Deborah Clark

American Abstract

Circa 2000

French stipple engraving portraying a stately emperor figure, circa 1830. Original artwork on paper displayed on a white mat with a gold border. Mat fits a standard-size frame. Ar...

Detailed antique lithograph of plans to a brick French workshop, 1881. Original artwork on paper displayed on a white mat with a gold border. Archival plastic sleeve and Certificate...

Antique Rooster Portrait Prosper Alphonse Isaac (France, 1858-1924) Woodblock Print circa 1910 9 x 7 1/8 (15 1/4 x 17 frame) inches The excellent book "The Great Wave: The Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints" which was an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1974, recounts the phenomenal "cult of Japan" in late nineteenth-century France and reveals through direct comparisons its particular impact on the graphic work of Manet, Degas, Cassatt, Bonnard, Vuillard, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Gauguin. This print directly relates to the discovery of Japanese art most notably through the woodblock prints which found their way to the West oftentimes as stuffing or packing materials from consumer goods that were being imported to the West at the end of the 19th century. Prosper-Alphonse Isaac was born in a well-to-do family. This gave him the means not only of leaving his native Calais to pursue a career as an artist in Paris, but also the means to acquire art. Isaac was particularly drawn to Japanese arts, which he collected avidly. Many of the objects he bought were eventually given to museums. As a printmaker Isaac started drawing seascapes in dry point, but eventually moved on to become one of only a handful of artists versed in color woodcut techniques in France. His compositions, generally small in scale, are heavily influenced by the arts of Japan. He printed small editions of these works. Aside from this artistic activity, Isaac was also an active textile decorator. "This mark, which he borrows from Hokusaï and Totoya Hokkeï...

Brownish black ink on dark cream, handmade, laid paper, 8 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches (208 x 260 mm). Uniform age tone with several scattered, unobtrusive spots of brown discoloration, consistent with age. Right top corner loss, evenly trimmed, paper tape remnants at top left corner, recto. Collector's stamp in blue ink ("PRB"), lower left corner, recto. On the verso is a neoclassical graphite and brown ink study of a procession showing a woman being carried in a birthing sedan chair. The woman is being carried backwards, with putti, and horn players, leading her up an embankment, across a river. In her wake we see a crowned man...