Mid-19th Century Prints and Multiples

From the series Political Sketches. John Doyle (1797-1868) was one of the most famous and prolific illustrator of the 19th century in Europe who was born in Ireland and active in Lo...

Navy: Rear Admiral and Brigadier is a lithograph by Antonio Zezon. Naples 1855. Interesting colored lithograph which describes the Army of the Sea: in the lithograph there are a Rea...

Clichy is a satirical illustration, an original hand-colored lithograph on creamy paper realized by the French draftsman Paul Gavarni (alias Guillaume Sulpice Chevalier, 1804-1866), ...

Military Education Institute is a original lithograph by Antonio Zezon. Naples 1853. Interesting colored lithograph which describes some members of the Military Education Institute:...

Plan of Rome is a beautiful original black and white etching, a rare and antique illustrated map of the eternal city of Rome, published in 1848. Image Di...

Ebrea maritata (Married Jewish) is an original artwork realized by an Unknown artist in 1849s. Beautiful lithograph hand-watercolored on paper. Good conditions. Titled on the botto...

"Entrance To The Caves Of Beni Hasan" is a 19th century half-folio sized tinted duo-tone lithograph from the "The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia" volume of David R...

Original hand colored engraving from "Dictionnaire Universel d'Histoire Naturelle." Paris, 1849. Sheet size: 6" w x 6" h. Displayed in a custom, archival gray mat.

'Eulophia Virens – Greenish Eulophia' Orchid lithograph with original hand-colouring , 1866, by Walter Hood Fitch (1817-1892). Native orchid of Sri Lanka a...

Portrait is a Lithograph realized by Auguste Raffet (1804-1860). Good condition on a yellowed paper. Hand signed and dated by the artist on the lower right corner. Denis Auguste M...

Japanese woodblock print of a woman kneeling by the river. She is holding a stick making it appear like she is fishing with it. The woodblock print is printed on rice paper. The print is not framed. Artist Biography: Utagawa Kuniyasu...

L'ACTEUR . . . . - On voit bien qu'il fait chaud . . . . . . . trois spectateurs dans la salle ..... faut-il commencer ? . . . . LE DIRECTEUR .- Et encore un des trois est le vendeu...

Nightingale is a Etching hand colored realized by Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert - Johann Friedrich Naumann, Illustration from Natural history of birds in pictures, published by Stut...

Signed 'Whistler' lower left, titled 'Annie', center, and annotated 'Imp. Delâtre Rue St. Jacques. 171' in the plate lower right. From the portfolio: "Douze Eaux-Fortes d'après Natur...

Artist: Armand Joseph Lallemand (French, 1810-1871) Title: "Piquier Allemand (German Pikeman)" Portfolio: Gazette des Beaux-Arts Year: 1866 Medium: Original Etching on cream laid pap...

Artist: John James Audubon (American, 1785-1851) Title: "Say's Marmot Squirrel" (Plate 114, No. 23) Portfolio: The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, Royal Octavo Edition Year: 1849-1870 Medium: Original Hand-Colored Lithograph on wove paper Limited edition: approx. 8,000 Printer: John T. Bowen, Philadelphia, PA Publisher: John Woodhouse Audubon...

Artist: Robert Huish (English, 1777-1850) Title: "The Alligator (In the Gardens of the Zoological Society)" (Plate 26) Portfolio: The Wonders of the Animal Kingdom; Exhibiting Deline...

A beautifully framed set of twelve rare "nature prints" produced in 1856 by Henry Bradbury. Henry Bradbury (1829-1860) is known for the innovative technique of “nature printing”, a...

Framed 46 x 57.50 in13 Printed by L. Angerer. Engraved by Paul Sigmund Habelmann after the original oil painting by Ludwig Knaus. The inscription "Wie die Alten sungen, so zwitschern...

Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille. SOUVENIR D'OSTIE. Delteil 57, Melot 57. Cliche Verre, 1855. Second State of two, with the signature of Corot in reverse, low...

