnegie Hall. The inscription “For Sandy” refers to Bacon’s son, Alexander Brook.

Peggy Bacon was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut. She studied at the Art Students League with John Sloan, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and George Bellows. Bacon is known to many audiences, for she created paintings and prints, wrote poetry and novels, and illustrated over 60 children’s books. Print lovers know her best for her splendid drypoint compositions, including early modernist works, and her satirical portrayals of both rural and New York life.

Howard Cook (1901-1980), Soaring New York, aquatint, soft0ground etching, roulette, 1931-2; signed, dated and annotated “imp” in pencil lower right, titled lower margin. Reference: Duffy 165, fifth state (of 5), from the edition of 75. In very good condition, the full sheet with deckle edges, 8 15/16 x 11 3/4, the sheet 11 x 15 1/8 inches.

A fine atmospheric impression, printed on a cream wove paper.

Nearly half of Cook’s entire print output was done in the period from 1928-1931, including most of his iconic images of New York. Soaring New York is one of the most successful prints within this group.

Reginald Marsh (1898-1954), Smokehounds, 1934, Etching

Sasowsky 158. Edition 13. Signed in pencil. [Initialed and dated in the plate, lower right.]

Image size 11 7/8 x 8 13/16 inches (300 x 224 mm); sheet size 14 1/4 x 10 3/4 inches (362 x 273 mm).

A fine, crisp impression, on BFK Rives off-white wove paper, with full margins (7/8 to 1 3/8 inch). A repaired tear (3/8 inch) in the bottom left sheet edge, well away from the image, otherwise in excellent condition. Printed by the artist. Very scarce.  

Marsh made a single trial proof of each of the eight states prior the definitive ninth state, but the design was complete in the first state. He successively added small changes in the successive states after the first; in the ninth he added shading lines in the lower left part of the girder at the left, and some additional shading to the left of the man standing at the far left. In his notes he mentioned that two of the prints among the thirteen he printed in the ninth state were “defective”, so the actual number of prints in the “edition” was surely fewer than 13 (and of course Marsh’s estimates of estate size were frequently off; he typically noted that the number of impressions in the final state was more than it actually was).

A painting by the artist of the same subject is in the permanent collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.; a drawing of the subject is in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard. The title refers to the Bowery dwellers’ intoxication from cheap alcohol, popularly called “smoke.”

Albrecht Dürer (1471 – Nuremberg – 1528), The Adoration of the Magi 1511, woodcut; 295 x 221 mm, Bartsch.3; Meder 208 b (of i); Schoch, Mende and Scherbaum 225

watermark: bull’s head and flower and initials JZ (Meder 70)

provenance

Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, Klein-Oels, Silesia (Lugt 2669);

his sale, C.G. Boerner, Leipzig, May 2-3, 1932, lot 382; 750 Marks to Guiot

Gabriel Cognacq, Paris (Lugt 538d);

his sale, M. Rousseau, Drouot, Paris, May 21, 1952, lot 105; 34,000 francs

P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London (stock no. 28704)

Richard Zinser, Forest Hills, NY

thence by descent

N.G. Stogdon, cat. VIII: German and Netherlandish Woodcuts of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, 1991-92, no. 34

The print was made the same year Dürer published another version on this subject in the cycle of the Life of the Virgin (Meder 199; this latter print was actually executed earlier in ca. 1501-03). The 1511 version is slightly larger than the blocks in the series and it was clearly intended as a separate single-leaf print. Therefore, it presents an excellent opportunity to observe the remarkable artistic development between the two treatments of the same subject: Dürer brings a greater clarity and monumentality to the individual forms as well as to the whole composition. Ultimately, he redefines the traditional devotional image within a new artistic form.

Meder’s states (a) and (b) differ only in the watermark; Dürer seemed to have used paper with a high crown watermark (Meder 20) for part of his earliest edition of this print and even his state (a) already shows first traces of a fine vertical crack in the block at top and bottom; as described by Meder under (a), this crack is hardly noticeable in the present impression.

A very fine impression; the borderline visible all round; glue marks stemming from an old album mount visible only on the verso, otherwise in excellent condition.

Jacques Lipschitz (1891-1973), Lutteurs (Fighters), etching, aquatint, burin, c. 1940, signed in pencil lower right and numbered 8/33 lower left, from the presumed edition of 33. In very good condition, with margins (slight soiling in margins) printed on a cream wove paper. 13 3/4 x 9 15/16, the sheet 18 1/2 x 13 inches.

A fine, strongly printed impression, in black ink on medium weight ivory/cream laid paper.

An impression of this print in the collection of the University of Virginia Museum of Art, from the T. Catesby Jones Collection, is titled: The Road to Exile.

Lipschitz has worked this plate in sculptural terms: the etched lines are bitten deeply, the engraved lines are cut vigorously, and the aquatint is drawn in effective contrasts against a deep black background, so that the printmaking itself heightens the drama of the composition.

Lipschitz, born in Druskeniki, Polish Lithuania, began his art studies at Vilna but went to Paris in 1909 to study at the famed Academy Julian, and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He focused on sculpture; was influenced by Archipenko, African sculpture, and of course Cubism; became a close friend of Juan Gris and an admirer of Rodin. While in Paris he explored printmaking at Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17. (Hayter, a British painter-printmaker, had established a workshop in Paris in 1927 where he taught classes in etching and engraving to artists interesting in printmaking, and provided facilities for established artists such as Picasso, Ernst, Calder, Chagall, Giacometti, as well as Lipschitz. In 1940 he moved the workshop to New York.) In 1941, after Hitler’s army occupied France Lipschitz escaped to the United States, where after a short time he resumed his connection with Hayter, completing his very few intaglio prints (probably only about 7 in all) which were rich and inventive studies and variations in Cubist volume, mostly related to the theme of the Minotaur, a subject he also explored in his sculpture.

John Sloan (1871-1951), Sunbathers on the Roof, etching, 1941, signed and titled in pencil, from the edition of 175 published by the American College of Print Collectors, in good condition (old hinging top edge verso, a scratch verso not showing through). Reference: Morse 307. 6 x 7, the sheet 8 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches.

A fine clear impression, printed on an ivory laid paper, with full margins with deckle edges.

Sloan wrote of this print: “In the spring as the rays grow warmer, the tenement roofs in New York begin to come to life. More washes are hung out – gay colored underthings flap in the breezes, and on Saturdays and Sundays girls and men in bathing togs stretch themselves on newspapers, blankets or sheets in the sun, turning over at intervals like hotcakes.”

Howard Cook (1901-1980), Financial District, lithograph, 1931, signed and dated in pencil lower right and numbered 75 lower left. Reference: Duffy 155, from the stated edition of 75. In very good condition, with full margins, 13 3/8 x 10 3/8, the sheet 18 3/8 x 13 7/8 inches.

A fine impression, printed on cream wove paper.

Cook’s lithographs were made in collaboration with famed printer George Miller. Nearly half of Cook’s entire print output was done in the period from 1928-1931, including most of his iconic images of New York.

Edouard Manet

1832 – Paris – 1883

Les Courses a Longchamps– The Races at Longchamps 1864

lithograph on chine appliqué;

chine: 404 x 517 mm (15 7/8 x 20 5/16 inches)

Moreau-Nélaton 85; Guérin 72; Wilson-Bareau (1977) 66; Wilson-Bareau (1978) 76; Fisher 56; Harris 41 second state (of three)

provenance

Robert M. Light & Co., Inc., Boston

Carolyn and George Rowland, Boston (acquired in 1972)

Paul Sachs in his Modern Prints and Drawings asks: “Why is this scribble, done in fever heat, important enough to reproduce? Because an impression of a shifting scene has rarely, if ever, been better rendered in black and white; because the excitement of the race track is made so vivid that we want to shout and bet on the winner; because the significance of movement is stressed; and finally because there is present in the skillful rendering of the agitated scene a quality that is of importance in a work of art: complete consistency of treatment.

Ellison Hoover (1888-1955), Midnight Manhattan, lithograph, c. 1930, signed in pencil lower right. From the edition of 50. In very good condition, with full margins, 10 7/8 x 8 5/8, the sheet 13 x 11 inches.

A fine impression of Hoover’s most iconic image, printed on a cream wove paper.

An atmospheric, and possibly slightly romanticized vision of mid-town Manhattan, with the Chrysler Building clearly recognizable toward the left, and the Empire State Building at the right.

Armin Landeck (1905-1984), Manhattan Vista, drypoint, 1934, signed and dated in pencil lower right and inscribed “Ed 100”  lower right. Reference: Kraeft 47, only state, stated edition of 100. In very good condition, with full margins, 10 1/8 x 8 7/8, the sheet 13 7/8 x 12 1/4 inches.

A fine impression, printed on a cream wove paper.

Landeck wrote of this print: “Detail [lower left] from my lithograph, View of New York [K. 37, 1932).

Martin Lewis (1881-1962) Night in New York, drypoint, 1932, signed in pencil lower right [also signed in the plate in a rectangle lower right]. Reference: McCarron 102, from the edition of 125 (another 10 impressions were reserved for the artist). In very good condition, with full margins, 8 3/8 x 8 7/8, the sheet 13 1/8 x 11 5/8 inches.

A presentation print of the Chicago Society of Etchers, with their blindstamp lower left.  The edition was printed by Charles S. White.

A fine impression, printed in black ink on cream laid paper.

New York was a central subject matter for Lewis; in Night in New York he depicts a typical New York young women – perhaps not distractingly attractive, but that was never a concern of Lewis’s – and by focusing on a single figure captures both the excitement, and the loneliness, of the city.

Louis Lozowick (1892-1973), New York, lithograph, c. 1925, signed and dated 1923 in pencil. Reference: Flint 6. In excellent condition, the full sheet with deckle edges, printed on a cream wove BFK Rives paper (with the watermark initials BFK); 11 3/8 x 8 15/16, the sheet 15 3/4 x 11 1/4 inches. Margins: left 1 3/8, bottom 2 1/8, right 1, top 2 3/8 inches. One of approximately 15 known impressions.

A fine fresh impression of this great rarity.

Flint (1982) lists an impression in the National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian) but lists no other institutions holding this print; an impression was given to the British Museum in 1993 (and it served as the cover print for the catalog of their major exhibition The American Scene, The British Museum Press, 2008).

“New York” is a cubist/futurist vision of the city Lozowick conceptualized while in Europe during the period from 1920-24.  “New York” is a composite of recollected views – the Brooklyn Bridge is at the lower left; much was  recalled, according to Lozowick, from trips on the elevated line on West 109th Street made when attending the National Academy of Art during the years 1912-15; the buildings and the elevated subway cars at the right are treated in what Lozowick called a “futurist technique.”

British Museum curator Stephen Coppel, in The American Scene catalog, calls “New York” “Lozowick’s most important print,” expressing his “utopian vision of New York as the ultimate symbol of the modern American city.”

Lozowick was of course influential in developing the American School of Precisionism, even while he was in Europe in the early ’20’s, and then later when he returned to the U.S.  In his essay on the Americanization of Art, written in the late ’20’s, he famously noted that the “artist who confronts his task with original vision and accomplished craftsmanship, will note with exactitude the articulation, solidity and weight of advancing and receding masses, will define with precision the space around objects and between them; he will organize line, plane and volume into a well knit design…and weave organically into every composition an all pervading rhythm and equilibrium.”

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), The Large Pool (Wapping, The Pool), etching and drypoint, 1879, signed with the butterfly on the tab, [also signed with the butterfly in the plate, lower left]. References: Kennedy 174, Glasgow 180, Glasgow’s eighth state (of 8), In excellent condition, trimmed by the artist on the plate mark except for the tab, 7 1/2 x 11 inches.

Provenance:

Edward James

Robert Light & Co., Boston, then to Carolyn Crossett Rowland in April, 1988.

