Richard Davies 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: Mario Avati, French (1921 - 2009) Title: Elephant Equilibriste Year: 1969 Medium: Mezzotint, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 35/50 Image Size: 17.5 x 24 inches Size: 2...

Fernando Aceves Humana (Mexico, 1969) 'Lo que nos trajeron', 2007 mezzotint on paper 17.4 x 13.8 in. (44 x 35 cm.) Edition of 20 ID: ACE-101 Unframed

This black and white mezzotint of a shell next to a violin is an artist proof that was inscribed Happy New Year 2000 and signed by the artist. The regular e...

The Goldfinch is an aquatint and drypoint print on chine from one of the deluxe copies of Picasso's 1942 Histoire Naturelle - Textes de Buffon series. The image size is 11.2 x 8.25 inches, unsigned as issued, and framed in a contemporary silver and gray moulding. One of about 36 prints that exist with Picasso's remarqued title in French, from the edition of 262 (there were 226 portfolios, some with additional sets on varying papers). Catalogue - Cramer #37 The exceptional etchings from Picasso’s Histoire Naturelle – Textes de Buffon are a masterful combination of sugar-lift aquatint and drypoint, showcasing a full range of gray tonalities. The etchings of animals, birds and insects are considered some of the most beautiful and most unusual examples of Picasso’s graphic work. Roger Lacourière, Picasso’s master printer, pulled the prints for each etching between 1939-1942. It was Lacourière who taught Picasso the sugar-lift aquatint technique which allowed him to mimic the effect of brushstrokes in these etched images. Picasso first explored the technique in his plates for the Vollard Suite, but it was in the creation of the Buffon images that he fully realized its stunning, painterly potential. For the edition, 226 portfolios were produced with the first thirty-six counting as deluxe compilations. These rare deluxe sets were on diverse papers (chine, japon or vergé ancien) and each included a complete additional suite showing Picasso’s title remarques along the bottom. As such, the remarqued versions of the prints are quite rare with just thirty-six of each produced for the edition (with the exception of The Wolf which is never remarqued – the image always fills the entire etching plate). These prints are based on the writings of French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, who extensively documented the natural world in his monumental work Histoire Naturelle. Picasso’s association with the project to illustrate parts of the Buffon came during a tumultuous time in European history – the prelude to, and early years of, World War II. As the continent was ravaged, Picasso lived through the disaster in Paris, which the Germans occupied in 1940. These prints could be seen as a political statement – Picasso channeling his artistic expression into a form of resistance art...

Etching and drypoint on cream wove paper, full margins. Signed and numbered 59/75 in pencil, lower margin. Notations in pencil along the lower sheet edge, recto, well outside of ima...

The Monkey is an aquatint and drypoint print on chine from one of the deluxe copies of Picasso's 1942 Histoire Naturelle - Textes de Buffon series. The image size is 10.5 x 7.9 inche...

The Deer is an aquatint and drypoint print on chine from one of the deluxe copies of Picasso's 1942 Histoire Naturelle - Textes de Buffon series. The image size is 10.5 x 8.15 inches, unsigned as issued, and framed in a contemporary silver and gray moulding. One of about 36 prints that exist with Picasso's remarqued title in French, from the edition of 262 (there were 226 portfolios, some with additional sets on varying papers). Catalogue - Cramer #37 The exceptional etchings from Picasso’s Histoire Naturelle – Textes de Buffon are a masterful combination of sugar-lift aquatint and drypoint, showcasing a full range of gray tonalities. The etchings of animals, birds and insects are considered some of the most beautiful and most unusual examples of Picasso’s graphic work. Roger Lacourière, Picasso’s master printer, pulled the prints for each etching between 1939-1942. It was Lacourière who taught Picasso the sugar-lift aquatint technique which allowed him to mimic the effect of brushstrokes in these etched images. Picasso first explored the technique in his plates for the Vollard Suite, but it was in the creation of the Buffon images that he fully realized its stunning, painterly potential. For the edition, 226 portfolios were produced with the first thirty-six counting as deluxe compilations. These rare deluxe sets were on diverse papers (chine, japon or vergé ancien) and each included a complete additional suite showing Picasso’s title remarques along the bottom. As such, the remarqued versions of the prints are quite rare with just thirty-six of each produced for the edition (with the exception of The Wolf which is never remarqued – the image always fills the entire etching plate). These prints are based on the writings of French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, who extensively documented the natural world in his monumental work Histoire Naturelle. Picasso’s association with the project to illustrate parts of the Buffon came during a tumultuous time in European history – the prelude to, and early years of, World War II. As the continent was ravaged, Picasso lived through the disaster in Paris, which the Germans occupied in 1940. These prints could be seen as a political statement – Picasso channeling his artistic expression into a form of resistance art...

