A
Small Selection of Old Master Prints
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Master Prints 02, will allow you
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ALBRECHT
DÜRER
Nuremberg 1471 – 1528 Nuremberg
Dürer made relatively few printed portraits; only eight, all dating from
the last decade of his life, and only two which were produced as woodcuts. Dürer
drew the charcoal portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor, on which the woodcut image
(naturally in reverse) is based, from life. He annotated the drawing “This
is the Emperor Maximilian, who I, Albrecht Dürer, portrayed at Augsburg
in his little cabinet, high up in the palace, in the year reckoned 1518 on Monday
after John Baptist’s” (28th of June). Dürer had gone to Augsburg
to attend the Diet and to get Maximilian to ratify the pension of a hundred florins
which he had granted him three years earlier. Maximilian died the following year.
Dürer’s drawing was transferred to four woodblocks; the first block,
which the other three followed (though the fourth block had different lettering
and an elaborate framing border), was possibly cut in the Emperor’s
lifetime, the others were produced as commemorative
images. In its woodcut form, it was a portrait
which quickly became iconic.
Emperor
Maximilian I
Hollstein 255 Block 3 ii/iii; B.154 41.4
x 321 mm
Woodcut,
after 1519. A very good impression, in the
second state of three, before the crack in
the block and before Dürer’s monogram
(the 1st state is known only in a unique
impression). On paper watermarked with a
coat-of-arms. Trimmed just outside the borderline,
with thread margins. Generally in good condition,
a few printing creases, a central horizontal
drying fold, a couple of repairs.
Sold
Ex
collection: the Dukes of Arenberg (Lugt 567)
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LUCAS VAN LEYDEN
Leyden either 1489 or 1494 – 1533 Leyden
Mars, Venus and Cupid
Bartsch 137, New Hollstein 137 i/iii 190
x 245 mm
Original
engraving, 1530. The plate monogrammed and
dated. A good impression, Holl. 1b/c, on
paper watermarked with the Gothic letters
LU (virtually identical to the Hollstein
illustrated watermark 1a found on a ‘1a’ impression
at Rotterdam of Temperance, another engraving
from 1530. Bricquet dates paper with similar
Gothic letters LU to 1530) Thread margin or
trimmed to the plate. One or two repaired short
nicks or tears at the top edge, a little rubbed
on Mars’ leg, repair to the knop of the
sword, other small defects.
Sold
Ex
collection: The Princes & Dukes of Arenberg
(Lugt 567)
A
remarkable composition. Mars’ sword
exactly halves the scene, while also serving
as an anchor to the inner swirl encompassing
the shield, bow and armour on the floor at
the centre – and the outer circular design
created in the relationship between the principal
figures. The eye follows down Mars’ outstretched
leg to Venus’ bent leg (both sets of
legs identically posed but seen from different
angles) up her right arm, through Cupid’s
wing to Mar’s outstretched arm and the
flow of the drapery at his head, down his back
and back to his leg.
This compositional device also gives visual
expression to the Renaissance abstract concept
of the natural balance of opposing forces,
here the battle between love and strife, unity
and discord. Though as Ellen Jacobowitz (The
Prints of Lucas van Leyden, 1983) also points
out, the ball at the left (indicative of Mars’ uncertain
state) which is used as a motif by Lucas in
other ‘Power of Women’ images,
suggests domination and instability, a love
that is unsure, and therefore a moralizing
statement on the sin of carnal love and adultery.
The forceful physicality of the figures reflects
the intensity of their inner spirit.
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DANIEL HOPFER
c1470 – 1536 Augsburg
A
painter, and the son of a painter, Hopfer’s first profession was as an
armourer in Augsburg. He is significant in being the first artist to adapt to
intaglio printmaking (c1500) the contemporary armourers’ new
development of etching ornament into iron.
Hopfer favoured tonality set off by areas of
patterning for which he invented a unique system
of open bite which anticipated aquatint.
In 1524 the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V conferred
a coat-of-arms on Hopfer for his ‘accomplishments in the service of the Emperor and the Empire’.
Virgin & Child
with St Elizabeth (? Or St Anne?)
Three Generations of the Holy Family
Bartsch 39, Holstein 45 i/ii 228
x 152 mm
Original
etching. Signed with the monogram and fir
cone symbol of Augsburg. A good impression.
First state, before the later Funk number.
Watermark: Cross amidst four roundels in a
circle. The sheet trimmed to or just into the
plate. A short repaired nick at the top edge.
Two soft diagonal folds only visible on the
reverse.
Sold
Iconographically
a very unusual rendering of the theme which
Bartsch describes as Mary with Jesus and
St Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin
and the mother of St John the Baptist.
Pseudo-Bonaventura,
filling a gap in the gospel narratives, relates
that the Holy Family returning from Egypt
visited Elizabeth, but usually this subject
is portrayed with the infant St John acknowledging
the Christchild.