Printed in dark brownish/black ink on cream/ivory laid paper with the Arms of Amsterdam watermark.

A very fine impression of this extremely rare print, signed in pencil with the early large shaded butterfly (butterfly of 1879). This print was not published; the Whistler Etchings Project at Glasgow has identified 13 impressions.

The Large Pool shows the Pool of London at Wapping, the scene of several prints of the Thames done some twenty years earlier. In composition it anticipates the etchings Whistler was about to do in Venice.

According to the Glasgow catalogue Whistler apparently had a high regard for this plate, as evidenced by the care he took with selection of papers and printing of various states, and by correspondence regarding the plate; and he may have hoped it would help him avert bankruptcy.  But it did not (and indeed he gave one impression to James Waddell, the accountant involved in the bankruptcy proceedings); in the end no edition of the print was made.

Felicien Rops (1833-1898), Paniconography (Pornography), etching, drypoint, soft-ground etching, c. 1880, signed and titled in pencil lower right, and signed again toward the bottom of the sheet. References: Exteens 764, Revens and Amiel 210. In good condition, the full sheet (some soft handling folds, slight soiling, toning), with full margins, 8 1/2 x 6 1/4, the sheet 18 x 11 5/8 inches.  Printed in black ink on an ivory/tan wove paper with the watermark MBM.

A fine impression of a woman perched atop a centaur, plus a few sketches of faces in the upper left. As usual, Rops utilizes his vast talent as a draftsman in the service of a far-flung pornographic image.

Paniconograhy is rarely seen on the market, perhaps for obvious reasons; the last recorded sale we could find at auction was at Christie’s London in December 1992 (sold for 440L or $685).

Note: this print will be sold unmatted.

Charles Meryon (1821-1868), Tourelle Rue de Tixeranderie, etching, 1852. References: Schneiderman 24, 2-3rd state (of 5); Delteil 29, 2-3rd  state (of 5). In very good condition, printed in browish/black ink on a bluish laid paper. In very good condition, with full margins, 9 5/8 x 5 1/8, the sheet 12 5/8 x 8 inches.

Provenance:

Knoedler (with their stock number K5360 verso0

Kennedy Galleries (with their stock number a 48762 verso)

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

A fine fresh impression.

In the Schneiderman’s fourth state (and Delteil’s IV and V) the inscription was added below.  This impression corresponds to Schneiderman’s illustration of State 2, but “random scratches in the sky and on the walls of the house” are not apparent, and it also seems the small gaps described as filled in in State 3 are indeed filled in.

This house stood at the corner of the rue de Coq; it was demolished in 1851, so Meryon made preparatory drawings of the house just in time (Meryon was trying to capture Parisian scenes and structures that were vulnerable to the destructive forces of modernization).  The street was mentioned in Notre-Dame de Paris as among the most interesting in the city.

Charles Meryon (1821-1868), Le Styrge (The Vampire), etching, 1853. References: Schneiderman 27, fifth state (of 10); Delteil 23, fourth state (of 8). In very good condition, with full margins, printed on a blue/green laid paper, 6 5/8 x 5, the sheet 11 x 8 5/8 inches.

Provenance:

Knoedler, New York (with their stock number K 2341)

Colnaghi, London (with their stock number c 3114)

C. W. Dowdeswell (stamp verso, Lugt 690)

A fine rich impression, with plate tone. In the next state the inscription at the bottom is removed, the plate shows signs of wear and the printing is typically less rich, with little or no tone.  In this state the print was printed by the artist himself (cf. James D. Burke, Charles Meryon, Prints and Drawings, p. 33-9)

The Stryge is one of the stone gargoyles leaning on a parapet of the upper balcony of a tower of the Notre-Dame in Paris. In a letter to his father Meryon wrote: “This monster which I have represented does exist, and is in no way a figment of imagination. I thought I saw in this figure the personification of Luxuria; it is this thought which inspired me to compose the two verses at the bottom of the print…”  The verse, in translation: “Insatiable vampire,/Eternal Luxuria/ Coveting the Great City/ As its feeding place.”

Charles Meryon (1821-1868), L’Abside de Notre Dame de Paris, etching with engraving and drypoint, 1854. References: Schneiderman 45, fourth state (of 9), Delteil 38, fourth state (of 8). In good condition, with thin area top edge, with full margins, 6 1/2 x 11 5/8, the sheet 10 5/8 x 17 inches.

Provenance:

Knoedler (with their stock number K 3025)

A very good impression, printed in dark brownish/black ink on an ivory laid paper with the HUDELIST watermark (characteristic of impressions of L’Abside in this state), printed personally by the artist.

The eminent art critic Phillipe 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.”

Martin Erich Phillip (1887-1978), Nude on Couch, 1920, etching, signed in pencil lower right and titled and numbered lower left [also initialed MEPH in the plate]. Second state (of 2). In excellent condition, printed on a heavy cream wove paper, with full margins (5 3/4 x 3 3/4, the sheet 12 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches.

A fine fresh impression, with plate tone.

In the second state the artist darkened the women’s coat and her shadow.

Austrian-born Phillip worked also in the US, where he is well-known for his color woodcuts of birds and flora; this etching obviously represents a different subject matter and printmaking approach.

Recently the eminent London dealer Emanuel Von Baeyer showed a number of Phillip’s etchings which help illuminate this aspect of his  work; Von Baeyer also wrote a short essay on the origins of Phillip’s art, comparing the work with that of Sickert (see http://www.evbaeyer-cabinet.com/current-exhibition/two-contemporaries/).

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Fish Shop, Chelsea, etching and drypoint, 1886, signed with the butterfly on the tab and inscribed imp [also signed with the butterfly in the plate upper left]. References: Kennedy 264, Glasgow 267, first state (of 2). In very good condition (slight staining upper right, trimmed by the artist on the plate mark all around except for the tab. Printed on an ivory laid paper with plate tone, 5 3/8 x 8 1/2 inches.

A limited edition of 50 impressions of Fish Shop, Chelsea was printed in 1886 for the benefit of the Society of British Artists; these were impressions of the first state.  Our impression was thus probably from that edition, although Whistler is known to have reserved about 5 impressions for himself.

A fine impression.

Provenance: Colnaghi, London (with their stock number c10570 verso).

In the relatively rare second state Whistler added drypoint lines to the woman behind the counter of the fish shop.

The etching shows Maunder’s Fish Shop among a row of shops in Chelsea.  The Glasgow catalogue notes: “Mrs Elizabeth Maunder’s fish-shop was at 72 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London. 9 The building was demolished in 1892… Whistler later lived in the house that replaced it, which was built by the architect C. R. Ashbee. The building was destroyed in World War 2. The same row of houses appears in Whistler’s oil painting Street in Old Chelsea painted in the early 1880s, where the fish-shop, with its light plastered walls and steep pitched roof, is just to left of centre.”

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 Lowell, Massachusetts – London 1903), Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 2   1876/77,   drypoint and etching on tissue-thin Chine;

plate: 224 x 152 mm (8 13/16 x 6 inches)

sheet: 364 x 272 mm (14 5/16 x 10 11/16 inches)

inscribed by Whistler in pencil at lower right: very rare_ / printed by the “Maud”_

Kennedy 171, third state (of four); Glasgow 159 third state (of six)

provenance

Howard Mansfield, New York (Lugt 1342)

Harris G. Whittemore, Naugatuck, Connecticut (Lugt 1384a)

private Collection

Notes:

A rare print before cancellation. Glasgow notes that 22 impressions have been accounted for; however, the great majority of these are from the cancelled plate.

Maud Franklin was of course Whistler’s model and mistress; she was an artist, and, as indicated here, apparently did some printing for Whistler.  It is interesting that several of the pre-cancellation proofs shown in the Glasgow catalog show very irregular wiping patterns, perhaps characteristic of an inexperienced printer (i.e., Maud).  Our impression too has been wiped irregularly, especially towards the right side and around Irving’s legs. But selective wiping is evident; the figure has been wiped rather cleanly highlighting it against a background of plate tone.

The Glasgow catalog notes that this print “is closely related to Whistler’s oil painting, Arrangement in Black, No. 3: Sir Henry Irving as Philip II of Spain [y187], painted in 1876. Another version of the same drypoint is Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 1 [G 158].   Henry Irving (1838-1905) was an actor, the subject of many portraits and paintings. 

Detail – Whistler’s inscription; Mansfield and Whittmore marks showing through

Anders Zorn (1860-1920), Augustus Saint Gaudens II (Saint Gaudens and his Model), etching,  1897, signed in pencil lower right [also titled, initialed, dated in the plate]. References: Asplund 114, only state; Hjert and Hjert 74, Schubert-Soldern 85. In very good condition (upper margin edge as if taken from a notebook), with margins, 5 1/2 x 7 7/8, the sheet 8 x 12 1/2 inches.

A fine impression of this rather rare print, printed in dark brownish/black ink with plate tone on an ivory laid paper with the watermark Pro Patria with initials J  L & Z.

This portrait of  Saint Gaudens (1848-1907) shows the artist with his seductively posed model who is surely Davida Johnson Clark, the beautiful young model by whom he had a child.

Albrecht Durer (1471 – Nuremberg – 1528)

Saint Christopher facing right    1521

engraving; 119 x 74 mm (4 11/16 x  2 15/16 inches)

Bartsch 52; Meder 52 a (of d); Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum 94

provenance
Wilhelm August Ackermann, Lübeck and Dresden (Lugt 791);
his sale, Rudolph Weigel, Leipzig, March 29ff., 1853, lot 138, described as
Kostbarster Druck und mit 11 Lin. breitem Rande.; sold for 7 Thaler 15 to
Gabriel von Cronstern III, Nehmten (cf. Stogdon, p. 357);
their sale (“a German Family of Title”, part 2), Christie’s, London, June 18, 1992, lot 56
Robert M. Light & Co., Inc., Santa Barbara
Carolyn and George Rowland, Boston

A superb impression in impeccable condition, with generous margins all round.

The silvery tones of this impression are characteristic of Dürer’s prints of the 1520s. In the engravings as well as the woodcuts (such as The Last Supper, 1523) made during this late part of his career, the artist began to replace the often dramatic black-and-white contrasts of his earlier prints with a wide range of subtle gradations of gray.

p

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Gants de Suede, lithograph, 1890, signed in pencil with the butterfly lower left [also with the artist’s butterfly signature in the plate].  Reference: Spink, Stratis and Tedeschi 35. In good condition, with slight evidence of pale mat staining, pinhole toward bottom edge.   8 1/2 x 4 1/8, the sheet 12 1/2 x 8 3/16 inches.

Provenance:

Kennedy Galleries, with their stock number (a23958) recto.

Estate of Marie D. Powers (acquired from above, 1974)

A fine lifetime impression.

Printed on a cream laid paper with the watermark IV, Spink et al’s Watermark number 191 (IV countermark to Seven Provinces, nos. 273,274), identified as a lifetime watermark characteristic of the pre-publication lifetime impressions of Gants de Suede.

Gants de Suede is a portrait of Whistler’s sister-in-law, Ethel Birnie Philip. Whistler was apparently pleased with this lithograph, for after a small number of impressions were printed he agreed that it could be published by The Studio, an art magazine that had recently been launched. The present impression is before this larger edition.

Spink et al note: “By manipulating several lithographic crayons, Whistler achieved a range of subtle tonalities and a convincing sense of the figure’s plasticity in Gants de suede. These qualities were most fully realized in the impressions Thomas Way printed by hand from the original stone.”

Whistler – Becquet

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Becquet, 1859, etching, printed in dark brown on ivory wove paper. Signed in pencil with the butterfly lower margin, and signed with the butterfly and inscribed by the artist “Very fine proof” and with the tiny circle device (the artist’s marking of a fine proof) verso.  In very good condition, remains of prior hinging verso. References: Glasgow 62, sixth state (of 6), Kennedy 52, fourth state (of four); Lochnan 55, included in the Thames Set, 10 x 7 5/8, the sheet 11 3/4 x 9 1/4 inches.

