Early 18th Century Animal Prints

Leonard Merchant's mezzotint, "Snail in Cup" is inscribed for fellow artist, Fritz Eichenberg. While a student at the Central School for Arts and Crafts in London, a young Leonard Marchant found an engraving rocker in a cupboard and proceeded to turn himself into a master of the painstaking art of mezzotinting. Marchant, who has died in Shrewsbury aged 70, grew up in Simonstown, the Royal Navy's enclave in South Africa. Though his first job was as a parliamentary messenger, he taught himself to paint and, aged 19, was given a one-man show in Cape Town. Fired by this success, he left for England to study painting and, he claimed, to escape the stifling home atmosphere created by his Catholic mother and aunts. (His father was killed in the second world war.) Without contacts in London, he phoned Jacob Epstein, whose recommendation resulted in a grant to study briefly at the Central School. It was later, when studying full-time at the Central, that he saw the mezzotints of the Japanese master, Yozo Hamaguchi, in a London gallery. He was hooked. Creating a mezzotint is tedious in the extreme. The copper plate must first be prepared with a "rocker" which roughens the surface. A plate may be "rocked" 30 or 40 times. The rough texture is then reduced with a burnisher and a scraper, allowing the print a range of tones from velvety black through the greys to white. Marchant's plates could be months in the making. But the technical demands were the least of his worries. In its 18th- and 19th-century heyday, mezzotint was solely a reproductive medium, for copying masters such as Reynolds and Turner. The development of photography rendered it unfashionable, and by the 1960s the technique, known as la manière anglaise, was a bygone medium. Marchant, by now a teacher in printmaking at the Central, began to create original mezzotints with a colleague, Radavan Kraguly. A perfectionist, he seemed to revel in the straitjacket procedure. Perhaps it was the metaphor of bringing darkness out of light that appealed to this straight-talking, sometimes sombre, man, who would suddenly relax and light up like a gleaming hue on one of his prints. His work was of squares and triangles with the occasional cat, black and ominous, and carefully arranged still lifes, featuring plants, a seed pod, a pot he might have bought at auction to celebrate the sale of a print. There were one-man shows, notably at the Bankside Gallery. He sold well at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, was a Florence Biennale prizewinner, spent a fellowship year at the British School in Rome, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. But making mezzotints was not a paying job. Marchant and his South African wife...

Artist: Hunt Slonem, American (1951 - ) Title: Three Deer Year: 1980 Medium: Screenprint, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: AP 30 Image Size: 24 x 32 inches Size: 26 in. ...

Marc CHAGALL (1887-1985) Bible : Dove and Menorah candlestick, 1962 Original lithograph (Mourlot workshop) Unsigned On Vellum 32.5 x 24 cm REFERENCE: Mourlot catalog raisonné #366 ...

John James Audubon was born in Haiti in 1785. Most of his childhood was spent in France, where he first took interest in birds and drawing. He came to the U.S. at age 18, and made ma...

Lithograph printed by Chez Daniel Jacomet, Paris, France 1960 offset lithograph in colors on Arches, signed in crayon on the justification sheet (this auction is just for the one lithograph pictured as the 1st photo, the justification sheet with the original drawing is just included for provenance and is not part of this sale), on Arches deckle edged paper. limited edition of 250. plate signed and hand signed in pencil. Israeli views Lithograph by Israeli Master. Reuven Rubin 1893 -1974 was a Romanian-born Israeli painter and Israel's first ambassador to Romania. Rubin Zelicovici (later Reuven Rubin) was born in Gala?i to a poor Romanian Jewish Hasidic family. He was the eighth of 13 children. In 1912, he left for Ottoman-ruled Palestine to study art at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Finding himself at odds with the artistic views of the Academy's teachers, he left for Paris, France, in 1913 to pursue his studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. At the outbreak of World War I, he was returned to Romania, where he spent the war years. In 1921, he traveled to the United States with his friend and fellow artist, Arthur Kolnik, with whom he had shared a studio in Cernovitzu. In New York City, the two met artist Alfred Stieglitz, who was instrumental in organizing their first American show at the Anderson Gallery.Following the exhibition, in 1922, they both returned to Europe. In 1923, Rubin emigrated to Mandate Palestine. Rubin met his wife, Esther, in 1928, aboard a passenger ship to Palestine on his return from a show in New York. She was a Bronx girl who had won a trip to Palestine in a Young Judea competition. He died in 1974 Artistic career Joseph Zaritsky...

'Kloakentiere' (Monotremes - echidna and platypus)) German wood-engraving, circa 1895. 240mm by 155mm (sheet)

Marc CHAGALL (1887-1985) Bible : Ruben, Ocean, Sky and Sun, 1962 Lithograph (Mourlot workshop) Unsigned On Vellum 32.5 x 24 cm INFORMATION: Lithograph produced by Chagall in 1962 f...

Monkey is an original artwork realized by Alberto Mastroianni in 1970 ca. Lithograph. Hand Signed. Edition of 150 pieces.

Photorealist flower screenprint by American artist Lowell Blair Nesbitt, signed and numbered in pencil. Title: Spotted Leopard and Iris Year: 1981 Medium: Serigraph, signed and num...

Lithograph on arches paper. Hand signed, dated titled and numbered in pencil by the artist. From the deluxe edition of 125. Image size 32 x 25 inches. Sheet size 36 x 26.5 inches. ...

This box set of prints includes 5 limited edition prints signed by the artist. (Edition of 30) This newly released, print set by Thomas Broadbent ...

[ Bird of Paradise] La Pie de paradise, vue par derriere , No.21, Paris 1801-1806 [Astrapia nigra]. Color-printed engraving with hand-coloring. French botanical and zoological illustrator Jacques Barraband (1767-1809) was known as one of the finest ornithological artists of his time .He is best known for his watercolors and engravings that were commissioned by François LeVaillant, French explorer, naturalist, zoological collector , noted ornithologist and author. Levaillant’s Histoire naturelle des perroquets (1801-05) and his Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de paradis (Birds of Paradise, 1801-06), both of which Barraband contributed to, are still considered some of the most beautiful bird books of all times because of their exceptional scientific accuracy, rich color and detail. The Astrapia nigra is a Bird of Paradise that inhabits the Vogelkop Peninsula of West Papua...