A
serendipity of prints priced under £250
These
links: Prints
Under £250 (1) and Prints
Under £250 (2) will
allow you to view the featured prints from
the two previous selections of Prints
Under £250
Other
prints priced under £250 appear elsewhere
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also :
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HENDRICK HONDIUS
Duffel 1573 – 1650 The Hague
The
publication of written biographies of artists
gave impetus to engraved portraits of artists.
The Italian painter Georgio Vasari’s VITE (Lives of the most excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects) was first published in 1550. A second enlarged edition appeared in 1568.
Karel van Mander’s HET SCHILDERBOECK (Book of Painters) commencing with biographies of artists from the Low Countries and Germany was first issued in 1604.
Such
written texts soon suggested complementary
visual representation. The publisher Hieronymous
Cock in Antwerp probably began commissioning
engravings of northern artists around 1550,
though his series of about twenty portraits
was not issued till 1572, by his widow.
Cock’s series of plates of northern artists’ portraits, in which he was assisted by a number of different engravers, was re-issued over the following century by a succession of subsequent publishers and prompted Hendrick Hondius to issue his own parallel PICTORUM
ALIQUOT CELEBRIUM PRAECIPUAE GERMANIAE
INFERIORIS EFFIGES (Portraits of celebrated Artists of the Low Countries) about 1610.
In
addition to re-engraving Cock’s twenty portraits, Hondius originated new plates of 16th century and contemporary artists.
Hondius’ series, issued as single sheets from about 1610, ultimately comprised 68 portraits, thirty three engraved by Hondius himself.
Quentin
Matsys
New-Hollstein (Hondius) 89
202 x 122 mm
Re-engraving, after Wierix.
With Hondius’ monogram and address.
Trimmed to the platemark. On unwatermarked laid paper. A few thin spots verso.
An ink numeral in the lower right corner.
£185
Quentin
Matsys (1464/65 – 1530) was born in Louvain but as an artist is associated with Antwerp, where he entered the Guild as a Master in 1491 and was soon the foremost painter of his day.
Though particularly known for allegorical
genre scenes of bankers, money-lenders and
tax collectors, Matsys was also an innovative
portrait painter. He was the first to adopt
the book-lined study, conventionally used
in representations of St Jerome, to form
an appropriate setting for secular Humanist
sitters such as Erasmus.
The
background to this posthumous portrait of
Matsys makes reference to the popular tradition
that he was the son of a blacksmith who abandoned
the forge when he fell in love with a painter’s
daughter, who would only marry an artist.
In
1519 Massys built himself a house, with a
frescoed façade, in Antwerp
which was visited by Dürer in 1520, though
he failed to find his fellow artist at home.
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JOHN CONEY
Ratcliffe Highway, London 1786 – 1833 Camberwell, London
Though
apprenticed to an architect, Coney did not
take up the profession but concentrated instead
on drawing and etching historical gothic architecture,
selling his first drawings at the age of
fifteen.
About
1816 Coney was commissioned by the publisher
Joseph Harding to etch both exterior and
interior views of the ‘Cathedrals & Abbey Churches of England’ to
illustrate a new edition of Dugdale’s Monasticon, “A grand subscription project,
issued in eight enormous and prodigiously expensive volumes, 1817-1830” (BM
website on Harding).
Coney’s Obituary in the
Gentleman’s Magazine comments
that the plates occupied a great portion of his time and are executed with consummate
skill. It also describes him as the English Piranesi.
Remains
of St Mary’s Abbey, York
264 x 365 mm (plate); 198 x 311 mm (image)
Original etching, for Joseph Harding’s edition of Monasticon.
A fine proof impression, on laid india paper, before all letters.
With pencil annotations of the title and artist’s name.
Sold
The
surviving ruins date from a rebuilding programme
begun in 1271 and carried out in little more
than twenty years.
St
Mary’s was the largest and richest Benedictine establishment in the north
of England and one of the largest landholders in Yorkshire. At its Dissolution
it had fifty monks.
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MAXIM LALANNE
Bordeaux 1827 – 1886 Nogent-sur-Marne
An
important contributor to the French Etching
Revival, Lalanne was involved with the Société des Aquafortistes from its founding in 1862 by the publisher and dealer Alfred Cadart.
Cadart continued to issue Lalanne’s plates
through the 1870’s.
In 1871 Cadart published fourteen plates in
which Lalanne recorded the fortifications
and the devastated landscape of Paris during
the four months in 1870-71 that the city
was besieged during the Franco-Prussian War.
Both Lalanne and Cadart served in the National
Guard during the siege.
Lalanne
inscribed one of the series of plates "A
notre excellent capitaine et ami Cadart".
Avenue
de St Cloud (Bois de Boulogne)
Siège de Paris
Béraldi 76
160 x 235 mm (plate); 127 x 211 mm (image)
Original etching, 1871.
The plate signed.
An artist’s proof before letters.
Inscribed with the title in pencil in the lower plate border and signed by Lalanne.
On old laid paper watermarked with the year of its manufacture, 1833.
Sold
The
Prussian artillery bombarded Paris from the
high ground of the Chateau de St Cloud, which
they had occupied. The nearby Bois de Boulogne
suffered considerable damage.
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MARY
GERTRUDE COWLAND
Blackboys,
Uckfield 1902 - 1978 Eastbourne, E Sussex
An East Sussex painter, exhibiting 1926-35, her marriage in 1937, to William Chambers, probably curtailed her exhibiting thereafter.
Geraniums
150 x 100 mm
Original ‘ japoniste ’ colour woodcut, 1923.
Signed in pencil, dated and numbered.
(No.6 of an unspecified edition.)
Printed in water-based inks on japan.
Sold
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OSCAR
NERLINGER
Born Schwann, Wurtemburg 1893 – 1969 East Berlin
A
painter, graphic artist, experimental photographer
and animated film maker in Berlin, Nerlinger
belonged to the Der Sturm group.
Der
Sturm (The Assault) was both
an art gallery and an art periodical. Established
by Herwath Walden in 1910, it was a major
focus and publicist of contemporary art in
Berlin c1910-30.
This
linocut by Nerlinger, published by Der Sturm,
shows the influence of Russian constructivism.
When in the early 1920’s the Soviet government began to curtail artistic freedom of expression several of the Russian avant-garde, such as Kandinsky, Lissitsky and Gabo had settled in Germany.
In conjunction with the Dutch neo-plasticist artists (Theo van Doesburg, cofounder of De Stijl was also in Germany, teaching in Weimar) they had a huge influence on the direction of western European art & design.
Constructivist
Composition
194 x 155 mm
Original linocut, 1923.
Issued in Der Sturm,
with the text line beneath and text verso.
On brittle wove paper, time-stained and with
related defects at the extreme sheet edges.
£200
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JOAN
LOCK
A.R.C.A.
Melton Mowbray 1922 - 2015 Normanby
le Wold, Lincolnshire
Joan
Lock was an etching student of Robert Austin
at the Royal College of Art when it was evacuated
to Ambleside, in the Lake District, during
the Second World War. She taught for many
years at Grimsby School of Art. She married
fellow artist Peter Hancocks in 1946.
Sadly
Joan Lock passed away recently, at the age
of 93.
The
Letter
229 x 186 mm
Original etching, 1943.
A dedicated proof
To G S Sandilands from Joan Lock, 1943.
On cream wove paper.
Sold
George
Somerville Sandilands (1889-1961), a painter
and etcher, was appointed Registrar of the
Royal College of Art in 1939.
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