Provenance

Howard Mansfield (Lugt 1342, two stamps verso)

Harris Whitmore (Lugt 1384a, stamp verso)

E.R. Martin, New York (pencil initials verso, not in Lugt)

Charles C. Cunningham, Jr., Boston (not in Lugt, stamp verso)

R.M. Light and Co., Boston

acquired: Carolyn Crossett Rowland, from above, 1980

Kennedy Galleries (with their stock number verso, a27047)

A very fine, rich impression; given its exceptional quality probably printed apart from the Thames Edition.

Another impression in this state signed and with the artist’s inscription as here is in the Freer Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the signature on the Freer impression is estimated by Glasgow to be of 1890.

Whistler titled the plate The Fiddler when he published it as part of the Thames Set in 1871. It is one of the two non-Thames subjects included in the set (the other is The Forge, Kennedy 68). The print shows the French sculptor and musician Just Becquet (1829–1907), a friend of the artist who, according to Joseph Pennell’s Whistler Journal, lived in his studio among “disorder and his cello” (quoted after Lochnan, p. 104).

The plate on which the portrait was drawn had previously been used for an oblong view of West Point which a friend of Whistler brought to him for his opinion; stacked muskets and other paraphernalia can still be seen toward the lower edge of this print.

Verso: Cunningham stamp; Whistler butterfly and inscriptions

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Becquet, 1859, etching, printed in black on very thin Japan paper (the sheet has various condition problems and is laid down on wove paper). References: Glasgow 62, fourth state (of 6; this impression is pictured in the Glasgow catalogue for the fourth state), Kennedy 52, second state (of four); Lochnan 55, 9 ¾ x 7 ½, the sheet 10 ½ x 8 inches.

Provenance

Knoedler & Co., New York (their stock no. in pencil on the verso MK31679)

An early impression of this print. This proof precedes those published in the Thames Set (the first printing of this Set was in the fifth state, a later printing in the 1870’s in the sixth state.  In states after the fourth the foul biting at the bottom of the plate was cleaned.

Whistler titled the plate The Fiddler when he published it as part of the Thames Set in 1871. It is one of the two non-Thames subjects included in the set (the other is The Forge, Kennedy 68). The print shows the French sculptor and musician Just Becquet

(1829–1907), a friend of the artist who, according to Joseph Pennell’s Whistler Journal, lived in his studio among “disorder and his cello” (quoted after Lochnan, p. 104).

“The plate on which the portrait was drawn had previously been used for an oblong view of West Point which a friend of Whistler

brought to him for his opinion; stacked muskets can still be seen at the lower right corner of this print”.

$3500

James Whistler (1834-1903), Nocturne: Palaces, etching and drypoint with plate tone, 1879-80, signed with the butterfly on the tab and inscribed “imp.” Also with a second butterfly in pencil verso, and the artist’s tiny circle device (signifying a selected proof).  Reference: Glasgow 200, twelfth state (of 12), Kennedy 202, ninth state (of 9). From the Twenty-Six Etchings,  the Second Venice Set. In very good condition (scattered light foxing verso, not visible recto), on laid paper (trimmed by the artist to the platemark except for the tab), 11 3/4 x 7 7/8 inches.

Watermark: Coat of Arms of Amsterdam

Provenance:

Kennedy Galleries (with their stock number a53836 verso

Ch. E. Ellingwood (Lugt 822, verso)

A superb, luminous impression, printed in brown ink, carefully wiped to darken the water in the canal in the foreground and the sky toward the top.

It is rather unusual for Whistler to sign his prints verso (as well as recto); this is sometimes considered evidence of a selected proof, as is his adding of one or more tiny circles. Of course Whistler was a practiced marketer, so such added markings are not always indicative of anything; and in any case they are quite unnecessary as proof of the quality of this impression.

In this state, in the words of the Glasgow catalogue, “considerable shading is added to the left side of the image, most notably: on the sky between the left and centre palaces and the wall of the right palace; under the eaves of the left palace; on the balcony, shadow and doorway of the left palace; on the centre palace, seen behind the bridge; around the beams eminating from the lamp; on the bridge, the shadow beneath it and its reflection; and on the reflection of the gondola.” These additions heighten the features of the palaces, the bridge, and the lamplight, which were losing focus in prior states.

Each impression of Nocturne: Palaces is different from the others, in effect a monotype, expressing different times of night or day, temperatures, effects of light. The lamp lighting the composition from within (a device borrowed from Rembrandt and also used in his Street at Saverne of 1858) is in this impression quite visible; in other impressions it is pale and nearly lost.  This impression is in some ways  comparable to an impression (also of the last state) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (pictured in Katherine A. Lochnan’s book The Etchings of James McNeill Whistler) although of course there are still substantial differences in the wiping of the plate tone. Indeed, differences in states for this print can be slight,  while differences in the wiping of the plate from one impression to another are vast.

Margaret MacDonald in her classic Palaces in the Night: Whistler in Venice amplifies:  “Nocturne: Palaces was a daring plate: difficult to print, relying heavily on the quality of the ephemeral drypoint lines…in the best impressions it is the inking of the plate that coordinates and unifies the widely dispersed lines of shading. The linear pattern of marks is unusual and the inking makes each print unique.”

Claude – The Country Dance, Small Plate

Claude Gellee, called Le Lorrain (1600-1682), The Country Dance, Small Plate, etching, c. 1637. Reference: Manocci 19, fourth state B (of seven). In very good condition, trimmed on or outside of the platemark, 5 3/8 x 7 3/4 inches.

Watermark: Pascal Lamb (Manocci watermark no. 19)

A fine lifetime impression, printed with a subtle layering of plate tone.

The first state of The Country Dance, with three goats in the foreground left, is known in only one impression (in the British Museum). The second state, with the goats burnished out, is also unique (collection: Oxford). In the third state, lines in the sky were burnished out, and in the fourth state (A) the plate corners have been rounded; in the fourth state (B) a long broken scratch runs through the highest of the three birds. In the fifth state, after our impression, the plate was entirely re-worked – a village has replaced the forest scene at the left, foliage in the lower left corner was reduced. The sixth and seventh states are posthumous.

Claude made his etchings as original works, with preparatory drawings; the preparatory drawing for The Country Dance is incised for transfer (at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). The theme of a country dance was used by Claude throughout his life, appearing in the closely related etching La Danse Villageoise (M. 20), and also in several drawings and paintings.

Claude, The Country Dance – detail

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

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778), Piramide di Caio Costio Vicino alla Porta S. Paolo (Pyramid of Gaius Cestius near Porta S. Paolo), etching, 1745,  signature lower left. Amidei, 1745. Focillon 110, Wilton-Ely 54. From the First Edition of Varie Veduti di Roma Anticha e Moderna. In very good condition, with wide margins, marginal soiling and slight fraying left edge well outside of image, ink number upper right outside of plate mark.

A fine fresh impression; monumental in scope although in a small-scale format (5 x 7 inches). With margins (sheet is 8 7/8 x 13 inches).

The first edition is before the numbers (Tom II. pag 19) upper left and the number upper right (72) as pictured in Wilton-Ely (his illustration is from the Venuti edition of this plate, published in 1763).

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 Pantheon (Interior View of the Pantheon), etching, 1756. First Edition, from the series Le Antichita Romane, Bouchard e Gravier 1756. References: Focillon 172, Wilton-Ely 307.  In excellent condition, 5 1/2 x 10 1/2, the sheet 10 1/2 x 15 5/8 inches.

A fine impression, printed on a cream laid paper (with the watermark double circle with fleur de lys and initials CB, Robison’s watermarki 33, as found in presentation volumes of the Vedute).

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.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778),  etching, Veduta Interna Del Pronao del Pantheon, 1756, First Edition, from the series Le Antichita Romane, Bouchard e Gravier 1756. Reference: Focillon 171, Wilton-Ely 306.  In very good condition, with full margins, 5 1/4 x 8, the sheet 8 3/4 x 12 3/4 inches.

A fine delicately printed impression printed on medium cream laid paper.

An interior view of the porch of the Pantheon.

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.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Le Balcon sur la Mer, engraving, 1923, signed in pencil lower right and numbered (49/57) [also initialed in the plate lower right]. Reference: Sylvain Laboureur 274, third state (of 3), from the total printing in all states of about 75. In very good condition, the full sheet, 77 7/8 x 8 1/4, the sheet 18 7/8 x 12 inches.

Provenance: Henri M. Petiet (cf. Lugt 2021a, with his stamp verso)

A fine impression of this iconic Laboureur print, printed in black on a greenish laid paper, with unidentified initials watermark.

This composition is said to depict the wife of the artist, at the balcony of their house at Croisic. But although Laboureur here depicts his wife looking out the window of their house, he has also adopted a motif made famous earlier by Picasso (e.g., Nature Morte Devant une Fenetre, 1919), and earlier by Matisse in countless compositions of wrought-iron balconies looking out through a window on the sea, with and without women standing in front of them. Laboureur’s composition was used, in reproduction, on postcards advertising exhibits in Boston and Paris, and the print has been shown in dozens of exhibitions in France, London, and the U.S.

Martin Lewis – Tree, Manhattan

Martin Lewis (1881-1962), Tree, Manhattan, drypoint, 1930, signed in pencil lower right [also signed in the plate lower left]. Reference: McCarron 87, only state; 91 recorded impressions including 10 trial proofs; intended edition 100. In excellent condition, with full margins, 12 5/8 x 9 3/4, the sheet 16 1/4 x 13 1/4 inches.

A very fine fresh impression, printed in black ink on a cream laid paper.

Tree, Manhattan is a tour de force print demonstrating Lewis’s mastery of drypoint. Hues range from the rich black of the figures in the lower left to the near-white of the fire and the windows in the buildings in the background. The sky is a variegated pattern of intricate cross-hatchings, so it is always alive; a searchlight cuts through the sky toward the left. The great tree is bare, its branches filling the sky; somehow clotheslines have been attached to high reaches of its trunk, thereby tying the tree to its Manhattan empty lot setting.

Margin Lewis, Tree, Manhattan -detail

Feininger, Wagon Crossing a Bridge

Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956), Wagon Crossing a Bridge (Wagen auf einer Brucke), woodcut, c. 1941, signed in pencil lower left, with the artist’s work number lower center (1867). Reference: Prasser W 82, only state.  In very good condition, with margins, 3 1/2 x 4 3/4, the sheet 4 7/8 x 6 7/8 inches.

A fine fresh proof impression of this intricate cubist composition, printed in black ink on a thin Japan wove paper.

Prasser notes a few proofs, on various papers, some unsigned. This print was included as No. 5 of the portfolio Ten Woodcuts by Lyonel Feininger, 1941, edition of 30; as with many of his small woodcuts, Feininger also used this as a letterhead.  The edition was printed on thin laid paper; it is clear that this is a proof, on a paper typically used by Feininger for proofs.

Provenance: ex Collection: Dr. Ferrand Whaley Hudig (1883-1937, Netherlands), distinguished professor of art history and museum curator,  Amsterdam.  I am grateful to Jean-Francois Deslarzes, grandson of Dr. Hudig, for this attribution.

Feininger, Wagon Crossing a Bridge, the full sheet

Whistler – La Vieille aux Loques

James Whistler (1834-1903), La Vieille aux Loques, etching and drypoint, 1858. [signed in the plate with the reverse s], 8 1/8 x 5 3/4 inches.  Kennedy 21 first state (of three); Glasgow 27 second state (of 4).  In very good condition. Watermark: foolscap

Provenance:

Jules Gerbeau, Paris (Lugt 1166);

his sale, Strölin, Paris, May 25–27, 1908 (Lugt mentions a “belle série” of Whistler prints in this sale)

Kennedy Galleries, New York (their stock no. in pencil on verso a45616)

Howard Mansfield, New York (Lugt 1342)

Harris G. Whittemore, Naugatuck, Connecticut (Lugt 1384a)

A fine, rich impression of this early proof, before various shading and hatching lines and the name and address of the printer Delatre are added (in the Kennedy second state, Glasgow third state) for publication in the French Set.

