Charles Coutry Art

An early 19th century print entitled "Bow Street Office", an illustration (Plate 11) from "The Microcosm of London", published in London in 1808 by R. Acker...

Aquating Engraving Image Size: approx. 20 1/4 x 13 3/8 Framed Size: 28 x 20.5 inches Pencil Signed Lower Right Louis Justin Laurent Icart was born in Toulouse in 1890 and died in Paris in 1950. He lived in New York City in the 1920s, where he became known for his Art-Deco color etchings of glamourous women. He was first son of Jean and Elisabeth Icart and was officially named Louis Justin Laurent Icart. The use of his initials L.I. would be sufficient in this household. Therefore, from the moment of his birth he was dubbed 'Helli'. The Icart family lived modestly in a small brick home on rue Traversière-de-la-balance, in the culturally rich Southern French city of Toulouse, which was the home of many prominent writers and artists, the most famous being Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Icart entered the l'Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Toulouse in order to continue his studies for a career in business, particularly banking (his father's profession). However, he soon discovered the play writings of Victor Hugo (1802-1885), which were to change the course of his life. Icart borrowed whatever books he could find by Hugo at the Toulouse library, devouring the tales, rich in both romantic imagery and the dilemmas of the human condition. It was through Icart's love of the theater that he developed a taste for all the arts, though the urge to paint was not as yet as strong for him as the urge to act. It was not until his move to Paris in 1907 that Icart would concentrate on painting, drawing and the production of countless beautiful etchings, which have served (more than the other mediums) to indelibly preserve his name in twentieth century art history. Art Deco, a term coined at the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, had taken its grip on the Paris of the 1920s. By the late 1920s Icart, working for both publications and major fashion and design studios, had become very successful, both artistically and financially. His etchings reached their height of brilliance in this era of Art Deco, and Icart had become the symbol of the epoch. Yet, although Icart has created for us a picture of Paris and New York life in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked in his own style, derived principally from the study of eighteenth-century French masters such as Jean Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean Honoré Fragonard. In Icart's drawings, one sees the Impressionists Degas...

From David Hockney’s celebrated Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm portfolio, an image of the story ‘The boy who left home to learn fear’. Hockney chose this story for its obscu...

This large framed 18th century etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi entitled "Veduta dell'interno dell'Anfiteatro Flavio detto il Colosseo" (View of the interior of the Flavian Amph...

This artwork titled Jan Uytenbogaert" 1639 is an etching on paper After Rembrandt Van Rijn, 1606-1669, plate engraved By French renown engraver Charles Armand Durand, 1831-1905. Sign...

This is a framed 18th century Giovanni Battista Piranesi etching entitled: "Veduta interna del Sepocro di Santa Costanza, fabbricat...

Contemporary artist Peter Milton created this etching and engraving entitled "Interiors VI: Soundings" in 1989. The printed image size is 29 7/8 x 23 13/16 and paper size is 36 x 29 inches. This impression is signed, dated, and titled in pencil and inscribed “93/175” – the 93 impression of 175. “I do love to draw. I feel that I am being granted membership in the Brotherhood of Merlin, conjuring forth some apparition. As a drawing develops, I sense a vague presence coming more and more into focus, something in a white fog emerging and becoming increasingly palpable.” – P. Milton, “The primacy of touch. The Drawings of Peter Milton” “Working in layers, Milton begins with drawings based on people and places, with nods to Western art history and culture. He is a master of the appropriated image, a term that may conjure Andy Warhol and his Pop Art comrades. But Milton steps further back in history, avoiding the Pop sense of cool advertising and popular culture references. Instead, a broader cultural past is tapped through historical photographs of key players, architecture, and locales, which he reinvents by hand. He adds content drawn from his life as an avid reader – always with multiple possible interpretations – thus incorporating deeper meaning in his cinematic worlds. Elements of Greek mythology, classical music, art history, and history coalesce in his images, which embrace the messiness, sorrow, and elation that is life. One is hard-pressed to imagine a more erudite, skilled, passionate, and cheeky soul." – T. L. Johnson and A. Shafer Peter Milton was born in Pennsylvania in 1930. He studied for two years at the Virginia Military Institute...

Paul Cadmus (American, 1904-1999), "Waiting for Rehearsal", Etching on Paper, signed in pencil lower right, titled and numbered edition "138/175" lower left, and blind stamped "Pelav...

This large framed 18th century etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi is entitled "Vaso antico di Marmo adornato di eccellenti Sculture si nella parte anteriere che nell' opposta, le ...

The two plates in this set were created utilizing both engraving and etching techniques by William Hogarth in 1753, originally as illustrations of his book on aesthetics, entitled "Analysis of Beauty". Due to their popularity, these plates were later published separately. The publication line in the lower right reads: "Designed, Engraved, and Publish'd by Wm. Hogarth, March 5th 1753, according to Act of Parliament." Hogarth's original copper plates were refurbished where needed by James Heath and engravings were republished in London in 1822 by Braddock, Cradock & Joy. This was the last time Hogarth's copper plates were used for printing. Most were melted during World War I for the construction of bombs. These large folio sized "Analysis of Beauty" engravings are presented in antiqued gold-colored frames with double mats; the outer silk mats are light brown-colored and the inner mats are dark brown. Each frame measures 27.38" x 31.25" x 1.13". There is one tiny spot in the right margin of plate 1 and another in the lower margin; the latter could be from the printing process. The prints are otherwise in excellent condition. The "Analysis of Beauty" series is in the collection of many major museums, including: The British Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Tate Museum, The Chicago Art Institute and The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The first engraving (Plate 1) depicts a courtyard of statues which is filled with some of the most famous works of classical sculpture. The most important sculptures are surrounded by less impressive works. The Medicean Venus (#13) is in the center with a statue of Julius Caesar (#19) to the right, elevated on a pulley with a short, overdressed Brutus stands over the falling Caesar. The Apollo Belvedere (#12) is next. A judge stands to the right with his foot on a cherub (#16). Another crying cherub holds a gallows and wipes his tears with the judge's robe. A sphinx (#21) and the drunken Silenus (#107) are below the Venus. Michaelangelo's torso (#54) and a statue of Antonius (#6) are seen in the foreground. The Farnese Hercules (#3) and a bust of another Hercules (#4) under two statuettes of Isis are also included in the scene. The key to these objects is included in the form of a serpentine line winding around a cone (#26), Hogarth's "Line of Beauty". For Hogarth the winding line is an essential element of beauty in art. Hogarth's theory of beauty is communicated in this plate. Plate 2 is thought to represent the Wanstead Assembly, with the Earl of Tynley and his household. It is an adaptation of a scene in the Happy Marriage series, which complements Hogarth's Marriage à la Mode...

Artist: Salvador Dali, Spanish (1904 - 1989) Title: Le Legacy from Historia de Don Quichotte de la Mancha Year: 1981 Medium: Etching on Arches, signed and numbered in pencil Edition:...

Jacques Villon, pseudonym of Gaston Émile Duchamp, (born July 31, 1875,Damville, Normandy, France—died June 9, 1963, Puteaux,near Paris), French painter and printmaker who was involved in the Cubist movement; later he worked in realistic and abstract styles. Villon was the brother of the artists Suzanne...