Eugène Delacroix

"A Man in Army Dress" & "Study of a Woman" Original Etching by Eugene Delacroix

1833

The present print is one of several examples produced for Nathaniel Currier by his longtime collaborator Frances F. "Fanny" Palmer. Harry T. Peters wrote of her: "There is no more interesting and appealing character among the group of artists who worked for Currier & Ives than Fanny Palmer. In an age when women, well-bred women in particular, did not generally work for a living Fanny Palmer for years did exacting, full-time work in order to support a large and dependent family ... Her work ... had great charm, homeliness, and a conscientious attention to detail." One of a series of four prints showing American country life in different seasons, the image presents the viewer with a picturesque view of a successful American farm. In the foreground, a gentleman rides a horse with a young boy before a respectable Italianate country house. Two women and a young girl pick flowers in the garden and several farm workers attend to their duties. Beyond are other homes and a city on the coast. 16.63 x 23.75 inches, artwork 28.13 x 33.38 inches, frame Entitled bottom center "American Country Life - May Morning" Signed in the stone, lower left "F.F. Palmer, Del." Signed in the stone, lower right "Lith. by N. Currier" Copyrighted lower center "Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1855 by N. Currier in the Clerk's office of the Southern District of N.Y." Inscribed bottom center "New York, Published by N. Currier 152 Nassau Street" Framed to conservation standards using silk-lined 100 percent rag matting and Museum Glass with a gold gilded liner, all housed in a stained wood moulding. Nathaniel Currier was a tall introspective man with a melancholy nature. He could captivate people with his piercing stare or charm them with his sparkling blue eyes. Nathaniel was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on March 27th, 1813, the second of four children. His parents, Nathaniel and Hannah Currier, were distant cousins who lived a humble yet spartan life. When Nathaniel was eight years old, tragedy struck. Nathaniel’s father unexpectedly passed away leaving Nathaniel and his eleven-year-old brother Lorenzo to provide for the family. In addition to their mother, Nathaniel and Lorenzo had to care for six-year-old sister Elizabeth and two-year-old brother Charles. Nathaniel worked a series of odd jobs to support the family, and at fifteen, he started what would become a life-long career when he apprenticed in the Boston lithography shop of William and John Pendleton. A Bavarian gentleman named Alois Senefelder invented lithography just 30 years prior to young Nat Currier’s apprenticeship. While under the employ of the brothers Pendleton, Nat was taught the art of lithography by the firm’s chief printer, a French national named Dubois, who brought the lithography trade to America. Lithography involves grinding a piece of limestone flat and smooth then drawing in mirror image on the stone with a special grease pencil. After the image is completed, the stone is etched with a solution of aqua fortis leaving the greased areas in slight relief. Water is then used to wet the stone and greased-ink is rolled onto the raised areas. Since grease and water do not mix, the greased-ink is repelled by the moisture on the stone and clings to the original grease pencil lines. The stone is then placed in a press and used as a printing block to impart black on white images to paper. In 1833, now twenty-years old and an accomplished lithographer, Nat Currier left Boston and moved to Philadelphia to do contract work for M.E.D. Brown, a noted engraver and printer. With the promise of good money, Currier hired on to help Brown prepare lithographic stones of scientific images for the American Journal of Sciences and Arts. When Nat completed the contract work in 1834, he traveled to New York City to work once again for his mentor John Pendleton, who was now operating his own shop located at 137 Broadway. Soon after the reunion, Pendleton expressed an interest in returning to Boston and offered to sell his print shop to Currier. Young Nat did not have the financial resources to buy the shop, but being the resourceful type he found another local printer by the name of Stodart. Together they bought Pendleton’s business. The firm ‘Currier & Stodart’ specialized in "job" printing. They produced many different types of printed items, most notably music manuscripts for local publishers. By 1835, Stodart was frustrated that the business was not making enough money and he ended the partnership, taking his investment with him. With little more than some lithographic stones, and a talent for his trade, twenty-two year old Nat Currier set up shop in a temporary office at 1 Wall Street in New York City. He named his new enterprise ‘N. Currier, Lithographer’ Nathaniel continued as a job printer and duplicated everything from music sheets to architectural plans. He experimented with portraits, disaster scenes and memorial prints, and any thing that he could sell to the public from tables in front of his shop. During 1835 he produced a disaster print Ruins of the Planter's Hotel, New Orleans, which fell at two O’clock on the Morning of the 15th of May 1835, burying 50 persons, 40 of whom Escaped with their Lives. The public had a thirst for newsworthy events, and newspapers of the day did not include pictures. By producing this print, Nat gave the public a new way to “see” the news. The print sold reasonably well, an important fact that was not lost on Currier. Nat met and married Eliza Farnsworth in 1840. He also produced a print that same year titled Awful Conflagration of the Steamboat Lexington in Long Island Sound on Monday Evening, January 18, 1840, by which melancholy occurrence over One Hundred Persons Perished. This print sold out very quickly, and Currier was approached by an enterprising publication who contracted him to print a single sheet addition of their paper, the New York Sun. This single page paper is presumed to be the first illustrated newspaper ever published. The success of the Lexington print launched his career nationally and put him in a position to finally lift his family