La Vieille aux Loques is exceedingly rare in this state, i.e., prior to publication.  The Glasgow census indicates no early proofs among major Whistler collections (e.g., Chicago, Baltimore, British Museum, Bibliotheque Nationale, Colby, Boston MFA, Fogg, Freer, Hunterian, Cleveland, MMA ), with the exception of the NYPL Avery Collection (second state, cited by Kennedy), and the Library of Congress (first state, not known to Kennedy). The print is not rare in the third or fourth states.

La Vieille aux Loques was published in the later third state in Douze eaux-fortes d’après Nature (Twelve Etchings from Nature, the ‘French Set’) in 1858.

The composition, probably etched in Paris, is of course related to his other doorway or interior etchings such as The Rag Pickers, La Marchande de Moutarde, and The Kitchen, and, as Lochnan has pointed out, relates to a tradition in Dutch art of compositions framed by doorways, and later paintings by Francois Bonvin (1817-1887), Charles Jacque (1813-1894), and Jean Baptiste Millet (1831-1906).

La Vieille aux Loques – verso

Whistler Rag Pickers, third state (of 5)

James A.M. Whistler (1834-1903), The Rag Gatherers (Rag Pickers, Quartier Mouffetard, Paris); etching, 1858.  6 3 1/2 inches, in very good condition.

Kennedy 23 third state (of five) – this impression mentioned; Glasgow third state (of 5) – this impression mentioned.

signed in pencil at lower left corner of the sheet Whistler [also signed, with the reverse s, in the plate]

Printed in dark brownish/black on a cream laid paper; watermark: letters LVG pendant to a coat of arms (probably with Strasbourg lily)

Provenance:

Kennedy Galleries, New York (their stock no. in pencil on verso a37141)

Howard Mansfield, New York (Lugt 1342)

Harris G. Whittemore, Naugatuck, Connecticut (Lugt 1384a)

Together with an impression of Kennedy’s fifth (and final) state (see illustration below); Watermark: Three balls with peak of a foolscap (?)

In the first four states of Rag Pickers only shading and detailed changes are made to the  print; in the fifth state a radical change is introduced: two figures are added, a girl sitting up in bed and a boy standing near her. Lochnan suggested that Rag Pickers, Quartier Mouffetard, Paris was etched on Whistler’s return from the Rhineland in 1858, that is, after 7 October, and that the figures were added when Ralph Thomas Sr. (1803-1862), was encouraging Whistler to print his etchings in preparation for his first show of etchings in London (cf Glasgow). Most impressions known are of the final state; impressions of the third or earlier states are relatively rare. The final state was probably printed in 1861, although many impressions of the final state may be later.

This was etched in Paris, in the Mouffetard district of the Latin Quarter. The composition is of course related to his other doorway or interior etchings such as La Vielle aux Loques, La Marchande de Moutarde, and The Kitchen, and, as Lochnan has pointed out, relates to a tradition in Dutch art of compositions framed by doorways, and later paintings by Francois Bonvin (1817-1887), Charles Jacque (1813-1894), and Jean Baptiste Millet (1831-1906).

Whistler, Rag Pickers, 5th state

Whistler – Rag Pickers, third state, verso

Albrecht Dürer

1471 – Nuremberg – 1528

Die Entführung auf dem Einhorn – Abduction on a Unicorn    1516

etching; 310 x 212 mm (12 1/4 x 8 5/16 inches)

Bartsch 72; Meder 67; Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum

watermark

anchor in circle (Meder 171)

provenance:

Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Lucerne

Carl and Rose Hirschler, geb. Dreyfus, Haarlem (Lugt 633a), acquired in January 1938;

thence by descent

exhibition:

B.L.D. Ihle/J.C. Ebbinge Wubben, Prentkunst van Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, Israhel van Meckenem. Uit eene particuliere verzameling, exhibition catalogue, Museum Boijmans, Rotterdam, 1955, p. 34, no. 55

A fine impression before any rust spots; in excellent condition; trimmed within the platemark, with the borderline visible all round as well as the four rounded corners of the plate.

Albrecht Dürer

1471 – Nuremberg – 1528

Der Liebesantrag – The Ill-Assorted Couple    ca. 1495–96

engraving; 150 x 137 mm (5 7/8 x 5 7/16 inches)

Bartsch 93; Meder 77 I.b-c (of III); Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum

provenance

Gilhofer & Ranschburg, Lucerne

Carl and Rose Hirschler, geb. Dreyfus, Haarlem (Lugt 633a), acquired in August 1924;

thence by descent

exhibition

B.L.D. Ihle/J.C. Ebbinge Wubben, Prentkunst van Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, Israhel van Meckenem. Uit eene particuliere verzameling, exhibition catalogue,Museum Boijmans, Rotterdam, 1955, p. 17, no. 22

A very good impression, showing the vertical scratch in front of the horse but not the one above the head of the man; in excellent condition with the platemark visible all round.

Félix Buhot

1847 Valogne – Paris 1898

Le Peintre de marine –The Seascape Painter, c. 1879

etching on laid paper; 129 x 207 mm (5 1/8 x 8 2/8 inches)

with the artist’s stamp (Lugt 977) in the lower margin of the plate below the image

Bourcard/Goodfriend 146 third state (of four)

provenance

possibly Henrietta Buhot (there are two pencil inscriptions on the recto and verso: coll. HB)

private collection, France;

its sale, Paul Renaud, Paris, October 25, 1985, lot 55 (a detail of this print illustrated on the cover of the catalogue; the impressions in this collection of prints by Buhot were all stamped on the verso with a triangular blue stamp with the letters fb; not in Lugt)

A superb, rich impressions of this rare print; on a pristinely preserved sheet with wide margins (deckled edges at right and below).

Martin Lewis (1881-1962), Glow of the City– – 1929, Drypoint

McCarron 77. Edition 110, including 4 trial proofs. Signed in pencil. Annotated Trial Proof No 2 in pencil and numbered 2 at the bottom right sheet edge.Signed in the plate, lower right.

Image size 13 3/4 x 9 7/8 inches (350 x 251 mm); sheet size 17 5/8 x 12 7/8 inches (448 x 327 mm).

A superb, richly inked, luminous impression, in dark brown ink, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 3/4 to 1 7/8 inches).

Lewis, here at the height of his technical virtuosity, has created a beautifully nuanced image, at once dramatic and intimate. Awarded the Print Club of Philadelphia’s Charles M. Lea Prize in 1930, many consider this to be the artist’s most important work.

“The dark steeple beyond the tenements rose from a church that once stood at the Manahattan entrance of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. The Art Deco skyscraper in the distance with illuminated upper floors, is the 1929 Chanin Building, designed by Slaon and Robertson, which stands at the corner of Forty-second Street and Lexington Avenue…The Chanin building had a very dramatic impact on the New York City skyline because it did not yet compete with taller neighbors like the Chrysler Building, completed in 1930.” –McCarron

Collections: ACM, AIC, AMP, BMNY, BPL, CAM, CU, DIA, LC, MAC, MMA, MOMA, NAM, NGA, NMAA, OC, PMA, SU, YU.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Le Diner Chez le Bistro, engraving, 1923, signed in pencil lower left, numbered (9/60) and inscribed “imp” lower right [also with the monogram and date lower left in the plate]. Reference: Laboureur 255, second state (of 2), from the edition of 60, the total printing was 74. In excellent condition, the full sheet with full margins, printed on a white wove paper (watermark “J Perrigo”). 6 1/4 x 5 1/2, the sheet 11 x 8 15/16 inches.

A fine impression, printed by the artist personally, with a subtle veil of plate tone.

Sylvain Laboureur notes that this plate evokes an image of the artist and his wife in a bistro on the rue Saint-Jacques.

$4500

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Le Diner a L’Auberge, 1917-1922), engraving, signed in pencil lower left and numbered (45/55) lower right. Reference: Sylvain Laboureur 173, second state (of 2). In excellent condition, with full margins, 8 x 6 3/4, the sheet 11 3/4 x 9 3/4 inches.

A fine impression, printed in black ink on a cream wove paper.

In the second state the figure of the woman is adjusted so that she holds the hat pin appended to her hat. Proofs of the first state were pulled in 1917;  a numbered edition of 55 impressions in the second state were printed in 1922.

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), La Marchande de Violettes, etching, 1914, signed in pencil lower left and numbered (33/35) lower right [also signed and dated in the plate lower right].  Reference: Sylvan Laboureur 132, only state, from the edition of 35.  Printed in black ink on a greenish tinged laid ledger paper (with a V watermark), with the ledger lines still showing (visible on the right and left platemarks), in excellent condition, the full sheet with wide margins, 10 1/2 x 8 3/4, the sheet 18 1/16 x 12 1/2 inches.

A very fine impression, on this unusual paper, particularly effective given the contrast of the black ink and greenish tinge of the paper.

La Marchande de Violettes is one of the early  – and among the most striking and successful – cubist-influenced prints Laboureur created in the period 1913-14.

$8000

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Le Cafe du Commerce, etching, 1913, signed in pencil lower left and numbered lower right 28/35 [also with the signature and date in the plate]. Reference: Godefroy 126, Sylvain Laboureur 126, only state. From the edition of 35; there were also 4 artist proofs. In excellent condition, with full margins and deckle edges, 11 3/4 x 13 1/2, the sheet 15 1/4 x 19 7/8 inches. On a heavy cream/ivory wove paper.

A fine impression of Laboureur’s great Cubist masterpiece, printed with a subtle veil of plate tone.

Provenance: Henri M. Petiet (with his oval ink stamp verso, cf. Lugt 2021a)

Le Cafe du Commerce represents Laboureur’s early adaptation of the cubist idiom to his own purposes – thereby creating a modernist vision that was really all his own. The intersecting planes, the abstracted limbs and features, the triangular and circular shapes are so much intended to express volume, as in the cubism of Picasso and  Braque, as to show the movement, activity, and aesthetic underpinnings of life as he saw it here, in a cafe in Nantes, at the place du Commerce. Le Cafe represents a kind of high moment for a certain decorative direction that cubism and modernism was to take. It set the standard for modernist art that did not adhere to the rigid formulations of analytic cubism but instead capitalized on its development for stylistic purposes. As Marcel LeComte noted when describing Le Cafe in a catalog of Laboureur prints: “Piece cubiste, capitale dans l’oevre de l’artiste.”

Francisco Jose de Goya (1746-1828), Mala Noche, etching and burnished aquatint, 1799,Plate 36 from the First Edition of Los Caprichos. Harris 71, Delteil 73. [titled and numbered 36 in upper right, in the plate] On soft strong laid paper, printed in warm sepia. In very good condition. With full margins, 7 1/2 x 5 1/4, the sheet 12 1/4 x 8 1/8 inches. 

A fine early impression, with the highlights on the figures contrasting brilliantly with the aquatint, a characteristic of the earliest impressions of this plate.

Goya’s commentary: Gadabout girls who don’t want to stay home, risk exposing themselves to these hardships.

Goya – Tantalo

Francisco Jose de Goya (1746-1828), Tantalo, etching and burnished aquatint, 1799, Plate 9 from the First Edition of Los Caprichos; Harris 44, Delteil 46, with the title lower margin, no. 9 upper right, on laid paper in light sepia ink. In good condition apart from scattered foxing recot, a thin spot near lower right margin edge far from image, 205 x 150 mm.

