Early 18th Century Animal Prints

'Katzen' (Cats) German wood-engraving, circa 1895. 240mm by 155mm (sheet)

"The Scar by China Miéville is a novel which has been a part of my life for many years, and has travelled as my companion through since adolescence. I've attempted to depict the Avan...

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...

'Einsiedlerkrebse' (Hermit crabs) German wood-engraving, circa 1895. 240mm by 155mm (sheet)

Matisse's Cat is a limited edition hand made print by artist Mychael Barratt which takes inspiration from the paper cutting work of Matisse in the 1940s....

Gavin Dobson Puffin Gold Limited Edition Screen Print Edition of 50 Signed Size: H 50cm x W 35cm x D 0.1cm Puffin Gold is a limited edition print by Gavin Dobson. A special gold edit...

Waterlily pool by Elaine Marshall [2012] Signed by the artist Etching and aquatint Edition of 5 Image size: H:17 cm x W:20 cm Complete Size of Unframed...

Moon Panther (blue) by Kate Willows [2021] limited_edition Ink on Paper Edition number 50 Image size: H:30 cm x W:40 cm Sold Unframed Please note that insitu images are purely an indication of how a piece may look This print shows a moonlit panther, inspired by a woodcut by the 18th century English artist Thomas Bewick...

This high-quality print on aluminum dibond, hand-numbered and signed by the artist, features a surreal scene of a tabby cat atop a table, set against a floral background that evokes ...

Green shell lithograph of a cone shell. Print is edition 33 of 34. Signed and dated by the artist along with titled. Print is framed in a golden frame...

'Kloakentiere' (Monotremes - echidna and platypus)) German wood-engraving, circa 1895. 240mm by 155mm (sheet)

[ Bird of Paradise] La Pie de paradise, vue par derriere , No.21, Paris 1801-1806 [Astrapia nigra]. Color-printed engraving with hand-coloring. French botanical and zoological illustrator Jacques Barraband (1767-1809) was known as one of the finest ornithological artists of his time .He is best known for his watercolors and engravings that were commissioned by François LeVaillant, French explorer, naturalist, zoological collector , noted ornithologist and author. Levaillant’s Histoire naturelle des perroquets (1801-05) and his Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de paradis (Birds of Paradise, 1801-06), both of which Barraband contributed to, are still considered some of the most beautiful bird books of all times because of their exceptional scientific accuracy, rich color and detail. The Astrapia nigra is a Bird of Paradise that inhabits the Vogelkop Peninsula of West Papua...