19th Century Figurative Prints

Lithograph. Belongs to the Series "Atlante di Botanica popolare ossia Illustrazione di Piante Notevoli di ogni famiglia" (Atlas of popular botany or illustration of notable plants o...

Lithograph hand watercolored. Plate from "Atlante di Botanica popolare ossia Illustrazione di Piante Notevoli di ogni famiglia" (Atlas of popular botany or illustration of notable p...

Lithograph hand watercolored. Plate from "Atlante di Botanica popolare ossia Illustrazione di Piante Notevoli di ogni famiglia" (Atlas of popular botany or illustration of notable p...

Uterus Diseases is a lithograph hand colored by Ottavio Muzzi for the edition of Antoine Chazal,Human Anatomy, Printers Batelli and Ridolfi, realized in 1843. Signed on plate on the ...

Plate n. 16 from the suites of caricatures on political themes topic “ Croquis d’Été ”.  Realized by  Honoré Daumier  (France, 1808-1879), printed by Destouches, and published by th...

Plate n. 8 from the suites of caricatures on political themes topic “ Croquis d’Été ”.  Realized by Honoré Daumier  (France, 1808-1879), printed by Destouches, and published by the ...

Plate n. 4 from the suites of caricatures on political themes topic “Croquis d’Été ”.  Realized by Honoré Daumier  (France, 1808-1879), printed by Destouches, and published by the M...

The present hand-colored lithograph was produced as part of the funeral and mourning culture in the United States during the 19th century. Images like this were popular as ways of remembering loved ones, an alternative to portraiture of the deceased. This lithograph shows a man, woman and child in morning clothes next to an urn-topped stone monument. Behind are additional putto-topped headstones beneath weeping willows, with a steepled church beyond. The monument contains a space where a family could inscribe the name and death dates of a deceased loved one. In this case, it has been inscribed to a young Civil War soldier: William W. Peabody Died at Fairfax Seminary, VA December 18th, 1864 Aged 18 years The young Mr. Peabody probably died in service for the Union during the American Civil War. Farifax Seminary was a Union hospital and military headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The hospital served nearly two thousand soldiers during the war time. Five hundred were also buried on the Seminary's grounds. 13.75 x 9.5 inches, artwork 23 x 19 inches, frame Published before 1864 Inscribed bottom center "Lith. & Pub. by N. Currier. 2 Spruce St. N.Y." Framed to conservation standards using 100 percent rag matting and TruVue Conservation Clear glass, housed in a gold gilded 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...

Lithograph hand watercolored. Plate from "Atlante di Botanica popolare ossia Illustrazione di Piante Notevoli di ogni famiglia" (Atlas of popular botany or illustration of notable ...

Lithograph hand watercolored. Plate from "Atlante di Botanica popolare ossia Illustrazione di Piante Notevoli di ogni famiglia" (Atlas of popular botany or illustration of notable p...

Lithograph hand watercolored. Plate from "Atlante di Botanica popolare ossia Illustrazione di Piante Notevoli di ogni famiglia" (Atlas of popular botany or illustration of notable p...

Subject : Ancient Greek vase-painting depicting a warrior, seated young man, and young woman. Technique : Copper-line engraving with original hand-colouring Background informatio...

The Nile is a modern artwork realized d'apres Karl Werner  Mixed colored Chromolithograph.  The artwork is after the watercolors realized by the artist during a trip to Egypt betwe...

Nishiki-e (woodcut print), in vertical oban format (31x20.5) realized by Mizuno Toshikata in 1893 (Meiji 26). Belongs to the Series "Sanjûroku Kasen" (Thirty-Six Beauties in Compari...

Vanity Fair legal portrait of William Otto Adolph Julius Danckwerts. 380mm by 260mm (sheet)

L'enfant prodigue: en pays etranger (The Prodigal Son: In Foreign Climes) Etching, 1881 Unsigned (as usual for this state) From: L'enfant prodigue, (The Prodigal Son, five plates) Ed...

Persians - Costumes is a Hand-colored lithograph on paper realized in 1862. The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History of the go...

Kabuki actor is a superb colored woodblock print realized around 1830 by one of the most famous Japanese Ukiyo-e artists Utagawa Kunisada, also known as Utagawa Toyokuni III (1786 - ...

Soplones is a black and White aquatint, drypoint and etching printed in blue-black ink on laid paper from Caprichos realized after Francisco Goya in 1881-1886 . 6th Edition.Very goo...