up. In 1841, Nat and Eliza had their first child, a son they named Edward West Currier. That same year Nat hired his twenty-one year old brother Charles and taught him the lithography trade, he also hired his artistically inclined brother Lorenzo to travel out west and make sketches of the new frontier as material for future prints. Charles worked for the firm on and off over the years, and invented a new type of lithographic crayon which he patented and named the Crayola. Lorenzo continued selling sketches to Nat for the next few years. In 1843, Nat and Eliza had a daughter, Eliza West Currier, but tragedy struck in early 1847 when their young daughter died from a prolonged illness. Nat and Eliza were grief stricken, and Eliza, driven by despair, gave up on life and passed away just four months after her daughter’s death. The subject of Nat Currier’s artwork changed following the death of his wife and daughter, and he produced many memorial prints and sentimental prints during the late 1840s. The memorial prints generally depicted grief stricken families posed by gravestones (the stones were left blank so the purchasers could fill in the names of the dearly departed). The sentimental prints usually depicted idealized portraits of women and children, titled with popular Christian names of the day. Late in 1847, Nat Currier married Lura Ormsbee, a friend of the family. Lura was a self-sufficient woman, and she immediately set out to help Nat raise six-year-old Edward and get their house in order. In 1849, Lura delivered a son, Walter Black Currier, but fate dealt them a blow when young Walter died one year later. While Nat and Lura were grieving the loss of their new son, word came from San Francisco that Nat’s brother Lorenzo had also passed away from a brief illness. Nat sank deeper into his natural quiet melancholy. Friends stopped by to console the couple, and Lura began to set an extra place at their table for these unexpected guests. She continued this tradition throughout their lives. In 1852, Charles introduced a friend, James Merritt Ives, to Nat and suggested he hire him as a bookkeeper. Jim Ives was a native New Yorker born in 1824 and raised on the grounds of Bellevue Hospital where his father was employed as superintendent. Jim was a self-trained artist and professional bookkeeper. He was also a plump and jovial man, presenting the exact opposite image of his new boss. Jim Ives met Charles Currier through Caroline Clark, the object of Jim’s affection. Caroline’s sister Elizabeth was married to Charles, and Caroline was a close friend of the Currier family. Jim eventually proposed marriage to Caroline and solicited an introduction to Nat Currier, through Charles, in hopes of securing a more stable income to support his future wife. Ives quickly set out to improve and modernize his new employer’s bookkeeping methods. He reorganized the firm’s sizable inventory, and used his artistic skills to streamline the firm’s production methods. By 1857, Nathaniel had become so dependent on Jims’ skills and initiative that he offered him a full partnership in the firm and appointed him general manager. The two men chose the name ‘Currier & Ives’ for the new partnership, and became close friends. Currier & Ives produced their prints in a building at 33 Spruce Street where they occupied the third, fourth and fifth floors. The third floor was devoted to the hand operated printing presses that were built by Nat's cousin, Cyrus Currier, at his shop Cyrus Currier & Sons in Newark, NJ. The fourth floor found the artists, lithographers and the stone grinders at work. The fifth floor housed the coloring department, and was one of the earliest production lines in the country. The colorists were generally immigrant girls, mostly German, who came to America with some formal artistic training. Each colorist was responsible for adding a single color to a print. As a colorist finished applying their color, the print was passed down the line to the next colorist to add their color. The colorists worked from a master print displayed above their table, which showed where the proper colors were to be placed. At the end of the table was a touch up artist who checked the prints for quality, touching-in areas that may have been missed as it passed down the line. During the Civil War, demand for prints became so great that coloring stencils were developed to speed up production. Although most Currier & Ives prints were colored in house, some were sent out to contract artists. The rate Currier & Ives paid these artists for coloring work was one dollar per one hundred small folios (a penny a print) and one dollar per one dozen large folios. Currier & Ives also offered uncolored prints to dealers, with instructions (included on the price list) on how to 'prepare the prints for coloring.' In addition, schools could order uncolored prints from the firm’s catalogue to use in their painting classes. Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives attracted a wide circle of friends during their years in business. Some of their more famous acquaintances included Horace Greeley, Phineas T. Barnum, and the outspoken abolitionists Rev. Henry Ward, and John Greenleaf Whittier (the latter being a cousin of Mr. Currier). Nat Currier and Jim Ives described their business as "Publishers of Cheap and Popular Pictures" and produced many categories of prints. These included Disaster Scenes, Sentimental Images, Sports, Humor, Hunting Scenes, Politics, Religion, City and Rural Scenes, Trains, Ships, Fire Fighters, Famous Race Horses, Historical Portraits, and just about any other topic that satisfied the general public's taste. In all, the firm produced in excess of 7500 different titles, totaling over one million prints produced from 1835 to 1907. Nat Currier retired in 1880, and signed over his share of the firm to his son Edward. Nat died eight years later at his summer home 'Lion’s Gate' in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Jim Ives remained active in the firm until his death in 1895, when his share of the firm passed to his eldest son, Chauncey. In 1902, faced will failing health from the ravages of Tuberculosis, Edward Currier sold his share of the firm to Chauncey Ives...