A fine balanced impression, the the two subtle aquatint tones printing quite effectively (in the later printings the stronger aquatint weakens considerably, at which point the contrasts – here quite clear – are lost).

Goya’s commentary: If he were a better lover and less of a bore, she would revive.

Roland Clark (1874-1957), Old Squaws, c. 1930,  drypoint, signed in pencil lower right, numbered (72) lower left, and titled lower center toward margin edge; from the edition of 75. In good condition, with margins (moderate light staining, remains of prior hinging upper corners), 2 3/4 x 7, the sheet 6 1/8 x 10 inches.

A fine impression of this iconic Clark composition.

Roland Clark’s grandson, Roland B. Clark, M.D., provides this biographical sketch of the artist on a website devoted to Clark’s art: “Roland Clark was born in New Rochelle, New York in 1874. He graduated from the William Kellogg School in New York City, then pursued his formal art training studying drawing and painting at the Art Students League. In the early 1920’s he began to create the etchings that were to bring him national and international acclaim. His contemporaries held him in such high regard that he was asked to create the U.S. Federal duck stamp design in 1938.

In addition to his legendary etchings he created numerous renowned oil paintings, watercolors, and aquatints. He was also a prolific writer of sporting articles, short stories, and poems. Stray Shots was his first autobiographical collection of stories and essays, published in 1931, and illustrated with thirteen original etchings. It has become one of the most valued sporting books of all time. Stray Shots was followed by the beautifully illustrated Gunner’s Dawn in 1937, and Pot Luck in 1945.”

Bror Julius Olsson NORDFELDT (American 1878 – 1955)

The Wave, Moonrise; 1906

Donovan 19. Color woodcut on thin cream laid paper.
Signed and dated in pencil, also inscribed with the number 24, upper left. In very good condition.
9 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches.

A fine impression of this rare woodcut.  Nordfeldt’s numbering system appears to be related to the total number of prints he made, not the number of impressions made of each print.

William Auerbach-Levy (1889-1964), The Traveler (also The Emmigrant, Marchant des’habits), 1920, etching with plate tone, signed in pencil lower right and inscribed “imp” [also signed and dated in the plate].  In very good condition, with margins, printed on a cream wove paper (very slight toning, remains of prior hinging verso), 8 1/4 x 6, the sheet 11 1/2 x 8 inches.

Provenance: ex Coll: Cortland Field Bishop (1870-1935) (Lugt 2770b, with his stamp verso)

A fine impression.

William Auerbach-Levy was born William Auerbach in Brest-Litovsk, Russia, on February 14, 1889. His parents adopted the surname of Levy after their arrival in the United States when William Auerbach was about five years old.

Auerbach-Levy gained notoriety both as the preeminent caricaturist of his time and as a fine and established painter and etcher. His caricatures of prominent people caused Alexander Woolcott, who wrote that, “The true gift of caricature is rare”, to rank Auerbach-Levy among the few finest exponents of the art.

His caricatures of famous people, including Charles W. Hawthorne, Franklin P. Adams, Hayward Broun, H.L. Mencken, Ring Lardner and Will Rogers, appeared during Auerbach-Levy’s lifetime in illustrations from “The New Yorker “Profiles”, “The New York Post,” “The Brooklyn Eagle,” “Colliers Magazine,” “Esquire Magazine,” “The Christian Herald” and many other preeminent publications of his time.

Other notable caricatures by Auerbach-Levy include Babe Ruth, the Shuberts, comedian Mort Sahl, lngrid Bergman and Frank Sinatra, A book of his caricatures, “Is That Me?”, was published by Watson and Guptill in 1948.

Concurrent with his caricature work, Auerbach-Levy continued in his studio work, producing many paintings and etchings, and was awarded a number of prizes in those fields.

As both a pupil and teacher at the National Academy of Design, he also studied at the Julian Academy in Paris under Jean Paul Laurens. He was a member of the American National Academy, Salmagundi Club of Chicago, and prize winner at the Detroit Jewish Center.

In 1929, he was made the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Works by Auerbach-Levy were included in the “Fifty Prints of the Year” collections of 1931 and 1933. He was winner of the Isaac N. Maynard Prize for portraiture (1925), Prize-Jewish Centre Exhibition (1926) and Prizes Chicago S.E., as well as the Isidor Prize from the Salmagundi Club; Lewis First Prize for Caricature PAFA (1927).

His works are found in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, Chicago Art Institute, Boston Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Worcester Art Museum, Honolulu Academy of Fine Ads, Print Room of the New York Public Library and the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh.

An extensive collection of his caricatures, paintings, drawings and etchings were acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., and are a part of its permanent collection.

Credit:
Falk, Peter, “Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975”

William Auerbach-Levy (1889-1964), The Troubadour, c. 1935, etching in dark brown ink with plate tone, signed in pencil lower right and inscribed “imp”, also inscribed “1st State” lower left. In very good condition, with margins, 8 1/4 x 6, the sheet 11 1/2 x 8 inches.

Provenance: ex Coll: Cortland Field Bishop (1870-1935) (Lugt 2770b, with his stamp verso)

A fine impression of this rare print.

Although inscribed 1st state we have seen another impression without the player’s right hand, and before some shading on the other hand. So this may be a second state.

This is a portrait of a young Roi Partridge, the California etcher (1888-1984), done while the two artists were roommates in Paris.

William Auerbach-Levy was born William Auerbach in Brest-Litovsk, Russia, on February 14, 1889. His parents adopted the surname of Levy after their arrival in the United States when William Auerbach was about five years old.

Auerbach-Levy gained notoriety both as the preeminent caricaturist of his time and as a fine and established painter and etcher. His caricatures of prominent people caused Alexander Woolcott, who wrote that, “The true gift of caricature is rare”, to rank Auerbach-Levy among the few finest exponents of the art.

His caricatures of famous people, including Charles W. Hawthorne, Franklin P. Adams, Hayward Broun, H.L. Mencken, Ring Lardner and Will Rogers, appeared during Auerbach-Levy’s lifetime in illustrations from “The New Yorker “Profiles”, “The New York Post,” “The Brooklyn Eagle,” “Colliers Magazine,” “Esquire Magazine,” “The Christian Herald” and many other preeminent publications of his time.

Other notable caricatures by Auerbach-Levy include Babe Ruth, the Shuberts, comedian Mort Sahl, lngrid Bergman and Frank Sinatra, A book of his caricatures, “Is That Me?”, was published by Watson and Guptill in 1948.

Concurrent with his caricature work, Auerbach-Levy continued in his studio work, producing many paintings and etchings, and was awarded a number of prizes in those fields.

As both a pupil and teacher at the National Academy of Design, he also studied at the Julian Academy in Paris under Jean Paul Laurens. He was a member of the American National Academy, Salmagundi Club of Chicago, and prize winner at the Detroit Jewish Center.

In 1929, he was made the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Works by Auerbach-Levy were included in the “Fifty Prints of the Year” collections of 1931 and 1933. He was winner of the Isaac N. Maynard Prize for portraiture (1925), Prize-Jewish Centre Exhibition (1926) and Prizes Chicago S.E., as well as the Isidor Prize from the Salmagundi Club; Lewis First Prize for Caricature PAFA (1927).

His works are found in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, Chicago Art Institute, Boston Art Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Worcester Art Museum, Honolulu Academy of Fine Ads, Print Room of the New York Public Library and the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh.

An extensive collection of his caricatures, paintings, drawings and etchings were acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C., and are a part of its permanent collection.

Credit:
Falk, Peter, “Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975”

Owen Selwyn (?), Blair Hall, Princeton, etching with plate tone, c. 1925, signed in pencil lower right. Printed in brownish/black ink on cream laid paper, in good condition (slight light staining), with margins, 8 7/8 x 6 7/8, the sheet 12 3/8 x 10 3/4 inches.

A fine impression, a well crafted etching in the British Etching Revival tradition, by an unknown (to me!) artist.

Gustave Baumann – Three Pines

Gustave BAUMANN American (1881 – 1971), Three Pines, 1925, color woodcut, signed, titled and dated 56; with the artists hand in heart stamp. Printed on cream laid paper with a tree (?) watermark, from the edition of 50 printed in 1956.  In very good condition, with full margins; 11 x 9 1/2, the sheet 17 x 14 inches.

A fine impression, the colors vivid and fresh.

This is a view of Estes Park, Colorado.

Rembrandt Harmensz. Van Rijn (1606-1669), The Baptism of the Eunuch, etching and drypoint, 1641 (signed and dated in the plate). References: Bartsch 98, Hind 182, second state (of 2); Nowell-Usticke’s second state (e) (of 4).  In good condition, trimmed on the platemark all around, 6 11/16 x 8 3/8 inches (170 x 213 mm).

A fine, clear and early impression of this lightly etched plate.

On laid paper with a Foolscap With Seven-Pointed Collar, Hinterding’s C-a-a watermark (page 256, Rembrandt as an Etcher, Catalogue of Watermarks, volume 3, page 256). Hinterding identifies a number of Rembrandt lifetime impressions with this watermark including The Omval (B. 209 ii(2),National Gallery of Art); The Blindness of Tobit (B. 42i(2) Metropolitan Museum of Art); and also a number of impressions with closely related watermarks (cf. Hinterding, op. cit., volume II, p. 140 et. seq.).

The lifetime or early dating of this impression is further substantiated since it is before the appearance of the sharp diagonal  scratch to the right of the head of the standing man, said by Nowell-Eusticke, to be introduced in the Basan impressions.  But Nicholas Stogdon, describing a “near-contemporary” impression of this print notes “According to Nowell-Usticke the sharp diagonal scratch to the right of St. Philip’s head first appears in the P.G Basan edition; this can hardly be the case as it is already present in this near-contemporary impression (the papermaker is recorded as active in the 1680’s).” (Indeed, we have found this scratch on virtually all the impressions of this print to have appeared on the market in recent years.)

The story of the baptism of the eunuch is from Acts 8:26-39. While walking along the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, St. Philip is compelled by the spirit of God to accompany the passing entourage of the Treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch serving under Candace, Queen of Ethiopia. Philip joins them and preaches to the official and his servants, and when they come to a small body of water the eunuch asks Philip to baptize him.

Francisco Goya (1746-1828), Alla Va Eso (There It Goes), etching, drypoint and aquatint, 1799, plate 66 from Los Caprichos, First Edition (of 12). References: Delteil 103, Harris 101. In very good condition, with margins, 8 1/8 x 6 1/2, the sheet 10 3/4 x 7 7/8 inches.

A very good impression. Printed in a warm sepia ink on fine quality, soft but strong laid paper.

This is printed with a fine grain aquatint, in one pale tone. The lighter areas such as the legs and stomach, arms and face of the figure in front, and the face of the cat, stand in contrast to the slightly darker aquatint elsewhere.  These contrasting areas of tone are lost in the later impressions.

In the drawing for this print Goya wrote: “Dream. A witch instructress giving a first flying lesson to her pupil” and below wrote “Witches practicing”. Goya’s commentary on this: “There goes a witch, riding on the little crippled devil. This poor devil, of whom everyone makes fun, is not without his uses at times.”

Raphael Soyer (1899-1987), The Search Party (From the Cracked Mirror), color lithograph, c. 1975, signed in pencil lower right and numbered III/XXV lower left; 22 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches. In good condition, the full sheet with margins.  With a BSA chopmark lower right.

A fine impression, printed in colors on a stiff cream wove paper.

Lozowick – Under the Bridge

Louis Lozowick (1892-1973), Under the Bridge, lithograph, 1930, Flint 75, edition 20 (10 additional impressions 1972), signed, numbered, titled and numbered 15 in pencil. A fine, rich impression from the first edition (the 1930 edition, before the 1972 edition), with full margins (11/16 to 1 5/8 inches), on cream wove paper, in excellent condition. Printed by George C. Miller. Plate cancelled. Collection: NMAA

An iconic precisionist image.

