Sir Francis Seymour Haden, R.A.

Shere Mill Pond

1860

The Jolly Flat Boat Men, 1847 After George Caleb Bingham (American, 1811-1879) Engraved by Thomas Doney (French, active New York 1844-1849) Engraving with Hand-Coloring Published by The American Art-Union, New York (1838-1851) Printed by Powell and Co. 18 x 24 inches 32 x 38 inches with frame In 1847, the American Art-Union purchased Bingham’s painting "The Jolly Flat Boat Men" (1846; National Gallery of Art) directly from the artist. The subscription-based organization, founded in 1838 as the Apollo Association, boasted nearly ten-thousand members at this date. For an annual fee of five dollars, each received a large reproductive engraving and was entered in a lottery to win original artworks exhibited at the Art-Union’s Free Gallery. Aimed at educating the public about contemporary American art, the organization developed an impressive distribution network that reached members in every state. The broad circulation of the Art-Union's print helped to establish Bingham's reputation and made his river scene famous. Born in Augusta County, Virginia in the Shenandoah River Valley, George Caleb Bingham became known for classically rendered western genre, especially Missouri and Mississippi River scenes of boatmen bringing cargo to the American West and politicians seeking to influence frontier life. One of his most famous river genre paintings was The Jolly Flatboatmen completed in several versions in 1846. This first version of this painting is in the Manoogian Collection at the National Gallery of Art. Fame resulted for this work when it was exhibited in New York at the American Art Union whose organizers made an engraving of 10,000 copies and distributed it to all of their members. Paintings such as Country Politician (1849) and County Election (1852) and Stump Speaking (1854) reflected Bingham's political interests. In 1819, as an eight-year old, he moved to Boon's Lick, Missouri with his parents and grandfather who had been farmers and inn keepers in the Shenandoah Valley near Rockingham, Virginia. Reportedly as a child there, he took every opportunity to escape supervision to travel the River and watch the marine activity. His father died in 1827, when his son was sixteen years old. His mother had encouraged his art talent, but art lessons were not easily obtainable. In order to earn money, he apprenticed to a cabinet maker but determined to become an artist. By 1835, he had a modest reputation as a frontier painter and successfully charged twenty dollars per portrait in St. Louis. "His portraits had become standard decorations in prosperous Missouri homes." (Samuels 46). In 1836, he moved to Natchez, Mississippi and there had the same kind of career, only was able to charge forty dollars per portrait. He remained largely self taught until 1837, when he, age 26 and using the proceeds from his portraiture, studied several months at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He later said that he learned much of his atmospheric style and classically balanced composition by copying paintings in collections in St. Louis and Philadelphia and that among his most admired painters were Thomas Cole, John Vanderlyn, and William Sidney Mount. Between 1856 and 1859, Bingham traveled back and forth to Dusseldorf, Germany, where he studied the work of genre painters. Some critics think these influences were negative on his work because during that time period, he abandoned his luminist style that had brought him so much public affirmation. Bingham credited Chester Harding (1792-1866) as being the earliest and one of the most lasting influences on his work. Harding,a leading portraitists when Bingham was a young man, had a studio in Franklin, near Bingham's home town. In 1822, when Bingham was ten years old, he watched Harding finish a portrait of Daniel Boone. Bingham recalled that watching Harding with the Boone portrait was a lasting inspiration and that it was the first time he had ever seen a painting in progress. Harding suggested to Bingham that he begin doing portraiture by finding subjects in the river men, which, of course, opened the subject matter that established fame and financial success for Bingham. Harding also encouraged Bingham to copy with paint engravings. He later painted two portraits of Boone but, contrary to the assertions of some scholars, he did not do Boone portraits in the company of Harding. Bingham's portraits of Boone are not located, but one of them, a wood signboard for a hotel in Boonville circa 1828 to 1830, showed a likeness of Boone in buckskin dress...

Fodder by John Costigan (1888-1972) Signed Lower Right Titled Lower Left 9.75" x 12.75" Unframed 17.5" x 19.75" Framed John Edwards Costigan was born in Providence, Rhode Island on ...