The Lobster is an aquatint and drypoint print on chine from one of the deluxe copies of Picasso's 1942 Histoire Naturelle - Textes de Buffon series. The image size is 10.6 x 7.9 inches, unsigned as issued, and framed in a contemporary silver and gray moulding. One of about 36 prints that exist with Picasso's remarqued title in French, from the edition of 262 (there were 226 portfolios, some with additional sets on varying papers). Catalogue - Cramer #37 The exceptional etchings from Picasso’s Histoire Naturelle – Textes de Buffon are a masterful combination of sugar-lift aquatint and drypoint, showcasing a full range of gray tonalities. The etchings of animals, birds and insects are considered some of the most beautiful and most unusual examples of Picasso’s graphic work. Roger Lacourière, Picasso’s master printer, pulled the prints for each etching between 1939-1942. It was Lacourière who taught Picasso the sugar-lift aquatint technique which allowed him to mimic the effect of brushstrokes in these etched images. Picasso first explored the technique in his plates for the Vollard Suite, but it was in the creation of the Buffon images that he fully realized its stunning, painterly potential. For the edition, 226 portfolios were produced with the first thirty-six counting as deluxe compilations. These rare deluxe sets were on diverse papers (chine, japon or vergé ancien) and each included a complete additional suite showing Picasso’s title remarques along the bottom. As such, the remarqued versions of the prints are quite rare with just thirty-six of each produced for the edition (with the exception of The Wolf which is never remarqued – the image always fills the entire etching plate). These prints are based on the writings of French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, who extensively documented the natural world in his monumental work Histoire Naturelle. Picasso’s association with the project to illustrate parts of the Buffon came during a tumultuous time in European history – the prelude to, and early years of, World War II. As the continent was ravaged, Picasso lived through the disaster in Paris, which the Germans occupied in 1940. These prints could be seen as a political statement – Picasso channeling his artistic expression into a form of resistance art...

"Le Bouclier" is an original drypoint etching by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece lower right and wrote the edition number (25/100) in the lower left. This piece depicts ...

The Pigeon is an aquatint and drypoint print on chine from one of the deluxe copies of Picasso's 1942 Histoire Naturelle - Textes de Buffon series. The image size is 10.75x 8 inches, unsigned as issued, and framed in a contemporary silver and gray moulding. One of about 36 prints that exist with Picasso's remarqued title in French, from the edition of 262 (there were 226 portfolios, some with additional sets on varying papers). Catalogue - Cramer #37 The exceptional etchings from Picasso’s Histoire Naturelle – Textes de Buffon are a masterful combination of sugar-lift aquatint and drypoint, showcasing a full range of gray tonalities. The etchings of animals, birds and insects are considered some of the most beautiful and most unusual examples of Picasso’s graphic work. Roger Lacourière, Picasso’s master printer, pulled the prints for each etching between 1939-1942. It was Lacourière who taught Picasso the sugar-lift aquatint technique which allowed him to mimic the effect of brushstrokes in these etched images. Picasso first explored the technique in his plates for the Vollard Suite, but it was in the creation of the Buffon images that he fully realized its stunning, painterly potential. For the edition, 226 portfolios were produced with the first thirty-six counting as deluxe compilations. These rare deluxe sets were on diverse papers (chine, japon or vergé ancien) and each included a complete additional suite showing Picasso’s title remarques along the bottom. As such, the remarqued versions of the prints are quite rare with just thirty-six of each produced for the edition (with the exception of The Wolf which is never remarqued – the image always fills the entire etching plate). These prints are based on the writings of French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, who extensively documented the natural world in his monumental work Histoire Naturelle. Picasso’s association with the project to illustrate parts of the Buffon came during a tumultuous time in European history – the prelude to, and early years of, World War II. As the continent was ravaged, Picasso lived through the disaster in Paris, which the Germans occupied in 1940. These prints could be seen as a political statement – Picasso channeling his artistic expression into a form of resistance art...

Owl is an etching on paper, realized by the French artist and print-maker master Mario Avati (1921-2009). Hand-signed on the lower right and numbered on the lower left in pencil. Ed...