Produce Animal Prints

Greyhound 1773-1802 Engraving 14 x 10 inches Framed: 24 x 21 inches

James Seymour (1702-1752) 'Star', A running horse belonging to His Grace the Duke of Bridgewater Mezzotint by R. Houston Image size 10 x 14 in Framed size 13 x 17 in James Seymour w...

Emidio di Nola, original Italian pasta poster. Size 19" x 25.5". Professional acid-free archival linen-backed; in excellent condition; ready to frame....

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...

James Seymour (1702-1752) A horse being led from a stable Mezzotint by Thomas Burford Image size 10 x 14 in Framed size 13 x 17 in James Seymour was an English artist renowned for h...

James Seymour (1702-1752) A Standing Leap at a Gate Mezzotint with hand colouring Image size 10 x 14 in Framed size 16 1/2 x 20 in James Seymour was an English artist renowned for h...

The Matador. 1911. Drypoint. Hardie 109. 6 7/8 x 10 7/8 (sheet 7 7/8 x 12). Edition 15. A few scattered foxing marks and slight mat line; otherwise fine o...

James Seymour (1702-1752) 'Ironsides' a famous Hunter belonging to the Earl of Halifax Mezzotint by R. Houston Image size 9 1/4 x 13 1/4 in Framed size 12 x 16 in James Seymour was ...

"Combat Equestre" is an original lithograph by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece lower right and wrote the edition number (24/100) in the lower left. This piece depicts mu...

"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...

A Fierce Bull. 1911. Drypoint. Hardie 108. 5 3/8 x 8 (sheet 8 5/16 x 11 7/8). Edition 8. An exceptional impression with rich drypoint burr printed on antique laid paper. A proof of t...

James Seymour (1702-1752) Leading Out a Hunter Mezzotint by Thomas Burford Image size 10 x 14 in Framed size 13 x 17 in James Seymour was an English artist renowned for his equestri...