Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Galleria grande di Statue

1743

Shere Mill Pond, No. II (large plate). 1860. Etching and drypoint. Schneiderman 37.v/ix. 7 x 13 1/8 (sheet 10 3/4 x 16 3/8). This state is prior to publication in Études à l'Eau-Forte. Illustrated: Keppel The Golden Age of Engraving; Print Collector's Quarterly 1 (1911): 18; : Guichard, British Etchers, 1850-1940. A rich, brilliant proof with drypoint burr printed on white laid paper. Signed in pencil. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shere Mill Pond, No. II was one of the most highly praised landscape prints of the etching revival. An impression was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1861 under Haden’s pseudonym, H. Dean. Francis Seymour Haden used this anagram of his own name early in his career as an artist, in order to retain his anonymity and preserve his professional reputation as a surgeon. Biography: Sir Francis Seymour Haden (16 September 1818 - 1 June 1910), was an English surgeon, best known as an etcher. He was born in London, his father, Charles Thomas Haden, being a well-known doctor and lover of music. He was educated at Derby School, Christ's Hospital, and University College, London, and also studied at the Sorbonne, Paris, where he took his degree in 1840. He was admitted as a member of the College of Surgeons in London in 1842. In 1843-1844, with his friends Duval, Le Cannes and Colonel Guibout, he travelled in Italy and made his first sketches from nature. Haden attended no art school and had no art teachers, but between 1845 and 1848 he studied portfolios of prints belonging to a second-hand dealer named Love, who had a shop in Bunhill Row, the old Quaker quarter of London. Arranging the prints in chronological order, he studied the works of the great original engravers, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas van Leyden and Rembrandt. These studies, besides influencing his original work, led to his important monograph on the etched work of Rembrandt. By lecture and book, and with the aid of the memorable exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1877, he tried to give a true reflection of Rembrandt's work, giving a nobler idea of the master's mind by taking away from the list of his works many dull and unseemly plates that had long been included in the lists. His reasons were founded upon the results of a study of the master's works in chronological order, and are clearly expressed in his monograph, The Etched Work of Rembrandt critically reconsidered, privately printed in 1877, and in The Etched Work of Rembrandt True and False (1895). Haden's printmaking was invigorated by his much younger brother-in-law, James Whistler, at the Haden home in Sloane Street in 1855. A press was installed there and for a while Haden and Whistler collaborated on a series of etchings of the Thames. The relationship and project did not last. Haden followed the art of original etching with such vigour that he became not only the foremost British exponent of that art but brought about its revival in England. His strenuous efforts and perseverance, aided by the secretarial ability of Sir WR Drake, resulted in the foundation of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. As president he ruled the society with a strong hand from its first beginnings in 1880. Notwithstanding his study of the old masters of his art, Haden's own plates were very individual, and are particularly noticeable for a fine original treatment of landscape subjects, free and open in line, clear and well divided in mass, and full of a noble and dignified style of his own. Even when working from a picture his personality dominates the plate, as for example in the large plate he etched after J.M.W. Turner's "Calais Pier," which is a classical example of what interpretative work can do in black and white. Of his original plates, more than 250 in number, one of the most notable was the large "Breaking up of the Agamemnon." An early plate, rare and most beautiful, is "Thames Fisherman". "Mytton Hall" is broad in treatment, and a fine rendering of a shady avenue of yew trees leading to an old manor-house in sunlight. "Sub Tegmine" was etched in Greenwich Park in 1859; and "Early Morning--Richmond", full of the poetry and freshness of the hour, was done, according to Haden, actually at sunrise. One of the rarest and most beautiful of his plates is "A By-Road in Tipperary"; "Combe Bottom" is another; and "Shere Mill Pond" (both the small study and the larger plate), "Sunset in Ireland," "Penton Hook," "Grim Spain" and "Evening Fishing, Longparish," are also notable examples of his genius. A catalogue of his works was begun by Sir William Drake and completed by Harrington in 1880. During later years Haden began to practise the sister art...

Assassinat De Basseville à Rome is an original black and white etching realized by Pierre Gabriel Berthault, after Jacques François Joseph Swebach-Desfontaines in 1793. Title with caption on plate on the lower center: "Assassinat de Basseville, à Rome/ le 13 Janvier 1793, ou 23 Nivose An Ier de la République". Below the image on the lower margin, "Swebach Desfontaines onv. et del. / Berthault sculp." is etched on plate. This modern artwork is numbered "N. 76", because it is from the series Les Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française. As a matter of fact, Pierre-Gabriel Berthault is well-known for having engraved plates from this collection with the collaboration of the engraver Jean Duplessis-Bertaux. A work - hanging in the balance between news and history - with illustrations of salient or minimal events occurred during the French Revolution. As a celebration of the new ideals of brotherhood, justice, and equality, Les Tableaux immediately became a point of reference for journalism at the time. Of traditional cut, namely showing a view with many human figures, the engraving simplified the lines to be immediately readable for the general public. In our specific case, this original print represents the murder of Hugou de Bassville or Basseville (7 February, 1743 – 13 January, 1793), a French journalist and diplomatist, and protector of the radical Jacobins in Rome. In excellent conditions, except for a usual yellowing of the paper on the edges and a light trace of oxidations on the lower and right margins, beyond the marginal line of the matrix. Pierre-Gabriel Berthault (Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, 1737 - Paris, 1831) was a French master who made engravings from drawings by Jean-Claude Richard de Saint-Non (known as the Abbot of Saint-Non) and from paintings by Louis François Cassas. He depicted many views of Italy and created the collections Voyage à Naples and Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Palestine et de la basse-Egypte. Before the French Revolution, he was famous for being the author of the Vues intérieures de Paris and for tables with architectural elevations.

Image dimensions: 21 x 27 cm. Liber Veritatis - Plate 61 is a beautiful black and white etching and aquatint on paper realized by the Italian artist Ludovico Caracciolo, after Claud...

Image dimensions: 21 x 27 cm. Liber Veritatis - Plate 98 is a beautiful black and white etching and aquatint on paper realized by the Italian artist L...

Image dimensions: 21 x 27 cm. Liber Veritatis - Plate 191 is a beautiful black and white etching and aquatint on paper realized by the Italian artist ...

Image dimensions: 21 x 27 cm. Liber Veritatis - Plate 95 is a beautiful black and white etching and aquatint on paper realized by the Italian artist Ludovico Caracciolo, after Claud...

Image dimensions: 21 x 27 cm. Liber Veritatis - Plate 177 is a beautiful black and white etching and aquatint on paper realized by the Italian artist ...

Image dimensions: 21 x 27 cm. Liber Veritatis - Plate 150 is a beautiful black and white etching and aquatint on paper realized by the Italian artist ...

Image dimensions: 21 x 27 cm. Liber Veritatis - Plate 189 is a beautiful black and white etching and aquatint on paper realized by the Italian artist ...

Image dimensions: 21 x 27 cm. Liber Veritatis - Plate 176 is a beautiful black and white etching and aquatint on paper realized by the Italian artist ...