However,
another apocryphal theme, and one that was
popular with artists in northern Europe,
is the Virgin & Child with St Anne, the
Virgin’s mother.
In Hopfer’s print the tender relationship
indicated by the outstretched hands of the
child towards the elder woman suggests that
the intended theme may be that of the three
generations of the Holy Family. In this context
the naturalness and charming reality of the
response between grandson and grandmother is
both highly inventive and exceptional in concept
at the time.
Hopfer borrowed the Renaissance architectural
setting in many of its details from an engraving
by Benedetto Montagna (St Benedict instructing
his Order, B 11).
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JACQUES DE GHEYN II
Antwerp 1565 – 1629 The Hague
De
Gheyn was initially taught painting and etching
by his father, a glass painter in Antwerp.
About 1585 he learnt engraving in Goltzius’ workshop
in Haarlem. His first signed plates date
from 1588. The Lion is one of his earliest
independent prints.
Engraved
to his own design but before he set up his
own publishing business, it was first issued
by the Amsterdam publisher Joos de Bosscher;
though on his death the following year, 1591,
the year that
de Gheyn himself also moved to
Amsterdam, the plate probably returned to de
Gheyn, for it was amongst the stock of plates
which de Gheyn sold, about 1601 (before settling
permanently in The Hague), to the Amsterdam
printseller Cornelis Claesz Visscher. In The
Hague
de Gheyn worked principally as a painter
and draughtsman, virtually giving up engraving.
De Gheyn’s plates subsequently passed from Cornelis Claesz to Claes Jansz
Visscher (1587-1652), the most important publisher of his day in the Netherlands.
The
Great Lion
“En leo magnaminus, vigilanti mente recumbens; verberet ut caudam, tollat
ut ipse iubas. Nec fugiens, ne quem metuens sed promptus et acer ad prosternendum,
se docet esse feram”
New Hollstein 170 ii/ii 268
x 345 mm
Original
engraving, c.1590. Signed. Second (final)
state with Visscher’s address
as publisher. Trimmed to or just into
the plate, generally outside the borderline
except at the top right . An unobtrusive central
vertical fold and other small defects.
Sold
Ex
collection: W. A. Baillie-Grohman (Lugt 370)
The
Latin text praises the magnanimity, vigilance,
vigour, intrepidity and fighting spirit of
the lion. An unusual subject for de Gheyn,
and his only animal print, Erika Michael
has observed that it may well be symbolic
(certainly suggested by the skull), perhaps
referring to the Leo Belgicus (a map, in
the shape of a lion, of the seventeen provinces
that made up the Low Countries, devised by
Michael Eitzinger, historian and cartographer
to the Emperors Ferdinand II & Maximillius II, for his “History
of the Low Countries” published in 1583
- almost all the provinces had a lion in their
coats-of-arms). However the stance of de Gheyn’s
lion is very different and apparently drawn
from nature rather than heraldry. Beautifully
observed and carried out, the print remains
enigmatic.
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REMBRANDT HARMENSZ VAN RIJN
Leyden 1606 – 1669 Amsterdam
The turbaned Soldier on Horseback
Bartsch 139, Hind 99 i/ii 83
x 58 mm
Original
etching, c.1632. Signed with the monogram
RHL in reverse. First state of two with the
uneven, inky plate edges. A fine impression
printed with plate tone. Thread margins nearly
all the way round. A tiny restored loss at
the upper left edge, a short repaired tear
at the lower left. Other small defects.
Sold
Provenance:
the Viscount Down collection
(sold
Sotheby’s 7 Dec.1972, lot 250)
A very scarce early plate, which did not survive.
Usticke considered a total of about fifty to
seventy-five impressions were printed from
the plate.
The rider is following two companions at the
left who are already descending a steep hill.
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MARCO RICCI
Belluno 1676 – 1729 Venice
Painter
and etcher, the nephew, pupil and assistant
of Sebastiano Ricci.
After
some years in London, Marco Ricci returned
to Italy in 1716 and settled in Venice, where
he was an important figure in the revival of
original etching. His later architectural capricci inspired Piranesi.
His
earlier suite of twenty large landscapes,
permeated with Venetian light, descend from
the woodcuts of Titian’s landscapes.
Etched in 1723, they were only published posthumously
in the year after Ricci’s death.
Landscape
with
a Hill-Town and straining Ox-Cart
Bartsch 5, Pilo 210 291
x 434 mm
Original
etching, 1723. Signed with the monogram.
With the number and the additional separate
text plate beneath, as published 1730 by Carlo
Orsolini. A very good, bright impression on
laid paper, watermarked with three crescent
moons. The sheet with narrow margins. Slight
stains. Trace of a central vertical crease
only visible on the reverse.
£3000
Ex
collection Loening (ex Lugt)
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