Image size 14 x 8 inches (356 x 203 mm), sheet size 15 3/4 x 11 1/4 inches (400 x  286 mm)

Camille Pissarro – Effet de Pluie, 1879, second state (of 6)

Camille Pissarro
1830 St. Thomas – Éragny-sur-Epte 1903

Effet de Pluie – Effects of Rain   1879

pure aquatint on gray Japanese paper; 160 x 215 mm (6 1/4 x 8 1/2 inches)
inscribed in pencil below imprimé par Degas pour Pisarro (sic) 1er etat

Delteil 24 second state (of six)

comparative literature
Barbara Stern Shapiro, Camille Pissarro. The Impressionist Printmaker, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 1973, nos. 15–17 (states ii, iv, and vi); second, fourth, and sixth state); Nicole Minder, Degas & Pissarro: alchimie d’un rencontre, exhibition catalogue, Cabinet Cantonal des Estampes, Musée Jenisch, Vevey/Musée du Québec/The Israel Museum, Jerusalem 1998–99, Vevey 1998, cat. nos. 38–39 (states iii and iv).

There are some corrections to the list of known impressions recorded in the reprint of Delteil: We are able to trace two impressions of the first state (Bremen and formerly with C.G. Boerner [Neue Lagerliste 123, 2007, no. 37], now Minneapolis, but not Oxford); there is a second state in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, part of the Orovida Pissarro collection, printed on grayish paper, and another in the Yale University Art Gallery; to these, this impression, previously unrecorded, has to be added; there are two impressions of the third state (private collection in Switzerland and Frankfurt); two impressions of the fourth are in private collections (Switzerland and New York), the latter like ours annotated imprimé par Degas, as well as in Oxford and Philadelphia; there is one impression of the fifth state in Berlin.

Inspired by Degas and in anticipation of the new print journal Le jour et la nuit, Pissarro took up printmaking with a new enthusiasm in 1879. Like Degas and Cassatt, he experimented widely. The heavy, card-like wove paper of this early working proof matches the paper used by Degas for prints made at the same time. In the first two states Pissarro is laying the sort of liquid aquatint ground that Bracquemond had encouraged Degas to try, fully avoiding any use of drypoint or etching as a guide (the marks on the plate are either from polishing or accidents). The artist did not begin to articulate the composition with delicate drypoint lines before the third state; by the final state, etching and vernis mou (soft-ground), a metal brush and emery paper have all been employed in creating the composition.

This is a quintessential Impressionist print in an early stage of creation.

Mary Cassatt – The Lamp

MARY STEVENSON CASSATT (1844–1926)
The Lamp, 1890–91
Drypoint, soft-ground etching, and aquatint, printed in colors, inked à la poupée, on laid paper, 12 9/16  x 9 15/16 in.

Signed and inscribed (at lower center): [artist’s monogram stamp]; (at lower right): Imprimee par l’artiste et M. Leroy / Mary Cassatt / (25 épreuves); (in a different hand, at lower right margin): La Femme a l’Eventail, sous la lampe).  Edition of 25. Fourth and final state

RECORDED: cf. Adelyn Dohme Breeskin, Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work (1979), pp. 22, 62–63 no. 144, 141 illus. in color // cf. Nancy Mowll Mathews and Barbara Stern Shapiro, Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints, exhib. cat. (Williamstown, Massachusetts: Williams College Museum of Art, 1989–90), pp. 111–15 no. 6 illus. in color

A dedicated printmaker, Mary Cassatt produced more than two hundred aquatints, etchings, drypoints, and lithographs over a period of thirty years. The Lamp is part of a series of ten color prints that she executed, with the help of M. LeRoy, a professional printer, in 1890-91. Although Cassatt frequently based prints on her earlier paintings and pastels, the ten color prints are remarkable not only for their original compositions but also for their appropriation of Japanese printmaking styles. The making of these prints was extremely labor intensive, as it relied on a combination of a number of printmaking techniques, including drypoint, etching, and aquatint. In her catalogue raisonné of Cassatt’s graphic work, Adelyn Breeskin notes: These prints were her next great triumph and one which would give her claim to fame if they were her sole accomplishment. They are indeed her most original contribution, adding a new chapter to the history of the graphic arts and, as color prints, have never since been surpassed (Breeskin, op. cit., p. 21). Moreover, Breeskin notes that this suite of prints was especially novel not only because of their japonisme, but because she gave the models themselves Japanese features. Furthermore:

In The Lamp (no. 144), the table and its ornaments are more Oriental than European. Such details are not copied. They are not even borrowed directly. They are the result of such thorough study and understanding that they are absorbed into the artist’s feeling and thought and thereby become a part of her own expression (Breeskin, op. cit., p. 22).

Though The Lamp and the other color prints Cassatt executed concurrently were revolutionary in Western art, they failed to receive correspondingly strong critical acclaim. These prints were shown, along with works by her friend Camille Pissarro, in 1891 at Durand-Ruel in Paris, and again at Durand-Ruel’s New York gallery later that year. Neither show was successful, as very few of the prints were sold. Despite these setbacks, Cassatt remained encouraged by the support of a few friends, critics, and collectors. Cassatt produced several additional color prints of advanced technique over the next few years. Today, they are considered among the finest prints in American art, a fitting tribute to Cassatt’s radical approach and determination.

Of the ten color prints Cassatt showed at the Durand-Ruel galleries, The Lamp is perhaps the one that most reveals Cassatt’s debt to Japanese prints. According to Nancy Mowll Mathews and Barbara Stern Shapiro, “this interpretation of a woman ‘at home’ is unique and may reflect the common Japanese device of showing a woman’s neck from behind, highlighting this oriental symbol of beauty” (op. cit., p. 111). The Lamp also demonstrates Cassatt’s growing mastery of the aquatint technique. The evolution of the print’s composition is slight, with only a few minor changes from the first to the fourth and final state (ibid., pp. 112-13 figs. 6-I, 6-II, 6-III, and 6-IV illus. in color). Earlier prints in her series of color aquatints required as many as seventeen states for the artist to be satisfied. In The Lamp, Cassatt, having settled on the composition early on, was able to embark on a remarkable exploration of color printing, in which she used the aquatint technique on all three plates used to make the final print. By the final state, of which the present print is an example, Cassatt had carefully reworked each color region to avoid overlap and maximize the crispness of line. The result is one of most dynamic and colorful of her series of prints, a true masterpiece in American printmaking.

John Buckland Wright (1897-1954), The Virgin and the Unicorn (large version),  wood engraving in colors, 1947, the original block and a proof, the proof titled, signed and dated lower margin. Reference: The Engravings of John Buckland Wright, edited and with an introduction by Christopher Buckland Wright, L 142. 6 1/16 x 4 1/16 inches, framed.

A fine impression of this great rarity, one of the three artist’s proofs (there was no edition), together with the block.

There was an earlier small version (Ld 155), which was rejected. The background on this print is described in Buckland Wright as follows: “Experimental prints using water or oil based inks, 3 artist’s proofs. Colour block printed in the same manner aqs for those in Andre Derain’s Pantagruel. The colours in the print are similar.  JBW wold have been informed of the details for printing from his friend the printer Lacouriere who directed the printing for Pantagruel. This colour block and prints were prepared for the Arts Council (Great Britain).”

In the 1930’s, 1940’s and early 1950’s three artists did a great deal to launch British engraving into the exciting waters of contemporary European art: the New Zealander John Buckland Wright and two Englishmen William Hayter and Anthony Gross. They all had French attachments and were quite independent of the influences of earlier and highly successful schools of British engraving. Buckland Wright helped Hayter to found his famous Atelier 17 in Paris. At this workshop, in which artists experimented at novel methods of printmaking, JBW (as became known by his initials) worked with artists such as Matisse, Chagall, Picasso, Miró, Dali. Later when teaching at the Camberwell and Slade Schools of Art, he was able to communicate to his pupils his experience of how these artists worked.

JBW’s work is characterized by the portrayal of the sensuous nude, in which the female form is depicted with grace and charm. The source for his artistic expssion has its origin in his experiences during the First World War. Having joined the Scottish Ambulance Service, he was seconded to the French Army at Verdun, the sector in which the French suffered the greatest devastation during the First World War. There he witnessed harrowing scenes of human devastation while rescuing wounded and dying men from the front line trenches. Following the war, JBW found relief in drawing the female figure that incorporated the romantic ideal of Greek philosophy into the very essence of the emotional expssion of his work. Through his art he was able to come to terms with the horrors he had experienced during the war and to restore unity and tranquillity to the devastated landscapes, to repair the damage that war had wrought on his love of nature. Once more he would fill his world with beauty of a timeless quality he had experienced in the gardens and countryside of New Zealand and England. He found his emotional renewal through his art. It was in this way that he was able to expss his fundamental belief in the renewal of life and of the human spirit and to rediscover the joy he felt as a young man in nature’s soothing beauty. [from Christopher Buckland-Wright, introduction to the catalogue for the show Master of the Burin, the Book Illustrations of John Buckland Wright, 2006]

Jacques Lipschitz (1891-1973), Leda and the Swan, 1947, etching, three states. Reference: Bibliotheque Nationale Inventaire du Fonds Francais, p. 358.  In very good condition.

Fine strong impressions of three progressive states, including the final state.

The last state of this etching was created in an edition of 50 for loose insertion in the édition de tête copies of the book Lipschitz, a monograph on the sculpture of Jacques Lipchitz from 1911 to 1945 with a prefatory essay by Maurice Raynal (Paris. Editions Jeanne Bucher. 1947. Folio. pp. 18. Monochrome frontispiece reproducing Modigliani’s portrait of Lipchitz and his wife (‘Portrait de Jacques Lipchitz et sa Femme’) and 71 monochrome plates (‘similigravure’) of sculptures by Lipchitz after photographs by Marc Vaux and Colten)

Laboureur - La Fille aux Oies, 1916

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), La Fille aux Oies, engraving, 1916, signed in pencil lower left, numbered (4/40) lower right and inscribed “imp,” also titled lower left margin edge. Reference: Sylvan Laboureur 159, second state (of 2), from the edition of 40.In very good condition, with margins (remains of prior hinging verso), 6 3/4 x 6 1/8, the sheet 11 x 8 3/4 inches.

A fine impression of this early cubist-influenced engraving.

In 1917 Apollinaire wrote to Laboureur: “Je voudrais bien avoir le portrait de femme [L. 170] et la gardienne d’oies promis.”

Donald Shaw MacLaughlin (1876-1938), Doorway of the Doges, Venice, etching with plate tone, 1909, signed bottom right [also signed and dated in the plate]. Reference: Marie Bruette 124, only state [reproduced after page 91 in the Bruette catalogue], a probable edition of c. 50. In good condition, with small margins all around, trimmed to or just inside the plate mark at the top, with a repaired area at the top. On medium laid Van Gelder Zonen paper with a partial watermark.  15 5/8 x 8 inches.

A fine impression, printed in dark brown ink, with plate tone overall but wiped selectively to focus light on the center of the composition.

Maclaughlin created a smaller version of this masterpiece in 1899, as a beginning etcher (cf. Bruette 13); he returned to the subject a decade later as a master printmaker.

Lesser Ury - Farmer Digging

Lesser Ury (German, 1861–1931), , drypoint, Grabender Bauer (Farmer Digging), c. 1920, signed in pencil lower right and numbered xxix/xxx, from the edition of 30 on Japan (another 100 were editioned on wove). Reference: Rosenbach 102, only state.  In excellent condition, printed in black on extremely thin laid Japan, with margins, 7 1/16 x 4, the sheet 10 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches.

A fine rich impression with substantial burr from the drypoint work.

