Thomas Rowlandson

"Pillory, Charing Cross" by Rowlandson from "The Microcosm of London"

1809

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...

This large framed 18th century etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi entitled "Veduta della Basilica di S. Lorenzo fuor della mura" (Basilica of San Lorenzo Outside the Walls), published in Rome in 1750 in Piranesi's Vedute di Roma (Views of Rome), This etching depicts the Basilica of San Lorenzo Outside the Walls, which is a Roman Catholic papal basilica and parish church, located in Rome, Italy. The Basilica is one of the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome and one of the five "papal basilicas". It was built as a shrine to the martyred Roman deacon St. Lawrence. This Piranesi etching is held by many museums and institutions, including: The Metropolitan Museum, The British Museum, The National Gallery of Art, The Yale University Art Gallery, and The Harvard Museum of Art. This magnificent etching is presented in a brown-colored wood frame and a tan French...

This a framed Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) etching entitled "Reliquiae Theartri Pompejani" (Remains of the Theatre of Pompey) from "Il Campo Marzio dell'Antica Roma" (The C...

An 18th century etching and engraving entitled "Earl Sandwich Refusing to Leave His Ship While on Fire in the Battle of Sole Bay" by William Byrne (1743-1805), after a painting by Robert Smirke (1753-1845). It was published in London in 1798. The print is presented in a cream-colored mat. The mat measures 17.13" in height and 13" in width. The print is in excellent condition. Edward Montagu, the 1st Earl of Sandwich...

This is an 18th century etching of the Patriarchal Church or Basilica of S. Pietro di Castello in Venice entitled "Chiesa Patriarcale di S. Pietro di Castello" by Domenico Lovisa, fi...

This large framed 18th century etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi entitled "Veduta del Mausoleo d'Elio Adriana ora chiamato Castello S. Angelo nella parte opposta alla Facciata de...

Tree & Handkerchief. Original color aquatint and etching, 1978. Edition of A.P. (artist’s proof) signed and numbered impressions on Arches paper. Kyu-Baik Hwang is contemporary painter and printmaker, from South Korea. He served in the military during the Korean War, and after the war he began to paint. Latter, he traveled across Europe and America and got inspired by many of their cultures and artists. Displacing ordinary objects from their original environments, typical for his works is often compared to Surrealist’s art from the 20th-century. Unlike surrealists, who rejected mind control...

My Village. Original aquatint, 1981. Ivan Rabuzin was a Croatian naive painter and one of the most eminent lyric painters of the 20th century in Croatia. For many years he worked as ...

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...

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...

Sparire means "to disappear" in Italian. This large-scale, dreamlike print spans almost ten feet. Enzo Cucchi Sparire 1, 1988 Color etching, aquatint and silkscreen 30 1/2 × 118 in ...

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...