Exceptional, brilliant impression and colors from the extremely rare 1st edition Kataoka Nizayemon(?) Color woodcut, 1860 From the series: "Contemporary Brocade Mirror Portraits" Pub...

The Little Wheelwright's. 1886. Etching. Kennedy 245; Glasgow 242. 2 1/2 x 3 3/4 (sheet 5 1/8 x 6 1/8). There was no lifetime edition. Glasgow lists only 13 other known impressions. A fine impression printed in black ink on white laid paper. Monogrammed with the butterfly in the plate. Housed in a 10 X 11 1/2 X 1-inch gold leaf period carved Celtic...

The Dutiful Youth of Mino Province Collecting Wood to Warm His Old Father Color woodcut, c. 1842-43 Signed and sealed lower right (see photo) From the Series: "Honcho nijushi-ko" (Tw...

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...

(The poetess Chiyo turns to watch a flight of wild geese while sweeping up autumn leaves) Signature: Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi ga; Censor seal: Muramatsu Series: Kenjo hakkei ...

Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III) Last performance of the summer theater show, Natsu kyogen issei ichidai Diptych Oban depicting two Kabuki actors Onoe Kikugorō III (尾上菊五郎) on the righ...

Roveroto in Tyrol is a 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 government, of th...

Etching by Brunet-Debaines, Alfred (after William Ewart Lockhart) Paris: A. Durand, 1878. Etching on watermarked Van Gelder Portfolio cream laid paper,10 1/4 x 7 1/4 inches (260 x ...

Murat is an original Etching realized by Emile Giroua in 1837. Good conditions. The artwork is realized in a well-balanced composition. the artwork and belongs to the suite suite "...

James Whistler (1834-1903), Venus, 1859. Etching and drypoint, printed in black ink on laid paper, an impression in the second (final) state: there was no published edition. 6 x 9 inches (15 x 22.6 cm) sheet 73/8 x 117/8 inches (18.8 x 30.3 cm) Reference: Kennedy 59; Glasgow 60 A very fine impression. A study of Héloïse, ‘Fumette’, asleep in bed, her head pressed into the pillow and the bedclothes covering her lower legs. This is one of three portraits Whistler made of Fumette in 1859: one of the others shows her standing and in the third only her head and shoulders are depicted. Venus is a work in the Realist tradition, and may be compared with Courbet’s nudes of the same period. The artist may also have had in mind Rembrandt’s study of Antiope in his etching Jupiter and Antiope. Venus was never published and there is no record of it being shown until 1898 when it was included in an Exhibition of Etchings, Drypoints and Lithographs by Whistler at H. Wunderlich & Co., New York. To have been overlooked for exhibition until so late in Whistler’s life might suggest that the subject was considered improper. Frederick Wedmore, whose catalogue of Whistler’s etchings...

Uses and Customs - Cloister of Saint Martin in Naples is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862. The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe...

Uses and Customs - Royal Villa of Naples is a lithograph on paper realized in 1862. The artwork belongs to the Suite Uses and customs of all the peoples of the universe: " History o...

Medium: etching and drypoint. This is Seymour Haden's etched version of the painting by Thomas Wright of Derby entitled "Edwin the Minstrel". The man in the portrait was actually Sir...

Uses and Customs - Bavarian is a 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 governm...

Ancient Costumes is a 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 government, of the...

London: Thomas McLean, 1835. Third Edition. Etching with hand coloring in watercolor on cream wove paper, 1818 (published August 1st, 1835) 9 1/2 x 13 3/4 inches (240 x 348 mm), full...

WO RO SI IA ZIN Russian Soldier with His Family Color woodcut, 1861 2nd month Signed upper left (see photo) Titled upper right in black cartouche (see photo) Format: oban Style: Yokohama-e Publisherr: Sagamiya Tokichi (Marks #435) active 1955-1866 Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has an impression of this image RARE Condition: with usual aging Image size: 13 7/8 x 9 3/8 inches Rebecca Salter in her Japanese Popular Prints... on page 18 gives a different take on the situation that Yoshifuji found himself in. "A giant of the period, however, was Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-861). Although best known for warrior prints which reflected the militaristic undercurrents of the time, he was also responsible for some of the most light-heartend and humorous works in this book. His followers in the Utagawa school, Utagawa Yoshitsuya...