Ury was born in Birnbaum, the son of a baker whose death in 1872 was followed by the Ury family’s move to Berlin. In 1878 Lesser left school to apprentice with a tradesman, and the next year he went to Düsseldorf to study painting at the Kunstakademie. Ury spent time in Brussels, Paris, Stuttgart, and other locations, before returning to Berlin in 1887.

His first exhibition was in 1889 and met with a hostile reception, although he was championed by Adolph von Menzel whose influence induced the Akademie to award Ury a prize. In 1893 he joined the Munich Secession, one of the several Secessions formed by progressive artists in Germany and Austria in the last years of the 19th century. In 1901 he returned to Berlin, where he exhibited with the Berlin Secession, first in 1915 and notably in 1922, when he had a major exhibition. By this time Ury’s critical reputation had grown and his paintings and pastels were in demand. His subjects were landscapes, urban landscapes, and interior scenes, treated in an Impressionistic manner that ranged from the subdued tones of figures in a darkened interior to the effects of streetlights at night to the dazzling light of foliage against the summer sky.

Ury is especially noted for his paintings of nocturnal cafe scenes and rainy streets. He developed a habit of repeating these compositions in order to sell them while retaining the originals, and these quickly made and inferior copies have harmed his reputation.

Always introverted and distrustful of people, Ury became increasingly reclusive in his later years. He died in Berlin and is buried in the Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weissensee. [from Wikipedia]

Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Nu, Époque du Chapeau Jaune, 1929, etching in black on grey/tan Chine-collé on heavy cream wove with deckle edges all around, signed, titled and numbered in pencil lower right [also signed and inscribed in the plate lower right]. Reference:  Duthuit 220, only state. In excellent condition, 9 7/8 x 5, the sheet 14 3/4 x 11 1/8 inches.

A fine warm impresssion.

In his small edition etchings and drypoints Matisse displayed a mastery of draftsmanship unmatched in modernist printmaking. Nu, Époque du Chapeau Jaune is a splendid example of Matisse’s genius.

Matisse – Etudes

Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Etudes, 1932, etching in black on grey/tan Chine-collé on heavy cream wove, signed and titled in pencil lower right. Reference:  Duthuit Books p. 33 (Studies for Matisse’s illustration designs for Stéphane Mallarmé’s Poésies). In very good condition, the full sheet, 9 1/2 x 5 1/2, the sheet 14 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches.

A fine impression of this rare page of studies. The sheet consists of a half-dozen nudes in various degrees of definition, and two portraits at the lower left, one a face, the other a woman in a hat and dress with a fan (in the final book the woman with the fan is featured alone in a similar posture, but in reverse).

Poetry was an important source of inspiration for Matisse, and for years he maintained the practice of reading poetry early each day before he raised a paint brush, pencil or etching needle.  In his lifetime he produced a number of illustrated books which were known as “livre d’artiste” (artist’s book);  Poésies, of 1932, with mythologically inspired images based on texts by Stéphane Mallarmé, was his first such venture.

Francisco Goya – That’s Tough – Proof

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746 Fuendetodos – Bordeaux 1828), Fuerte cosa es! – That’s tough!    ca. 1808–1814, etching, burnished aquatint, and drypoint on laid paper; 155 x 203 mm (6 1/16 x 8 inches), Harris 151.I.3 (of III.7)

watermark: Serra

provenance
Infante Don Sebastian de Borbón y Braganza
Georges Provôt, Paris;
his sale, Hôtel Drouot, April 10, 1935, lot 60
private collection, Germany

Proof impression for plate 31 of Los Desastres de la Guerra, with the earlier number 32 in the lower left corner, before additional drypoint work and border lines.

No impression of state I.1 (before the aquatint) is known and only one impression (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale) of state I.2 (before any numbers). Harris list lists eight impressions of state I.3, including this one.

Goya’s Desastres was conceived in three phases. One group depicts scenes from the famine that raged in Madrid in the winter of 1811–12 as a result of the French occupation. Another group was created between 1820 and 1823, a late addition to the set and mainly consisting of more allegorical scenes. The two prints presented here belong to the earliest and largest group of prints, etched between 1808 and 1814. These images present the most direct reflection of the effects and cruelties of the war with France.

The grim-looking mamelouck fighter is about to return his saber to its sheath. One of his fellow French soldiers tugs at the boots of one of the two corpses hanging from the tree on the right. Behind him another soldier is apparently attacking a woman. Goya’s title here can only be cynical.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746 Fuendetodos – Bordeaux 1828),  No se puede saber por qué  – One can’t tell why    ca. 1808–1814,  etching, burnished aquatint, drypoint, and burin on laid paper; 155 x 203 mm (6 1/8 x 8 inches),  Harris 155.I.2 (of III.7)

provenance

Infante Don Sebastian de Borbón y Braganza

Georges Provôt, Paris; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, April 10, 1935, lot 64

Tomás Harris, London (not in Lugt)

private collection, Germany

A fine, rich proof impression for plate 35 of Los Desastres de la Guerra, before numbers, letters, and before additional drypoint and burin work.

No impression of state I.1 (before the aquatint) is known nor are any proof impressions with numbers (Harris’ hypothetical state I.3) known. Harris lists nine impressions of state I.2, including this one.  This is a lifetime impression; the edition was published posthumously.

No less than eight convicts are about to be garroted. Each man clutches a crucifix—a sign that they have already made their last confession. Their crime—ownership of a weapon— is announced on placards hanging around their necks, alongside the weapons themselves. Many Spanish citizens were executed this way. Their crimes were not only murder and armed robbery; suspicion of espionage for the insurgents or any other support for them was sufficient to subject the accused to this cruel fate.

An impression from the First Edition is shown below, for comparison purposes (this impression is also available)

John Sloan (1871-1951), Anshutz on Anatomy, etching, 1912, signed titled and inscribed “100 proofs” by the artist, and also signed “Ernest Roth imp” by the printer. Reference: Morse 155, eighth state (of 8), from the edition of 80. In very good condition, the full sheet, printed in dark brown ink on a brown/tan wove paper, 7 1/2 x 9, the sheet 11 1/8 x 12 3/4 inches.

A fine impression.

Sloan wrote of this print: “Tom Anshutz, our old teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy, gave anatomical demonstrations of great value to art students. Modelling the muscles in clay, he would then fix them in place on the skeleton. Those present in this etched record of a talk in Henri’s New York class include: Robert and Linda Henri, George Bellows, Walter Pach, Rockwell Kent, John and Dolly Sloan.”

John Sloan can be seen at the upper right edge; George Bellows the second face left of Sloan; Henri is the older man below them and his wife Linda the woman at the lower right.  Rockwell Kent noted that “We used to paint all over the walls of the studio, and Sloan shows some of those paintings in his etching. The one bearing the initals GB is probably someone’s caricature of Bellows at that time. The one with “Glen  O” under is definitely Glen O. Coleman.”

The composition is remindful of Rembrandt’s Petite Tombe, another print depicting people listening (or supposed to be listening) – the composition as well as the subject matter have parallels. And of course this print falls into the great tradition of art illustrating anatomy lessons (again Rembrandt comes to mind, as well as Thomas Eakins, who was a great friend of Anshutz).

This print was exhibited at the famous Armory Show in New York, February, 1913.

Pissarro - Paysanne Donnant a Manger a un Enfant

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Paysanne Donnant a Manger a un Enfant, etching on zinc, 1874, signed in pencil lower right and inscribed lower left “No 1 – 1er  etat”, also titled in pencil with the added annotation “zinc”. Reference: Delteil 12, first state (of 4). In excellent condition, 4 3/4 x 4 5/8, the sheet 10 3/4 x 7 inches.

Provenance: Kennedy Galleries, NY [and with customs stamps verso]

A fine clear impression, printed in brown ink on cream wove paper, with plate tone.

Pissarro pulled 8 or 9 impressions in this first state, in 1874; 15 years later (1889)  he added several layers of aquatint, in an additional 3 states, but only made a few impressions of each of these states. In all, there are only about 12 or 13 impressions of this print known.

Steinlen - Femme de Chagrin

Theophile Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923), Femme de Chagrin, 1894, lithograph, signed in pencil lower right [also signed in the plate lower center]. Reference: Crauzat 454, first state (of two), with color added and before lettering except for the title. In very good condition apart from oil stains at edges (away from matrix), with margins, 10 3/4 x 7 1/2, the sheet 12 1/2 x 10 3/4 inches.

A fine impression with printed in rich black ink with fresh color added (au patron).

This is the first state for a music cover, a children’s lullaby (berceuse) with the title shown but before the words in the sky and additional lettering showing the names of the composer (Desire Dihau),  lyricist (Leon Durocher) and publisher (G. Ondet).

The first state consisted of 100 proofs according to Crauzat: 20 on Japon,  40 on Chine, and the remainder on velin such as this impression; lettering was added in the second state. Coloring was done “au patron”, i.e., according to a pattern, or stenciled (the French patron can mean pattern, although this is not the first meaning of the term, i.e., see below).

Tim Hanford, Steinlen expert and compiler of the fine Steinlen website, has a different interpretation of the term “au patron,”, which probably should be given more credibility than mine. He wrote me, and I quote: “I just saw this great Steinlen piece on your site.  In your description, you write, “Coloring was done ‘au patron’, i.e., according to a pattern, or stenciled.”  I don’t think that’s the correct translation.  I have always thought that when Crauzat included this annotation, he meant that proofs were colored at the request of a customer (i.e., patron).  This explains why some first state proofs were left in their original black and white while others were colored.”

Durer - Christ in Limbo

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), Christ in Limbo (Harrowing of Hell), woodcut, 1510, Bartsch 14, an impression just after the 1511 edition of The Large Passion, 15 5/8 x 11 ¼ inches, on old laid paper with a Crest of Augsburg related watermark (cf. Meder 180, Briquet 2110, dated c. 1486-1583; also similar to Augsburg arms, Meder 177). In excellent condition, with borders all around, usual horizontal printer’s crease across center.

An exceptionally well printed impression of this iconic image.

The legend can be found in the Apocryphal text, the Gospel of Nicodemus. After his Resurrection Jesus descended into Hell and led the just, the patriarchs, the prophets of the Old Testament and Adam and Eve, into the light. Later a clarity was introduced that all of them were not in Hell, but in the bordering region, Limbo (from the Latin word limbus, a hem); it was taught that because they lived and died before the Christ’s self-sacrifice for peoples redemption, they were put in the lower place until such time when Jesus could liberate them.  The story was later retold in the Golden Legend.

The Christ in Limbo may be the first (of four) of Durer’s woodcuts executed in 1510 to complete the Large Passion series.  The earlier 7 prints of the series were made in 1497-1499, and were printed as single sheets  up to 1511 when an edition of the series was printed. This helps account for the particularly strong impression of the present print; the block was not nearly as worn by the 1511 printing as the earlier blocks were, and so subsequent printings of these newer blocks are stronger than those for the earlier blocks. The later blocks also tended to represent a more sophisticated approach to woodcutting, and were made by more skilled woodcutters.

Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956,  Süssenborn (also Dorfkirche also Little Church),  c. 1926, Woodcut. Prasse W253. One of only several proofs on Japan. Signed in pencil, lower left. Numbered 2401 (the artist’s inventory number), estate stamped and numbered W 420 in pencil, in the bottom right sheet corner.

Image size 5 3/8 x 5 3/4 inches (137 x 146 mm); sheet size 8 x 9 1/2 inches (203 x 241 mm).

A fine, black impression, on tissue-thin cream laid Japan, with full margins (1 1/8 to 2 inches), in excellent condition. One of only a few signed proofs before the published editions: 50 on Mino copy paper, of which 44 are unsigned; No. 10 of portfolio, 10 Holzschnitte von Lyonel Feininger (c.1926).

Süssenborn is a village near Weimar in Thuringia, central Germany.

