Samuel Alken Jr. Landscape Prints

A delicate composition of an industrial Hudson River town, seen from lower Manhattan; a view of what is now Liberty State Park. New York: 1884. Etching with aquatint on cream laid p...

Boston: American Art Review, 1880. Etching on cream laid paper, 5 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches (146 x 230mm), full margins. Light uniform age tone, scattered handling creases and minor toning ...

Canoe - Peter Doig, Contemporary, 21st Century, Etching, Magic Realism, Limited Edition Edition of 500 Signed and numbered, accompanied by Certificate of Authenticity In mint conditi...

Forest Road, paper, etching, 21.5x28.5 cm Piotr Petrovich Belousov (1912-1989) was a Soviet, Russian painter, graphic artist, art teacher, professor of the Leningrad Institute of Pa...

Max Clarenbach (1880 Neuss - Cologne 1952), Evening. Etching, 18 x 41 cm (platemark), 33.5 x 57 cm (frame), inscribed "Abend" in pencil at lower left, signed and dated "M. Clarenbach. 28.III.[19]09". Framed and mounted under glass. - Somewhat browned and slightly foxed. About the artwork The horizontally elongated etching depicts the panoramic view of a small town as seen from the other side of the river. There are gabled houses on the left and a mighty church spire on the right. The bourgeois houses and the large religious building indicate the urban character. These buildings are rendered in dark tones to emphasise the lighter row of houses in the centre of the picture, closer to the water. The chiaroscuro contrast creates two parallel planes that open up a space for the imagination of what the city could be. The imagination is stimulated by the almost entirely dark, barely recognisable buildings, while the arm of the river leading into the city further stimulates the imagination. However, as the silhouette of the city as a whole is reflected in the water, the parallel planes are perceived as a band of houses that stretches across the entire horizontality of the etching and seems to continue beyond the borders of the picture. The reflection has almost the same intensity as the houses themselves, so that the band of buildings merges with their reflection to form the dominant formal unit of the picture. Only the parallel horizontal hatching creates the convincing impression of seeing water, demonstrating Max Clarenbach's mastery of the etching needle. The water is completely motionless, the reflection unclouded by the slightest movement of the waves, creating a symmetry within the formal unity of the cityscape and its reflection that goes beyond the motif of a mere cityscape. A pictorial order is established that integrates everything in the picture and has a metaphysical character as a structure of order that transcends the individual things. This pictorial order is not only relevant in the pictorial world, but the picture itself reveals the order of the reality it depicts. Revealing the metaphysical order of reality in the structures of its visibility is what drives Clarenbach as an artist and motivates him to return to the same circle of motifs. The symmetry described is at the same time inherent an asymmetry that is a reflection on art: While the real cityscape is cut off at the top of the picture, two chimneys and above all the church tower are not visible, the reflection illustrates reality in its entirety. The reflection occupies a much larger space in the picture than reality itself. Since antiquity, art has been understood primarily as a reflection of reality, but here Clarenbach makes it clear that art is not a mere appearance, which can at best be a reflection of reality, but that art has the potential to reveal reality itself. The revealed structure of order is by no means purely formalistic; it appears at the same time as the mood of the landscape. The picture is filled with an almost sacred silence. Nothing in the picture evokes a sound, and there is complete stillness. There are no people in Clarenbach's landscape paintings to bring action into the picture. Not even we ourselves are assigned a viewing position in the picture, so that we do not become thematic subjects of action. Clarenbach also refrains from depicting technical achievements. The absence of man and technology creates an atmosphere of timelessness. Even if the specific date proves that Clarenbach is depicting something that happened before his eyes, without the date we would not be able to say which decade, or even which century, we are in. The motionless stillness, then, does not result in time being frozen in the picture, but rather in a timeless eternity that is nevertheless, as the title "Abend" (evening), added by Clarenbach himself, makes clear, a phenomenon of transition. The landscape of the stalls is about to be completely plunged into darkness, the buildings behind it only faintly discernible. The slightly darkened state of the sheet is in keeping with this transitional quality, which also lends the scene a sepia quality that underlines its timelessness. And yet the depiction is tied to a very specific time. Clarenbach dates the picture to the evening of 28 March 1909, which does not refer to the making of the etching, but to the capture of the landscape's essence in the landscape itself. If the real landscape is thus in a state of transition, and therefore something ephemeral, art reveals its true nature in that reality, subject to the flow of phenomena, is transferred to an eternal moment, subject to a supra-temporal structure of order - revealed by art. Despite this supratemporality, the picture also shows the harbingers of night as the coming darkening of the world, which gives the picture a deeply melancholy quality, enhanced by the browning of the leaf. It is the philosophical content and the lyrical-melancholic effect of the graphic that give it its enchanting power. Once we are immersed in the image, it literally takes a jerk to disengage from it. This etching, so characteristic of Max Clarenbach's art, is - not least because of its dimensions - a major work in his graphic oeuvre. About the artist Born into poverty and orphaned at an early age, the artistically gifted young Max Clarenbach was discovered by Andreas Achenbach and admitted to the Düsseldorf Art Academy at the age of 13. "Completely penniless, I worked for an uncle in a cardboard factory in the evenings to pay for my studies.” - Max Clarenbach At the academy he studied under Arthur Kampf, among others, and in 1897 was accepted into Eugen Dücker...

