Paul César Helleu

Jeune Femme Cousant; Madame Helleu (Young Woman Sewing, artist s wife)

1892

Important and rare etching by G. De Nittis. Good condition with fine tonal contrasts. Slight foxing all over the sheet . 1st state - before the ink veiling. Edition unknown. "This d...

J. Becquet, Sculptor (The Fiddler). 1859. Drypoint. Kennedy 52 state iv; Glasgow 62. state i. 10 1/8 x 7 1/2 (sheet 15 5/16 x 9 3/4). Series: "Sixteen Etchings or Scenes on the Thame...

"Mlle Landsberg" (grade planche, pl. 16), 1914 Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954) Signed and Numbered Lower Right Edition 12/15 Image size: 7 7/8 x 4 5/16 inches Sheet size: 17 11/16 x 12 1/2 inches With frame: 19 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches Henri Matisse came from a family who were of Flemish origin and lived near the Belgian border. At eight o'clock on the evening of December 31, 1869, he was born in his grandparents' home in the town of Le Cateau in the cheerless far north of France. His father was a self-made seed merchant who was a mixture of determination and tightly coiled tension. Henri had no clear idea of what he wanted to do with his life. He was a twenty-year-old law clerk convalescing from appendicitis when he first began to paint, using a box of colors given to him by his mother. Little more than a year later, in 1890, he had abandoned law and was studying art in Paris. The classes consisted of drawing from plaster casts and nude models and of copying paintings in the Louvre. He soon rebelled against the school's conservative atmosphere; he replaced the dark tones of his earliest works with brighter colors that reflected his awareness of Impressionism. Matisse was also a violinist; he took an odd pride in the notion that if his painting eye failed, he could support his family by fiddling on the streets of Paris. Henri found a girlfriend while studying art, and he fathered a daughter, Marguerite, by her in 1894. In 1898 he married another woman, Amelie Parayre. She adopted the beloved Marguerite; they eventually had two sons, Jean, a sculptor and Pierre who became an eminent art dealer. Relations between Matisse and his wife were often strained. He often dallied with other women, and they finally separated in 1939 over a model who had been hired as a companion for Mme. Matisse. She was Madame Lydia, and after Mme. Matisse left, she remained with Matisse until he died. Matisse spent the summer of 1905 working with Andre Derain in the small Mediterranean seaport of Collioure. They began using bright and dissonant colors. When they and their colleagues exhibited together, they caused a sensation. The critics and the public considered their paintings to be so crude and so roughly crafted that the group became known as Les Fauves (the wild beasts). By 1907, Matisse moved on from the concerns of Fauvism and turned his attention to studies of the human figure. He had begun to sculpt a few years earlier. In 1910, when he saw an exhibition of Islamic art, he was fascinated with the multiple patterned areas and adapted the decorative universe of the miniatures to his interiors. As a continuation of his interest in the "exotic", Matisse made extended trips to Morocco in 1912 and 1913. At the end of 1917, Matisse moved to Nice; he would spend part of each year there for the remainder of his life. A meticulous dandy, he wore a light tweed jacket amd a tie when he painted. He never used a palette, but instead squeezed his colors on to plain white kitchen dishes...

Trajan is an original contemporary artwork realized in 1973. Black and white drypoin etching. Hand signed on the lower margin. Numbered on the lower left. Edition of 216/261. Ref...

"Mr. Thirteen" is an etching, engraving and drypoint created in 1995, edition: 12 signed in pencil. The print has an embossed chop in the lower right corner, a capital P in a circl...

Tambien esto / So is this (Disasters of War, plate 43, Harris 163, Delteil 162). Original etching, burnished aquatint, and burnisher, c. 1808-1814. The clergy are running; their floc...

Madame M. is a black an white etching and drypoint realized by a French artist active at the end of XIX century, Maurice Deville in 1894. This original print, representing a superb...

This is a drypoint and aquatint artwork by Jacques Villon. The artist signed in pencil on the lower right. As well as signed in plate at the top right of the image. This is a wonderful artwork of different intaglio processes being brought together in a beautiful almost seamless harmony. The thin pencil like markings and hair detailing are made using the Drypoint printmaking method. Whilst the color details around the girls are made using the Aquatint etching method. Jacques Villon shows his skills as a printmaker with the way these pieces line up perfectly and with how clean the rest of the plate is around the girls. An unnumbered impression, apart from the numbered edition of 50. Catalogue Raisonne E101, pg. 66-67 (Ginestet & Pouillon. It depicts two young girls. 15" x 11 1/2" art 25 1/8" x 20" frame French painter, printmaker and illustrator. The oldest of three brothers who became major 20th-century artists, including Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Marcel Duchamp, he learnt engraving at the age of 16 from his maternal grandfather, Emile-Frédéric Nicolle (1830-94), a ship-broker who was also a much appreciated amateur artist. In January 1894, having completed his studies at the Lycée Corneille in Rouen, he was sent to study at the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris, but within a year he was devoting most of his time to art, already contributing lithographs to Parisian illustrated newspapers such as Assiette au beurre. At this time he chose his pseudonym: Jack (subsequently Jacques) in homage to Alphonse Daudet’s novel Jack (1876) and Villon in appreciation of the 15th-century French poet François Villon...

Portrait of Adolph Menzel is a magnificent drypoint realized by Giovanni Boldini in 1897. Reference: Buzzoni / M. Toffanello, Museo Giovanni Boldini, G...

Beautiful print on verge crème, 2° state on 3, with letters printed in red. Stamp “Lugt 1545”. Little crack and fold on lower left margin of the sheet. Some small traces of oxidati...