Saverio Manetti Owls

Francesco Saverio Manetti also spelt Xaviero or Xaverio Manetti (12 November 1723 – 12 November 1785) was an Italian physician, botanist and ornithologist. Among his works is the treatise on birds, Ornithologia methodice digesta or Storia naturale degli uccelli (1776). The plant genus Manettia was named in his honour by Carl Linnaeus. Manetti was born in Brozzi to Giovanni Bernardo and Maria Teresa Nesiscolt of Prague. His early studies were in Florence and later at Pisa where he studied botany under Pier Antonio Micheli. He graduated in medicine in 1745 and worked in Florence. In 1758 he joined the National Medical College where he studied anatomy under Antonio Cocchi (1695–1758), conducting the autopsy of Cocchi. Manetti was Professor of Botany of the "Società Botanica Fiorentina", a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, a Fellow of the Royal Society, learned societies in Göttingen and Montpellier, an Accademico dell'Istituto di Bologna and he maintained scientific contacts with the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus and with the main scientific circles of the second half of the 18th century. He was supervisor of the Orto Botanico di Firenze in Florence from 1749 to 1782 succeeding to Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti and Secretary of the Accademia dei Georgofili. With remarkable organizational effort, he secured the publication of Storia naturale degli uccelli, Natural History of the birds, a monumental work in five volumes illustrated with 600 hand-coloured engravings based on watercolor paintings. The book was commissioned by Maria Luisa, Grand duchess of Tuscany and the first volume was dedicated to Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo. The third volume was dedicated to Ferdinando di Brobone and the fourth to Giorgio Nassau Clavering. The engravings were made by Tuscan abbot and engraver Lorenzo Lorenzi and Violante Vanni who had studied under British engraver Robert Strange. Engraving was an unusual profession for women in Florence during the period.

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

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