La Galerie Cotignac Landscape Prints

A fine hand coloured 18th Century engraving after the original by Piranesi (Rome 1743), published by Danisy, Paris. Presented in period gold leaf frame, under glass. Piranesi was born in Venice, in the parish of S. Moisè where he was baptised. His father was a stonemason. His brother Andrea introduced him to Latin literature and ancient Greco-Roman civilization, and later he was apprenticed under his uncle, Matteo Lucchesi, who was a leading architect in Magistrato delle Acque, the state organization responsible for engineering and restoring historical buildings. From 1740, he had an opportunity to work in Rome as a draughtsman for Marco Foscarini, the Venetian ambassador of the new Pope Benedict XIV. He resided in the Palazzo Venezia and studied under Giuseppe Vasi, who introduced him to the art of etching and engraving of the city and its monuments. Giuseppe Vasi found Piranesi's talent was much greater than that of a mere engraver. According to Legrand, Vasi told Piranesi that "you are too much of a painter, my friend, to be an engraver." After his studies with Vasi, he collaborated with pupils of the French Academy in Rome to produce a series of vedute (views) of the city; his first work was Prima parte di Architettura e Prospettive (1743), followed in 1745 by Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna. From 1743 to 1747, he was mainly in Venice where, according to some sources, he often visited Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, a leading artist in Venice. It was Tiepolo who expanded the restrictive conventions of reproductive, topographical and antiquarian engravings. He then returned to Rome, where he opened a workshop in Via del Corso. In 1748–1774, he created an important series of vedute of the city which established his fame. In the meantime Piranesi devoted himself to the measurement of many of the ancient buildings: this led to the publication of Le Antichità Romane de' tempo della prima Repubblica e dei primi imperatori ("Roman Antiquities of the Time of the First Republic...

Mid-Century coloured woodblock print of 'ploughing the fields' by 20th century Japanese artist Ini Kumo. The print is hand-signed in pencil, dated 1966 and numbered 130/700 to the bottom right and presented under glass in a black wooden frame. A beautiful woodblock printed image of a Japanese farmer in traditional attire ploughing the land with his ox. It is early evening and as the sun goes down it casts long shadows in front of the two figures. Perhaps the farmer is on his way back to the houses grouped in the distance already in shadow. The artist has carefully picked out areas of vibrant green and blue to give energy and colour to the image which contrast against the black of the ox. A thoroughly enchanting image. Ini Kumo is a recognised Sõsaku-hanga artist. His work is included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Sōsaku-hanga (創作版画, "creative prints") was an art movement of woodblock printing which was conceived in early 20th-century Japan. It stressed the artist as the sole creator motivated by a desire for self-expression, and advocated principles of art that is "self-drawn" (自画 jiga), "self-carved" (自刻 jikoku) and "self-printed" (自摺 jizuri). As opposed to the parallel shin-hanga ("new prints") movement that maintained the traditional ukiyo-e collaborative system where the artist, carver, printer, and publisher engaged in division of labor. The birth of the sōsaku-hanga movement was signaled by Kanae Yamamoto...