In the mid-nineteenth century, the United States government set out to survey and document its newly acquired lands and territories west of the Mississippi. The goals of these surveys were manifold: to produce topographical maps, to document flora and fauna, and to document natural resources to build the emerging US economy. These surveys, and the images from them, also functioned to build the new sense of American identity with the landscape, condensing vistas into the 'picturesque' tradition of European image making. Thus, the entire span of US territory could be seen as a single, cohesive whole. This lithograph comes from one of six surveys commissioned by the Army's Topographic Bureau in 1853, which sought to find the best route to construct a transcontinental railroad. The result was a thirteen-volume report including maps, lithographs, and technical data entitled 'Explorations and Surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a Railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean.' In particular, the print comes from the northern survey, commanded by Isaac Stevens, which explored the regions between the 47th and 49th parallels. Stanley shows here the stop the Stanley Party made at the junction of the Bitterroot and Hell Gate, in present day Montana. While there, the Party met with the Flathead Chief by the name Victor, as is shown in the image. The figures and their encampment are dwarfed by the vast landscape around them, indicating the sublimity of these new American territories. 5.75 x 8.75 inches, image 6.5 x 9.25 inches, stone 17 x 20 inches, frame Artist 'Stanley Del.' lower left Entitled 'Victor's Camp - Hell Gate Ronde' lower center margin Publisher 'Sarony, Major & Knapp. Lith.s 449 Broadway N.Y.' lower right Inscribed 'U.S.P.R.R. EXP. & SURVEYS — 47th & 49th PARALLELS' upper left Inscribed 'GENERAL REPORT — PLATE XXXI' upper right Framed to conservation standards using 100 percent rag matting with French accents; glazed with UV5 Plexiglas to inhibit fading; housed in a gold reverse ogee moulding. Print in overall good condition; some localized foxing and discoloration; minor surface abrasions to frame. John Mix Stanley...

In the mid-nineteenth century, the United States government set out to survey and document its newly acquired lands and territories west of the Mississippi. The goals of these surveys were manifold: to produce topographical maps, to document flora and fauna, and to document natural resources to build the emerging US economy. These surveys, and the images from them, also functioned to build the new sense of American identity with the landscape, condensing vistas into the 'picturesque' tradition of European image making. Thus, the entire span of US territory could be seen as a single, cohesive whole. This lithograph comes from one of six surveys commissioned by the Army's Topographic Bureau in 1853, which sought to find the best route to construct a transcontinental railroad. The result was a thirteen-volume report including maps, lithographs, and technical data entitled 'Explorations and Surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a Railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean.' When it came to depicting the Assiniboine people, as seen in the present print, Stanley chose to juxtapose their encampment, marked by tipis in the distance, with the encampment of the Isaac Stevens survey party. In the foreground, commemorating this moment, Isaac Stevens can be seen presenting trade goods, which are known to include thirty two dressed skins and two robes. The survey leader Isaac Stevens noted being grateful for the generosity of the Assiniboine, commenting: "I felt very grateful indeed to those Indians, for their kindness to my men, their proffer of kind feeling and hospitality to myself and the survey." This description and this image, however, are arguably depicted through rose-colored glasses: to the Assiniboine people, this meeting may well have included stressful diplomatic relationships and have indicated a threat to the sovereignty over the territories agreed to be theirs by the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. 5.75 x 8.75 inches, image 6.5 x 9.25 inches, stone 17 x 19.75 inches, frame Artist 'Stanley Del.' lower left Entitled 'Distribution of Goods to the Assiniboines' lower center margin Publisher 'Sarony, Major & Knapp. Lith.s 449 Broadway N.Y.' lower right Inscribed 'U.S.P.R.R. EXP. & SURVEYS — 47th & 49th PARALLELS' upper left Inscribed 'GENERAL REPORT — PLATE XIV' upper right Framed to conservation standards using 100 percent rag matting with French accents; glazed with UV5 Plexiglas to inhibit fading; housed in a gold reverse ogee moulding. Print in overall good condition; some localized foxing and discoloration; frame in excellent condition. John Mix Stanley...