Lithograph realized by Daumier in 1845, belonging to the Series "Les Gens de Justice" Table no. 13 of the Series. Hand monogrammed in the plate. Very good condition. Ref. Delteil...

Customs -Balok Dancers is a Hand-colored lithograph on paper realized in 1862. Titled on the lower. The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the univ...

Suma is an original modern artwork realized by Utagawa Kunisada II and Hiroshige II in 1864. Woodcut Print Oban Format. From the series "Omokage Genji go...

Beautiful late 19th century Japanese woodblock print diptych of two kabuki actors by Kunichika Toyohara (Japanese, 1835-1900). This pair of prints is united by a continuous landscape...

Des Piferari devant une Madone is a Lithograph realized by Antoinette Haudebourt-Lescot. Signed on plate and titled on the lower margin. Passpartout included cm 50x32.5 Good condi...

Napoleon is an Etching realized by P.Bellange in 1837 by Pierre-François Tardieu. Good conditions. The artwork is realized in a well-balanced composition. the artwork and belongs t...

The Palace is an original print on paper realized by an anonymous artist. Original lithograph of the late 19th Century. Conditions: aged and a rip on the lower-left angle. The art...

Plate from Journal Des Demoiselles is an original artwrok realized in the 19th century by Paul Lacourière Mixed colored lithograph from the Le...

"Sun Saburo Matsugaya" - Mid 19th Century Figurative Japanese Woodblock Print Beautiful mid 19th century figural Japanese woodblock print of a seated man with lilies in the background by Utagawa Toyokuni III (Kunisada) (Japanese, 1786-1864/5). Artist's chop is in the lower right corner of the piece. The actor is Magosaburo Matsugaya from the play "Katakiuchi Rumors" Presented in a new grey-blue mat with foamcore backing. Mat size: 21"H x 16"W Paper size: 14"H x 9.75"W During his lifetime Kunisada Utagawa...

Cover for "L'Estampe Moderne" Signed in the stone lower left (see photo) Two color lithograph on greenish laid paper L'Estampe Moderne appeared each month as a portfolio of 4 origina...

Paul Gauguin is a famous French Post-Impressionist most well known for his paintings created in Tahiti. This is probably from the middle years of his painting career known as his syn...

Il Capraro di Tivoli is a precious hand-colored etching by Bartolomeo Pinelli. The inscriptions appear at the bottom, inside the matrix, and just below the image. On the left, “Pinel...

Hyland Ellis The Gay Parisienne, 1897 Stone ithograph Printed signature in the plate On vellum Size 39 x 29 cm (c. 15.3 x 11.4") INFORMATION : Plate 123 of "Les Maîtres de l'Affic...

Ecole de Peinture is a drawing in China Ink on paper realized by Adolphe Willette in the Late 19th Century . Good conditions. Hand-signed. The artwork is depicted through soft st...

Whirlpool at Awa is a modern artwork realized in the Mid-20th Century. Mixed colored lithograph after a woodcut realized by the great Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige in the 19th c...

Commissioned by The Ault & Wiborg Co., USA. Color Zincograph on wove paper, 1896. Hand-signed in black crayon. Wittrock C (of C) edition. Reference: Wittrock; P28, vol. 2 pg 810. ...

This print is from a highly regarded series by the Edo woodblock artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi: in the period, there were at times prohibitions in depicting a...

Lithograph realized by Daumier in 1845, belonging to the Series "Les Gens de Justice" Hand monogrammed in plate. Very good condition. Ref. Delteil 1371

Parisian is aLithograph realized by Gustave Dore in 1854. Good conditions except for some foxings. Hand-singed. The artwork is depicted in a well-balan...

This witty lithograph is by the 19th Century French satirist Honoré Daumier. The print portrays a pair of lawyers, both dressed for court, one lawyer furtively speaking to the other....

Romantic Drama is an original modern artwork realized by Utagawa Kunisada in 1853. Woodcut print oban diptych format from a tryptich. Signature: Toyokuni ga. Publisher: Tsujiokaya B...

Lithograph realized by Daumier in 1845, belonging to the Series "Les Gens de Justice" Table no. 17 of the Series. Hand monogrammed in the plate. Very good condition. Ref. Delteil...

Alphonse Mucha "Lorenzaccio, a play in five acts and an epilogue by Alfred de Museet" Plate #114 Image Size: 15" x 11" 1896 Alphonse Mucha was born in Southern Moravia on July 24, 1860. At the age of seventeen the artist left his home, to work as a painter of stage decorations...