French costumes at the time of Louis XIII is a lithograph made by Auguste Wahlen in 1844. Hand colored. Good condition. At the center of the artwork is the original title "Costumi...

French costumes at the time of Henry IV is a lithograph made by Auguste Wahlen in 1844. Hand colored. Good condition. At the center of the artwork is the original title "Costumi f...

Costumes of the Court of England in the 15th century is a lithograph made by Auguste Wahlen in 1844. Hand colored. Good condition. At the center of the artwork is the original tit...

Imerethian Prince is a lithograph made by Auguste Wahlen in 1844. Hand colored. Good condition. At the center of the artwork is the original title "Imerethian Prince". The work i...

Diseases of the Larynx, Trachea and Thyroid Body is a lithograph hand colored by Ottavio Muzzi for the edition of Antoine Chazal,Human Anatomy, Printers Batelli and Ridolfi, realized...

Diseases of the Intestines 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 p...

Victor Spahn (1949- ) is a French photographer of Russian heritage. Born on March 20, 1949 in Paris, France, he studied under the Lyrical Abstractionist André Lanskoy. After his stud...

Visit to a Prisoner is an original lithograph by J.J. Grandville from "Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux, 1852. Published by Manesq & Harvard, Paris. Good Conditions....

'Fisom degli abiti dell' America Nord-oe / Uomo donna dell' Isola Nootka' / 'Nipissonghi / Ottovaeri' Italian lithograph, c1841. Originally from 'Galleria universale di tutti i popo...

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 ...

A brilliant, richly-inked impression of this etching and drypoint printed in dark brownish black on antique cream laid paper with very strong contrasts....

Brain Diseases is a lithograph hand colored by Ottavio Muzzi for the edition of Antoine Chazal, Human Anatomy, Printers Batelli and Ridolfi, 1843. The work belongs to the Atlante ge...

Diseases of the Ovary is a lithograph hand colored by Ottavio Muzzi for the edition of Antoine Chazal, Human Anatomy, Printers Batelli and Ridolfi, 1843. The work belongs to the Atl...

Diseases of the Ovary is a lithograph hand colored by Ottavio Muzzi for the edition of Antoine Chazal, Human Anatomy, Printers Batelli and Ridolfi, 1843. The work belongs to the Atl...

Intestine Diseases is a lithograph hand colored by Ottavio Muzzi for the edition of Antoine Chazal, Human Anatomy, Printers Batelli and Ridolfi, 1843. The work belongs to the Atlant...

Wood Pigeon is an Etching hand colored realized by Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert - Johann Friedrich Naumann, Illustration from Natural history of birds in pictures, published by Stu...

Tourtorelle With Necklace is an Etching hand colored realized by Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert - Johann Friedrich Naumann, Illustration from Natural history of birds in pictures, pu...

Blowing Wind is an etching on paper realized by Jeannette Deseglise in the 1950s. Hand-signed and numbered, edition of 60 prints. Very Good conditions. The artwork is realized poe...

Yellow Wagtail is an Etching hand colored realized by Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert - Johann Friedrich Naumann, Illustration from Natural history of birds in pictures, published by ...

Etudes d'Androgynes is a lithograph on ivory-colored paper, realized by the French draftsman Paul Gavarni (alias Guillaume Sulpice Chevalier Gavarni, 1804-1866) in the mid-19th Centu...

Ancient Ruins of Palmira is an original modern artwork realized in the mid-19th Century. Original B/W Lithograph on Ivory Paper. Inscripted on the lower margin in Capital Letters...

The bearer in the Blue Coat is a superb original print, realized by the great japanese master of the Edo period, Utagawa Kunisada (1823-2880). The quality of the support, the freshn...

The Bear is an original lithograph on paper, realized by E.Laport in about 1860. The state of preservation is good except for some diffused stains. Hand-colored. Plate No.9 Shee...