The present hand-colored lithograph was produced as part of the funeral and mourning culture in the United States during the 19th century. Before the printmaking boom of the 1830s, however, such inexpensive memorial images were not widely available. These prints became popular as ways of remembering loved ones, an alternative to portraiture of the deceased or to meticulous hand-embroidered memorials often made by female academy students. In the image, the urn-topped monument contains a space where a family could inscribe the name and death dates of a deceased loved one, though this example was never used. In the variations of this image type produced by the Kellogg...

In the mid-nineteenth century, the United States government set out to survey and document its newly acquired lands and territories west of the Mississippi. The goals of these surveys were manifold: to produce topographical maps, to document flora and fauna, and to document natural resources to build the emerging US economy. These surveys, and the images from them, also functioned to build the new sense of American identity with the landscape, condensing vistas into the 'picturesque' tradition of European image making. Thus, the entire span of US territory could be seen as a single, cohesive whole. This lithograph comes from one of six surveys commissioned by the Army's Topographic Bureau in 1853, which sought to find the best route to construct a transcontinental railroad. The result was a thirteen-volume report including maps, lithographs, and technical data entitled 'Explorations and Surveys to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a Railroad from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean.' In particular, the print comes from the northern survey, commanded by Isaac Stevens, which explored the regions between the 47th and 49th parallels. In this image, Stanley shows an encampment of the people known as the Red River of the North hunters. They were generations of European and mixed-race trappers who lived on the frontier and had Indian wives and mixed-race children. They had come to the area for bison hunting, as the herds were still vast on the prairies. In the image, the figures and their encampment are dwarfed by the vast landscape around them, indicating the sublimity of these new American territories. 5.75 x 8.75 inches, image 6.5 x 9.25 inches, stone 17 x 20 inches, frame Artist 'Stanley Del.' lower left Entitled 'Camp Red River Hunters' lower center margin Publisher 'Sarony, Major & Knapp. Lith.s 449 Broadway N.Y.' lower right Inscribed 'U.S.P.R.R. EXP. & SURVEYS — 47th & 49th PARALLELS' upper left Inscribed 'GENERAL REPORT — PLATE XII' upper right Framed to conservation standards using 100 percent rag matting with French accents; glazed with UV5 Plexiglas to inhibit fading; housed in a gold reverse ogee moulding. Print in overall good condition; some localized foxing and discoloration; minor surface abrasions to frame. John Mix Stanley...

'Un fiacre a l'heure... (Emotions Parisiennes)' is an excellent example of the satirical caricatures produced by Honoré Daumier. The title, which translat...

A series of six German engravings of couples dancing. Published by Josef Friderick Leopold in Bavaria. 260mm by 165mm (platemark)

'Le Compliment ou La Matinee du Jour de L'an, Dediee aux Peres de Famille' (The Compliment, or New Year's Morning, Dedicated to the Fathers of the Family) and it's pair 'Les Bouquets...