Beautiful print on verge crème, 2° state on 3, with letters printed in red. Stamp “Lugt 1545”. Little crack and fold on lower left margin of the sheet. Some small traces of oxidati...

Sumo Tournament is an original Woodcut print realized in mid 19TH century by Utagawa Kunisada. Good condition and Beautiful colored woodblock print. This wonderful modern artwork represents Japanese Sumo...

Historical mid-19th century hand tinted lithograph and a lively scene of men and women engaging in a light hearted game of the era by artist Joseph Nash (British, 1808-1878). Signed ...

An early 19th century proof, in fair condition but with a very good inking, of the plate "View of the Arch of Constantine". It belongs to the first Paris Edition of 1800-1807. The f...

Lithograph realized by Daumier in 1845, belonging to the Series "Les Gens de Justice" Table no. 10 of the Series. Very good condition. Ref. Delteil 1346

MARC CHAGALL 1887 - 1985 "Le joueur de flûte" 1958 Colour lithograph 25.5x44 cm, illustration; 38.3x57.3 cm, sheet size Signed lower right by the artist in ink "Marc Chagall" and dedicated "Pour Ursula et Gerd Hatje / "merci" / Marc Chagall / 1958". Inscribed lower left by the artist "Epreuve d'artiste". This is an artist’s proof, aside from the edition of 90. Catalogue Raisonné : Mourlot 197 Gerd Hatje (14 April 1915 – 24 July 2007) was a German publisher. The publishing house that he founded in 1945, named the Humanitas Verlag, renamed in 1947 as Verlag Gerd Hatje, is internationally known for contemporary art, photography and architecture. It merged in to Hatje Cantz in 1999. In the 1950s and 1960s, Hatje changed the focus to art, photography, and architecture.[1] He had contact with and was a friend of contemporary artists such as Hans Arp, Willi Baumeister, Joseph Beuys, Max Bill, Georges Braque, Marcel Breuer, Marc Chagall, Christo, Le Corbusier, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Walter Gropius, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and James Stirling...

Girl and Child is an original Modern artwork realized by James Tissot, in full James-Joseph-Jacques Tissot, (born Oct. 15, 1836, Nantes, France—died Aug. 8, 1902, Buillon Abbey, near...

Gargantua is an original modern rare book by François Rabelais illustrated for the first time by Gustave Doré (Strasbourg, 1832 – 23 January 1883) in 1854...

Kabuki Aizurie is an original artwork realized in 1852 by Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1865). The lovers Osome and Hisamatsu on the run at night, the roles played by Ichikawa Danjuro and...

Kabuki Scene: Teramoto Life,  Death Nosuke, Sawamura Bansho is a wooduct print realized by Kunichika Toyohara (1835-1900) in the late 19th Century. In very good condition, includes ...

Kumasaka Chōhan to Ushiwakamaru is a Japanese Ukiyo-e print created between 1848 and 1854 by artist Utagawa Kunisada (Japanese, 1786-1864). The print is a Diptych, and is part of the...

Hans Thoma (1839 Bernau - 1924 Karlsruhe), Muse, 1893. Algraph on strong wove paper, published by Breitkopf und Härtel in Leipzig as ‘Zeitgenössisches Kunstblatt Nr. 174’, 43.5 cm x ...

Ichimura Uzaemon XIII - actor as Okaji of Gion, 1862 "The Six Poetry Immortals" A Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcut print created circa 1862 by artist Utagawa Kunisada (Japanese, 1786-1864). ...

Sumo Fighter is an original Woodcut print realized in mid 19 century by Utagawa Kunisada. Good condition and Beautiful colored woodblock print, included a cardboard passpartout (45...

"Les Lorettes" is an original hand-watercolored lithograph on ivory-colorated paper by Anonymous Artist of XX Century. In excellent conditions: As good as new. Sheet dimension: 32...

Food is a modern artwork realized d'apres Karl Werner  Mixed colored Chromolithograph.  The artwork is after the watercolor realized by the artist during a trip to Egypt between 18...

Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849) Poem by Bunya no Asayasu (Fumiya no Asayasu), from the series One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse (Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki) 「百人一首うはか...

Braunschweig is a beautiful color lithograph on paper, printed by von Led Kempner and published by von Schaffstein and C. Koln, Rhein. This modern artwork represents a urban and historical view of the German city of Braunschweig,in Lower Saxony, Germany, was a powerful and influential center of commerce in medieval Germany...