Canyon Road, Santa Fe By. William Howard Shuster (American, 1893-1969) Signed Lower Right Edition of 100 Lower Center Titled Lower Left Unframed: 4" x 4.75" Framed: 15.75" x 15.25" A realist and early modernist painter, graphic artist, illustrator, and sculptor, Will Shuster became known primarily for his work in New Mexico where in 1920, he settled in Santa Fe, having been encouraged to come there by John Sloan. He had studied electrical engineering at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia and later was a student of Sloan's in Santa Fe in both etching and painting. He was in World War I, where he suffered a gas attack. On his return, he studied with J William Server in Philadelphia but was advised to go West for his health. In Santa Fe in 1921, he became one of the founding members of Los Cinco Pintores...

Wareham Bridge Medium Drypoint Year of Work 1877-1877 Image Size: approx. 6 in.; Width 8.9 in. / Height 15.2 cm.; Width 22.7 cm. Sir Francis Seymour Haden (16 September 1818 - 1 June 1910), was an English surgeon, best known as an etcher. He was born in London, his father, Charles Thomas Haden, being a well-known doctor and lover of music. He was educated at Derby School, Christ's Hospital, and University College, London, and also studied at the Sorbonne, Paris, where he took his degree in 1840. He was admitted as a member of the College of Surgeons in London in 1842. In 1843-1844, with his friends Duval, Le Cannes and Colonel Guibout, he travelled in Italy and made his first sketches from nature. Haden attended no art school and had no art teachers, but between 1845 and 1848 he studied portfolios of prints belonging to a second-hand dealer named Love, who had a shop in Bunhill Row, the old Quaker quarter of London. Arranging the prints in chronological order, he studied the works of the great original engravers, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas van Leyden and Rembrandt. These studies, besides influencing his original work, led to his important monograph on the etched work of Rembrandt. By lecture and book, and with the aid of the memorable exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1877, he tried to give a true reflection of Rembrandt's work, giving a nobler idea of the master's mind by taking away from the list of his works many dull and unseemly plates that had long been included in the lists. His reasons were founded upon the results of a study of the master's works in chronological order, and are clearly expressed in his monograph, The Etched Work of Rembrandt critically reconsidered, privately printed in 1877, and in The Etched Work of Rembrandt True and False (1895). Haden's printmaking was invigorated by his much younger brother-in-law, James Whistler, at the Haden home in Sloane Street in 1855. A press was installed there and for a while Haden and Whistler collaborated on a series of etchings of the Thames. The relationship and project did not last. Haden followed the art of original etching with such vigour that he became not only the foremost British exponent of that art but brought about its revival in England. His strenuous efforts and perseverance, aided by the secretarial ability of Sir WR Drake, resulted in the foundation of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. As president he ruled the society with a strong hand from its first beginnings in 1880. Notwithstanding his study of the old masters of his art, Haden's own plates were very individual, and are particularly noticeable for a fine original treatment of landscape subjects, free and open in line, clear and well divided in mass, and full of a noble and dignified style of his own. Even when working from a picture his personality dominates the plate, as for example in the large plate he etched after J.M.W. Turner's "Calais Pier," which is a classical example of what interpretative work can do in black and white. Of his original plates, more than 250 in number, one of the most notable was the large "Breaking up of the Agamemnon." An early plate, rare and most beautiful, is "Thames Fisherman". "Mytton Hall" is broad in treatment, and a fine rendering of a shady avenue of yew trees leading to an old manor-house in sunlight. "Sub Tegmine" was etched in Greenwich Park in 1859; and "Early Morning--Richmond", full of the poetry and freshness of the hour, was done, according to Haden, actually at sunrise. One of the rarest and most beautiful of his plates is "A By-Road in Tipperary"; "Combe Bottom" is another; and "Shere Mill Pond" (both the small study and the larger plate), "Sunset in Ireland," "Penton Hook," "Grim Spain" and "Evening Fishing, Longparish," are also notable examples of his genius. A catalogue of his works was begun by Sir William Drake and completed by Harrington in 1880. During later years Haden began to practise the sister art...

By Giuseppe Vasi after Giovanni Piranesi: Etching and engraving with hand coloring in watercolor on laid paper with an E and R watermark, full margins. Minor...

c. 1654. Etching with engraving on thin laid paper with an early and large unidentified watermark with a sundial and a many-pointed star, and an unidentified collector's stamp in the...

A charming scene with romping dogs and spectators watching the cascading water play a trick on an unsuspecting man who is sprayed as he descends the steps, ...

Etching and engraving on handmade cream laid paper, 3 7/8 x 6 7/8 inches (97 x 173 mm), full margins. In good condition, consistent with age. Several small notations in pencil in t...