A Cart Race Hand colored etching & aquatint, 1788 Signed in the plate (see photo) Published by William Hollande, London Inscribed in the plate with title, artist's name and publication line 'Rowlandson. 1788./ London. Pubd 1789 by Wm Holland No 50. Oxford Street.' Reference: M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', VI, 1938) British Museum Satires 7607 Grego, 'Rowlandson', i. 260, Grego II.392 Provenance: Chris Beetles Ltd., London (label), 2003 Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Washington, D.C. (label) Condition: Excellent Archival framing by Chris Beetles Ltd., London Note: The British Museum has two impressions, one trimmed the other full sheet as this example. Accession Number: 1868,0711.35 The Metropolitan Museum has an impression: Accession number 59.533.314 Fitzwilliam Museum: Accession number: 34.14-286 Cleveland Museum of Art accession number: 1958.10 Image description per BM: Three ramshackle two-wheeled carts drawn by wretched horses race (right to left) against a background formed by the church... Note: The British Museum has two impressions, one trimmed the other full sheet as this example. Accession Number: 1868,0711.35 The Metropolitan Museum has an impression: Accession number 59.533.314 Fitzwilliam Museum: Accession number: 34.14-286 Cleveland Museum of Art accession number: 1958.10 Image description per BM: Three ramshackle two-wheeled carts drawn by wretched horses race (right to left) against a background formed by the clouds of dust which they have raised, with a row of gabled houses (right) inscribed 'St Giles', terminating in a church spire (left), and probably representing Broad St. Giles. The occupants of the carts are Irish costermongers typical of St. Giles. The foremost horse gallops, urged on by the shouts of a standing man brandishing a club. The other occupants, two women and a man, cheer derisively the next cart, whose horse has fallen, one woman falling from it head-first, another lies on the ground. The driver lashes the horse furiously. The third cart, of heavier construction, is starting. The horses are partly obscured by the clouds of dust, but denizens watch from casement windows and a door. Two ragged urchins (right) cheer the race; a dog barks. "It was said that the amount of copper Thomas Rowlandson etched would sheathe the British Navy. An inveterate gambler, for much of his life Rowlandson had to produce a flood of his comic prints to stay ahead of financial losses.A wealthy uncle and aunt raised Rowlandson after his textile-merchant father went bankrupt. His career developed quickly. He entered London's Royal Academy Schools in 1772, visited Paris in 1774, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1775, and won a silver medal in 1777. He left school in 1778 to set up in business. Rowlandson's depictions of life in Georgian England exposed human foibles and vanity with sympathy and rollicking humor. During the 1780s he consolidated the delicate style he used for his coarse subjects. He worked mainly in ink and watercolor, his rhythmic compositions, flowing line, and relaxed elegance inspired by French Rococo art...

Phrosine and Mélidore Etching, 1879 Signed in the polate lower left of image This etching is after the Dantan painting, a copy after the Pierre-Paul Prud’hom painting Published by Vve. A. Cadart, 56, Bard. Haussman, Paris A deluxe impression with masked letters The Prud’hom painting is in the Musée des Beaux-AÉdouard Joseph Dantan was born on 26 August 1848 in Paris. His grandfather, who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars, was a wood sculptor. His father, Antoine Laurent Dantan, and uncle, Jean-Pierre Dantan, were both well-known sculptors.[1] Dantan was a pupil of Isidore Pils and Henri Lehmann at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.[2] At the age of nineteen he won a commission for a large mural painting of The Holy Trinity for the Hospice Brezin at Marne (Seine-et-Oise).[3] Dantan's first exhibit at the Paris Salon was An Episode in the Destruction of Pompeii in 1869. In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War interrupted his work, and he enlisted in the defence force.[4] He was given the rank of a sergeant, and was later promoted to lieutenant.[5] During the war the family home was burned down.[4] In the years after the war Dantan exhibited a number of other paintings at the Salon including Hercules at the Feet of Omphale (1874), Death of Tusaphane (1875), The Nymph Salmacis (1876), Priam Demanding of Achillees the Body of Hector (1877), Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew (1878), Corner of a Studio (1880) and The Breakfast of the Model (1881).[3] He continued to exhibit at the Salon until 1895. In 1890, 1894 and 1895 he served on the jury of the Salon. For twelve years Dantan's companion was the model Agostina Segatori, who had also posed for artists such as Jean-Baptiste Corot, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Eugène Delacroix and Édouard Manet. She bore a child to Dantan, Jean-Pierre, in 1873. On their separation, Agostina opened Café du Tambourin on the Boulevard de Clichy that became a meeting place for artists.[6][fn 1] Dantan spent his summers in Villerville, where he died on 9 July 1897 when the carriage in which he was riding crashed violently into the village church.[8] Style and reception Coin d'atelier (1880) At the 1870 exposition of the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts Dantan received an honorable mention for his submission for the prix de Rome.[9] In 1874 he won a third class medal for his painting of a monk carving a Christ in wood...

Francisco De Goya (Spain, 1746-1828) ¨Si quebró el Cantaro¨ Series Caprichos. Estampa 25, ca.1797-1799 etching, aquatint, dry point on laid paper 11.6 x 8.1 in. (29.3 x 20.5 cm.) 1st...

Francisco De Goya (Spain, 1746-1828) 'Mucho hay que chupar (Caprichos. Estampa 45)', ca.1797-1799 burnished aquatint, etching on vellum paper 12.2 x 8.4 in. (30.8 x 21.1 cm.) 2nd Edi...