Collections: Dresden, Middletown

Veneziano – Procession of Silenus

Agostino dei Musi (called Veneziano) (active 1514–1536), The Procession of Silenus (after Raphael)   ca. 1520–25 , engraving; 189 x 259 mm. Reference:
Bartsch, vol. 14, p. 192, no. 240. In excellent condition, laid at the reverse edges to an album sheet (Chatsworth), slight staining.

watermark
anchor in circle (similar to Briquet 495)

provenance
Dukes of Devonshire, Chatsworth;
their sale, Christie’s, London, December 5, 1985, lot 69

A suberb impression.

The figures of Silenus and his attendants are somewhat related to a Roman Sarcophagus at Woburn Abbey (formerly at the Villa Aldobrandi Frascati). This or a similar sarcophagus probably provided the source for the lost Raphael drawing on which this engraving is based.

Bonasone – Adoration of the Shepherds

Giulio Bonasone (c. 1510 – Bologna – after 1576), The Adoration of the Shepherds (after Giulio Romano)   ca. 1550–60, engraving; 271 x 431 mm. (10 9/16 x 16 15/16 inches). Reference:
Bartsch vol. 15, p. 118, no. 38; Massari 122; The Illustrated Bartsch, vol. 28, p. 242, no. 38

provenance
Sir Peter Lely (Lugt 2092)
Dukes of Devonshire, Chatsworth;
their sale, Christies, London 5th December 1985, lot 80
private collection, Germany; private collection, Chicago
C.G. Boerner, Neue Lagerliste 115, Düsseldorf/New York 2001, no. 17

There is a related drawing in the Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, Rome, which has been variously attributed to Raphael, Perino and more recently to Giulio Romano. The design was also used by Agostino Veneziano for his Adoration of the Shepherds (Bartsch 17).

An extraordinarily fine early impression, with plate tone; vertical wiping lines distinct.

In excellent condition, trimmed along the plate mark and tipped down onto an album sheet at the corners (on the original album sheet from Chatsworth).

Whistler - Rotherhithe (cancelled)

James Whistler (1834-1903),   An Album Containing Fifty Cancelled Etchings and Drypoints   ca. 1879

An unusual album of fifty cancelled etchings and drypoints, many known only in cancelled impressions, printed on laid paper, in a contemporary half-leather binding with gilded tooled spine, measuring 15 1/4 x 11 inches. Inscribed in pencil on the verso of the marbled front fly-leaf Whistler / 50 Cancelled etchings and extensively annotated in pencil throughout.

Whistler declared bankruptcy in May 1879 and was allowed by the receiver to destroy his unfinished work and deface his copperplates prior to the auction of his property in September of that year, just before he left for Venice. About one hundred of these plates were purchased at the auction by The Fine Art Society which then published a small edition (probably no more than twenty copies) of fifty-seven of the cancelled prints; this is titled Fifty-Seven Defaced Etchings and Drypoints by J.A. McNeil [sic] Whistler.

The present album includes forty-eight of the prints published in The Fine Art Society’s edition and two prints not in that volume. Many impressions are annotated with titles, references to the Wedmore catalogue, or other notes. It includes a number of hitherto unknown impressions, or prints very rare in pre-cancelled impressions; most are also rare in cancelled impressions.

These impressions are quite fine; it is probable that they served as proof impressions for other albums of cancelled etchings published during this period. The prints are generally in excellent condition; the drypoints typically have substantial burr.  Printed on ivory laid paper with the watermarks Van Gelder and crowned shield with fleur-de-lis and letters vgj; all with wide margins (sheets vary in size).

The prints included are:

1. F.R. Leyland’s Mother, 1874–75, Kennedy 103
2. Lady in an Arm-Chair, 1861,  K. 79, known only after cancellation
3. August Delâtre, Printer; 1858–59, K. 26
4. A Man Reading, 1873–77, K. 137, known only after cancellation
5. Astruc, A Literary Man, 1859, K. 53
6. Greenwich Pensioner, 1859, K. 34
7. Fumette’s Bent Head, 1859, K. 57
8. A Wharf, 1859, K. 48
9. Arthur Haden, 1859, K. 61
10. Portrait of Whistler, 1859, K. 54, signed in pencil
11. Mr. Mann, 1860, K. 63
12. Rotherhithe, 1860, K. 66, not included in The Fine Art Society’s set
13. Axenfeld, 1860, K. 64
14. Riault, the Engraver, 1860, K. 65
15. The Open Book, 1861, K. 84, known only after cancellation
16. Jo, 1861, K. 77
17. Landscape with a Fisherman, 1861, K. 83, known only after cancellation
18. F.R. Leyland, K. 102, 1874–75, only a few impressions before cancellation
19. Encamping, 1861, K. 82, very rare before cancellation
20. Battersea Reach, 1863, K. 90, known only after cancellation
21. The Toilet, 1863, K. 93, known only after cancellation
22. Sketch of Heads, 1875, K. 104, very rare before cancellation
23. Steamboat Fleet, 1875–77, K. 156, very rare before cancellation
24. Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 2, 1876–77, K. 171
25. Elinor Leyland, 1874, K. 109
26. A Girl with Large Eyes, 1875, K. 131
27. A Lady at a Window, 1875–77, K. 138, very rare before cancellation
28. The Silk Dress, 1875, K. 107, only a few impressions known before cancellation
29. Lady Standing, not found in Kennedy, but found in The Fine Art Society’s set
30. Nude Figure Posing, 1874–75, K. 127, known only after cancellation
31. Under Old Battersea Bridge, 1876–78, K. 176
32. A Child on a Couch, No. 1, K.124, known only after cancellation
33. Shipping at Liverpool, 1867, K. 94, very rare before cancellation
34. The Little Velvet Dress, 1873, K. 106
35. The Beach, 1875–78, K. 116
36. Agnes, 1875–78, K. 134
37. Swinburne, 1873–77, K. 136
38. The Piano, 1875–77, K. 141
39. The Scotch Widow, 1875–76, K. 142
40. Speke Shore, 1875, K. 144
41. Shipbuilder’s Yard, 1875, K. 146
42. London Bridge, 1877, K. 153
43. Sketch of Ships, 1859, K. 151, only one impression known before cancellation
44. The Troubled Thames, K. 152
45. A Sketch from Billingsgate, 1876–77, K. 168
46. The Thames toward Erith, 1877, K. 165
47. Lindsey Houses, 1876–77, K. 166
48. From Pickle-Herring Stairs, 1876–77, K. 167
49. Nude Girl Standing, 1873–78, K. 128, known only ae
50. Irving as Philip of Spain, No. 1, K. 170, not included in The Fine Art Society’s set, very rare prior to or after cancellation.
51. 

Marie Laurencin – La Romance

Marie Laurencin (1883-1956), La Romance. 1912, etching, signed, numbered (12/25) and dated in pencil, also inscribed  by the artist with three lines of an Apollinaire manuscript, in very good condition with full margins, 197 x 250 mm, 9 7/8 x 8 3/4, the sheet 16 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches. Reference: Marchesseau 22, from the edition of 25 proofs.

A fine fresh impression, with plate tone, printed on cream laid paper; a rare early Laurencin proof.

During the early years of the 20th century, Laurencin was an important figure in the Parisian avant-garde, a friend of Georges Braque and a member of the circle of Picasso. She became romantically involved with Picasso’s friend, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and has often been identified as his muse.

Nolde - Profile of a Woman

Emil Nolde (1867-1956), Frauenprofil (Profile of a Woman), woodcut, 1917, signed in pencil lower right (also titled, numbered 8, and annotated III.10 lower left). Reference: Schiefler/MOsel 136, third state (of 3). In very good condition, 8 1/4 x 5 15/16, the sheet 11 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches.

Provenance: Collection of H. Neuerburg, Koln (with the blindstamp lower left, Lugt 1344a).

A fine fresh impression with considerable gaufrage, printed on a thin wove white/ivory paper with a partial circle watermark.

Rare in this condition, only 12 impressions were made of this state (and three each of prior states) according to Nolde’s working notes; the composition was complete in the first state and only slight correctional changes made thereafter.

In The Print in Germany 1880-1933 Frances Carey and Antony Griffiths note that in this period, with the exception of the few woodcuts printed in large commercial editions, Nolde and his wife printed all his woodcuts, and they were carefully inked “so that the design is carried almost entirely by blind-stamping. The very considerable relief imparted to the paper can be clearly seen in a raking light and on the verso of the sheet. A consequence of such careful inking is that no two impressions of the print will be exactly similar, and in fact Nolde seems to have deliberately varied the inking of his impressions to produce a variety of effects.”

Childe Hassam – Marie at the Window

Childe Hassam (1859-1935), Marie at the Window, etching and drypoint, 1923. Signed with the cypher and inscribed “imp” in pencil [also with initials and date in the plate, lower right]. Cortissoz/Clayton 230, only state. In very good condition, the matrix immaculate (evidence of toning verso, platemark reinforced upper left verso), printed on a cream wove paper, 10 7/8 x 7, the sheet 13 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches.

A fine impression of this great rarity.

Made from the model in the artist’s New York apartment.  In 1923, the year Marie at the Window was etched, Hassam was already world-renowned, known as America’s great impressionist painter and etcher (his career as an etcher began in earnest relatively late, about eight years earlier).

Marie at the Window is one of several Hassam compositions done in the tradition of Japonisme, showing an interior of patterned surfaces and a single contemplative woman, generally lost in contemplation. This theme was a favorite of turn-of-the-century “Quietists” such as Thomas Wilmer Dewing, his close friend J. Alden Weir, and of course Marie Cassatt.

G e r a l d – K .– G e e r l i n g s – –1 8 9 7 – 1 9 9 8

Up and Going– 1931, Etching and Aquatint.

Czestochowski 22. Edition 40. Signed and titled in pencil.

Image size 11 15/16 x 7 3/8 inches (303 x 187 mm); sheet size 16 7/8 x 11 1/8 inches (429 x 283 mm).

A superb, atmospheric impression, in dark sepia ink, on pale green laid paper, with full margins ( 1 13/16 to 2 3/8 inches), in excellent condition.

Over half of the edition of this iconic print is known to be in major public institutions; impressions are thus rarely found on the print market. Collections include: AIA, AIC, BM, BPL, CH, GC, GKG, IMA, LACM, MHC, MM, MMA, MPL, NYPL, PMA, PRIN, UI, UPAA, UW, UWM, VA.

Up and Going contrasts straightforward precisionist structures – the buildings at the right – with ominous symbolist-like imagery – the rising clouds of smoke; it thus seems to depict both the optimism of early 20th Century America and the concerns and forebodings of the Great Depression era.

Gerald Geerlings studied architecture after service in WWI, and became an architect in New York, working with several firms including York and Sawyer, and then on his own. He also studied printmaking in his early years as an architect, at the Royal College of Art in London. He made prints during two periods: from 1926-33, and again after 1975.  His later work, in lithography typically with hand colored pastel, is quite beautiful, but his earlier striking citiscapes, now rare, are perhaps most highly sought after by today’s collectors.

Lyonel Feininger, “Kreuzende Segelschiffe 2 (Cruising Sailing Ships 2)”
1919, Woodcut.

Prasse W175. Edition 275 unsigned for portfolio Die tunlte Jahresgabe des Kreises graphischer Kunstler und Sammier, 1925; 25 signed de luxe edition nos. I-XXV, on Japanese Milo paper; 150 signed edition nos. 1-150, on Zanders cream laid paper; 100 unsigned nos. 151-250. Signed and titled in pencil.Image size 6 x 8 7/8 inches (171 x 225 mm); sheet size 9 1/2 x 11 7/8 inches (241 x 302 mm).

A superb, black, proof impression, apart from the published editions, on tissue-thin cream laid Japan, with full margins ( 7/8 to 1 5/8 inches), in excellent condition.

Feininger estate stamp in the bottom right sheet corner.

This print was also titled by the artist Segler, Segel-Schiffe, Kreuzende Schif