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Limehouse, etching, 1859. References: Glasgow 48, fifth state (of 6), Kennedy 40, third state (of 3), signed with the butterfly in pencil in the lower margin. [Also signed and dated in the plate.]With margins, 5 x 7 7/8 inches, the sheet 6 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches. Published as no. 12 in A Series of Sixteen Etchings of Scenes on the Thames and Other Subjects, otherwise known as the Thames Set. In good condition apart from a soft diagonal fold in the sky. A very fine impression, in black ink on a thin Japan paper. Provenance: Dr. John W. Randall (cf. Lugt 2130), without his mark, annotated on the mat. Limehouse, the entrance to the West Indies Docks, lies opposite the Surrey Commercial Docks in Rotherhithe, along the lower Thames. It’s unusual to find the signed butterfly (or any pencil signature) on the early London etchings, but it is known that Whistler signed...

Federica Galli, an exquisite and prominent Italian etcher, dedicated two to the etchings of 39 Venice Viewscaps. She was able to interpret the splendid Italian city from an authentic unique standpoint. Some of the 39 Views have been conceived as pairs, such as those featured above. The pair of prints comprising Lo Squero, which is the most historic Gondole manufacturer boats in Venice, and it is still operating; and Lake of Pageri. The two prints are perfect in terms of both size and atmosphere. Lo Squero, etching, cm 29,3x79,1 (plate size + margins) Lago dei Pageri, etching, cm 29,4x79,3 (plate size + margins) A numbered and signed limited edition at 90. Unframed. Illustrations featuring both views; exhibitions on Mrs Galli's artworks in Federica Galli Foundation and in other locations; and her portrait taken by photographer Gianni Berengo Gardin...

Cascina Madera, Ref. 421 Original etching, signed and numbered. Limited edition of 90. Federica Galli was one of Italy's leading contemporary etchers. She achieved this fame because she was able to interpret views, as Milan and Venice, landscapes and architecture with a poetic and original eye. Moreover she had the foresight to portray the beauty of the great Italian trees...

Cascina Riazzolo, Ref. 401 Original etching, signed and numbered. Limited edition of 90. Federica Galli was one of Italy's leading contemporary etchers. She achieved this fame bec...

Drypoint etching on watermarked cream wove paper, 5 7/16 x 8 7/16 inches (39 x 215 mm), wide (perhaps full) margins. A very desirable, bright and richly inked impression, with the da...

Cascina (Farmhouse) Santo Stefano, rif. 490 Original etching, signed and numbered. Limited edition of 90. Federica Galli was one of Italy's leading contemporary etchers. She achi...

Venezia, I Tetti (roofs), platemark mm 593 x 392. Rif. 541 Original etching, signed and numbered. Limited edition of 90. The etching was exhibited last year in the critical retrosp...