Luigi Mayer Art

Original aquatint etching of working river barges on the Seine in Paris, France. A horse drawn cart is seen loading or unloading product. Circa 1900. Si...

This is an artist proof (one of a kind) aquatint and watercolor depicting a cactus-filled Mexican garden, a mirror tilted up and an image of the artist s...

A beautiful aquatint etching of a serene pastoral scene in the Picardy region of northern France by Paul Emile Lecomte (1877-1950). A mother and child are seen walking down a path in...

Catherina Dorothea Viehman (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Paper 1...

Tanna Kasimir-Hoernes "Broad Street, New York" Original Etching W/ Aquatint C.1930s Plate dimensions 10.25" wide x 17.75" high The frame measures 19" w...

Sheet from “Rapunzel” story (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Text printed letterpress and “Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your Hair” etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Etching 10.5 × 9.85 in. / 26.7 × 25 cm Paper 17.5 x 12.25 in. / 45 x 31 cm Unsigned: apart from the published edition of 400 books and 100 portfolios. This is one of eleven images recently found in our archive which we have decided to make available. There is one only of each image. Perhaps the most famous story from the Grimm Brothers, Rapunzel spins the tale of a beautiful young princess locked away by an evil sorceress. Captured in this scene is the moment a King's son came across the tower and fell in love with her sweet singing, beseeching her: 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your hair to me.' Though the sorcerer banishes Rapunzel and maims the prince, they are of course ultimately reunited to live happily together. Hockney illustrates this scene with incredible texture detail: layers of aquatint defining the soft forest floor, delicate hatching on the horse's haunch, the tower's tight crosshatching, and of course the lyrical gesture of Rapunzel's hair which cascades from the upper right corner. This print from our publisher's archives is one of thirty-nine etchings from David Hockney’s 1969 "Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm". Hockney worked on this series with Paul Cornwall-Jones at Petersburg Press over the course of a year. 400 books and 100 portfolios plus artist’s proofs were printed. The artist illustrated six stories: 'The Little Sea Hare', 'Fundevogel', 'Rapunzel', 'The Boy who left Home to learn Fear', 'Old Rinkrank' and 'Rumpelstilzchen'. According to Hockney, "They're fascinating, the little stories, told in a very, very simple, direct, straightforward language and style, it was this simplicity that attracted me. They cover quite a strange range of experience, from the magical to the moral." He was inspired by earlier illustrators of the tales, including Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, but Hockney reimagined the stories for a modern audience. The frontispiece for the project pictures Catherina Dorothea Viehmann, the elderly German woman who recounted fairy tales to the Grimm brothers when they were in their late twenties. In Hockney's words: “The stories weren’t written by the Brothers Grimm…they came across this woman called Catherina Dorothea Viehmann, who told 20 stories to them in this simple language, and they were so moved by them that they wrote them down word for word as she spoke.” Hockney drew the German woman in the style of Dürer, formally posed yet naturalistic against an impeccably crosshatched swath of grey. Hockney wrote about the surreal plots contained in the Brothers Grimm tales: “…the stories really are quite mad, when you think of it, and quite strange. In modern times, it’s like the story of a couple moving into a house, and in the next door’s garden they see this lettuce growing: and the wife develops this craving for the lettuce that she just must have and climbs over to pinch it, and the old woman who lives in the house next door says well, you can have the lettuce if you give me your child, and they agree to it. And if you put it into terms like this and imagine them in their semi-detached house agreeing to it all, it seems incredible.” Hockney enhanced this unbelievable quality with his illustrations which traverse inky, dense areas of intense crosshatching and minimalist line work. Rather than serving as direct interpretations of the plot, the images capture moments and feelings. Some portray the magic yet mundane -- Rapunzel's tiny face gazing placidly at a well-tended garden, or project danger and unease as in The Haunted Castle, with its citadel perched atop craggy rocks, dramatically lit against a dark sky. Hockney's sense of humor comes through in Cold Water About to Hit the Prince, in which a man tucked into bed stares straight at a rush of water drawn with a splash (this technique is likely Spit Bite, and the resultant bold spattered brushstroke contrasts beautifully with the rest of the carefully crosshatched image). A Wooded Landscape, with its lush textures, conveys the bucolic setting of a fairy tale and the potential danger hidden within the woods -- the viewer is left to wonder who lives on the hilltop in that diminutive cabin. These etchings defy the conventions of beautiful fairy tale illustrations...

La Grande Cascade de Saint Cloud Color aquatint on watermarked Arches J Perrigot paper, 1905 Signed by the artist in pencil lower right. (see photo) Edition: 100. Numbered "39" in pencil lower left. Titled in pencil verso Published by Edmund Sagot, Paris, his dry stamp lower right below signature. Image: 23-1/8 x 17-3/8" (58.7 x 44 cm.) From the British Museum: "Colour etcher. Born in Livorno from a family of wealthy Swiss cotton merchants, studied with Giuseppe Ciaranfi and Michele Gordigiani in Florence. In 1886 exhibited with Fattori, Achille Lega and Tommasi in the Prima Esposizione delle Belle Arti in Livorno. In 1888 he and his family moved to Paris, where he studied first with François Flameng until 1892 and later with Carolus-Duran. Müller remained in the French capital until the outbreak of the First World War, taking French citizenship in 1913. He worked in the countryside at Barbizon, Suresnes and elsewhere, but also made frequent visits to his native country, where he exhibited regularly in Florence with the Promotrice Fiorentine. His early work was indebted to Fattori and Plinio Nomellini, but he soon became interested in the Impressionists and was credited by the critic Mario Tinti with introducing the luminism of Monet into Italian art. Müller was a member of the Société des Artistes Indépendents and exhibited regularly in the Paris dealer George Petit's annual exhibitions of colour prints. He made his first print in 1896, a lithographic portrait of the poet Paul Verlaine in the Café Procope. The following year Müller made his first colour aquatints. Among them were a series of illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy. In style his etchings and aquatints were influenced by Manuel Robbe. Very occasionally he combined drypoint or soft ground etching with aquatint. Müller's principal publisher was Pierrefort, who also issued prints by Toulouse-Lautrec. After 1903 he largely abandoned aquatint for pure etching. Fourteen of his colour etchings were reproduced over a number of months in the weekly magazine 'Le Courrier français'. Müller also made a small number of colour lithographs, some of which were published by the Parisian print dealer Sagot. A single monotype of Mallarmé done in 1911, thirteen years after the poet's death in 1898, is recorded. Müller made a few landscape prints and a couple of etchings of fishing boats, but his principal subject was young women in long dresses. Often there is an aura of fin-de-siècle wistfulness. When he returned to Italy, he lived first in Taormina, then in Florence, and finally settled in a villa at Settignano. Müller largely abandoned printmaking after 1914. Only three more prints by him made in 1920, 1925 and 1933 are recorded after he moved back to his native country. Müller was a regular exhibitor in Florentine exhibitions, the most significant of which was the 1922 Primaverile Fiorentina. He returned to France in 1930 where he died in 1939. (Text by Martin Hopkinson)" Said to rival the fountains at Versailles, La Grande Cascade is still turned on for a few hours every Sunday in June. The Grande Cascade, constructed in 1664-1665 by Antoine Le Pautre has survived. The château was expanded by Phillipe de France, duc d'Orléans in the 17th century, and finally enlarged by Marie Antoinette in the 1780s. Napoleon I and Napoleon III also used the palace, which was a U-shaped scheme of three sections, open to the east. Destroyed by fire (with the exception of a few outbuildings and its majestic garden) in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War. The burned-out shell stood until 1891, when it was demolished. The gardens were replanned by André Le Nôtre...

Philip Pearlstein (1924-2022) View Over Soho, Lower Manhattan, 1977 Aquatint in colors on wove paper Edition 7/41 Signed, editioned and titled in pencil lower left Printed by the Orl...

JOSEPH PENNELL (1857-1926) The Thames, 1894 Signed Aquatint Plate size 20.5 by 26.5 cm., 8 by 10 ½ in. (frame size 42 by 46 cm., 16 ½ by 18 in.) Pennell was born in Philadelphia where he studied at School of Industrial Art and the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1884 he was commissioned by the Century Magazine to supply a series of drawings of London...

"Divide" black and white soft ground etching and aquatint by April Gornik. Edition 23 of 30. Image size: 33 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches. Published by The S...

Early Morning Rain Etching & color aquatint, 1977 Signed, titled, numbered and dated in pencil Edition: 40 (39/40) Published by Associated American Artists, New York Condition: Mint Image/Plate size: 16 1/2 x 15 3/8 inches Sheet size: 25 3/4 x 19 1/2 inches Reference: AAA Index No. 2486 "Norman Ackroyd (RA) is one of Britain’s most celebrated living landscape artists. He is renowned for his evocative and atmospheric visions of the British Isles. Working in both etching and watercolour, he is equally as adept at capturing the calm of a Summer’s daybreak as he is the ferocity of a winter sea. Born in 1938 in Leeds, he studied at Leeds College of Art (1957-61) and the Royal College of Art in London...

"Pillory, Charing Cross" is an illustration (Plate 62) from "The Microcosm of London", published in London in 1809 by R Ackermann's Repository of Arts. The scene was created by one of the most famous British satirists and caricaturists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries' Georgian Period, Thomas Rowlandson, who drew the figures, while Augustus Charles Pugin drew the architecture. The plate was then created by Hill, Stadler and Bluck using a combination of aquatint and etching and was then hand colored with watercolor. Scenes illustrated in "The Microcosm of London" gives an accurate and often comical view of everyday life in London during the Regency Period of the early 19th century. While Pugin’s excellent architectural drawings capture the size and shape of the exterior as well as the interior of London’s principal buildings, Thomas Rowlandson’s insightful and often whimsical and satirical view of the city's inhabitants depicts the color and vitality of the late Georgian society, both rich and poor alike. This print depicts the "Pillory, Charing Cross", where criminals were brought and placed on display while secure in the stocks, as are seen in this print. A crowd is present in the square jeering at the prisoners. A statue of Charles I on horseback stands atop a very large pillar to the right. Shops with apartments are seen on the left. Young wealthy people frolic around and on a carriage on the right in front of the statue of King...