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Mortimer Menpes Prints and Multiples

Australian, 1855-1938
Mortimer Luddington Menpes was born in Port Adelaide, South Australia on February 22, 1855, the second son of property developer James Menpes, who with his wife, Ann, had settled in Australia in 1839.Educated at Adelaide Educational Institution, he attended classes at the Adelaide School of Design, and did some excellent work as a photo-colourist, but his formal art training began at the School of Art in London in 1878, after his family had moved back to England in 1875. Edward Poynter was a fellow student at the school. Menpes first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880, and, over the following 20 years, 35 of his paintings and etchings were shown at the Academy. Menpes set off on a sketching tour of Brittany in 1880, during which he met James McNeill Whistler. He became Whistler's pupil, and at one stage shared a flat with him at Cheyne Walk on the Chelsea Embankment in London. He was taught etching by Whistler, whose influence, together with that of Japanese design, is evident in his later work. Menpes became a major figure in the etching revival , producing more than seven hundred different etchings and drypoints , which he usually printed himself. As early as 1880, a selection of ten of his drypoint portraits, donated to the British Museum by Charles A. Howell, brought him critical acclaim. In 1875, Menpes married fellow Australian Rosa Mary Grosse (d. 23 Aug 1936) in London. They had a son, Mortimer James (b. 1879) and two daughters, Rose Maud Goodwin and Dorothy Whistler. A visit to Japan in 1887 led to his first one-man exhibition at Dowdeswell's Gallery in London. Menpes moved into a property at 25 Cadogan Gardens, Sloane Square, designed for him by A. H. Mackmurdo in 1888 and decorated it in the Japanese style. Whistler and Menpes quarreled in 1888 over the interior design of the house, which Whistler felt was a brazen copying of his own ideas. The house was sold in 1900, and Menpes moved to Kent. In 1900, after the outbreak of the Boer War, Menpes was sent to South Africa as a war artist for the weekly illustrated magazine Black and White. After the end of the war in 1902, he travelled widely, visiting Burma, Egypt, France, India, Italy, Japan, Kashmir, Mexico, Morocco, and Spain. Many of his illustrations were published in travel books by A & C Black. His book on the Delhi Durbar was an illustrated record of the commemoration in Delhi of the coronation of King Edward VII. Menpes became a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (RE) in 1881, Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) in 1885, Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) in 1897, and Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) in 1899. In 1904 he published the memoir of his time with Whistler, Whistler as I Knew Him. Mortimer Menpes died in Pangebourne on April 1, 1938.
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Artist: Mortimer Menpes
"A Breton Beggar" original etching
By Mortimer Menpes
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original etching. This impression is printed on watermarked Arches MBM laid paper. Size: 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches (plate) with good margins. Signed in the plate (not by hand).
Category

Late 19th Century Mortimer Menpes Prints and Multiples

Materials

Etching

Mexican on a donkey, Mexico, Mortimer Menpes etching with drypoint, 1914
By Mortimer Menpes
Located in Melbourne, Victoria
Signed in pencil below the image. Signed and dated in the plate. The number '327' inscribed in pencil in lower margin. Mortimer Menpes was an artist and engraver, author, printmake...
Category

Early 20th Century Naturalistic Mortimer Menpes Prints and Multiples

Materials

Engraving

Bassin d'Apollon, Versailles (Fountain of Appollo, Versailles).
By Mortimer Menpes
Located in Storrs, CT
Bassin d'Apollon, Versailles (Fountain of Appollo, Versailles). Drypoint. Menpes 364. 7 1/8 x 9 1/8 (sheet 8 13/16 x 10 7/8). A very rich impression with drypoint burr and plate tone...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Mortimer Menpes Prints and Multiples

Materials

Drypoint, Etching

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Steps to the Grand Canal, St. Mark's in the distance, Venice.
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"February Bouquet" from 'The Twelve Months of Flowers' series by Robert Furber
By Robert Furber
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This framed hand-colored engraving entitled "February Bouquet" is from 'The Twelve Months of Flowers' by Henry Furber, published in London in 1730 by Robert Sayer and John King. Each of the twelve hand-colored engravings in the book were produced from paintings by Pieter Casteels (1684-1749) and engraved by Henry Fletcher (1710-1753). The book featured twelve detailed engravings of seasonal plants in bloom in the form of a bouquet. More than 400 different species of flowering plants were included with each plant numbered and accompanied by a list of the corresponding species names. Thirty-five species of flowers are depicted in this engraving in a bouquet sitting in an ornate attractive bowl. A few of the flowers lie loose on a table. The flower species are listed in a table in the lower portion of the plate, along with the month that these flowers are in bloom. This colorful print is presented in a gold-colored wood frame with a cream-colored double mat with a heather green inner mat. The frame measures 23.5" High, 19" wide and 1.63" deep. There are a few small frame abrasions, but the print is in very good condition. Robert Furber...
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The Accordian Player
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Flowering Air Plant: A 19th Century Hand-colored Engraving by William Curtis
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This early 19th century hand-colored double fold-out botanical engraving is entitled "Pendulous-flowered Bryophyllum", plate 1409, published in London in 1809 in William Curtis’s 'The Botanical Magazine, or Flower-Garden Displayed'. Bryophyllum pinnatum, also known as the air plant...
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"Two Women" Pair Etchings
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Low Country (South Carolina)
By Elizabeth Verner
Located in Middletown, NY
An enchanting Southern landscape by the mother of the Charleston Renaissance. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, and educated under the tutelage of Thomas Anshutz at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, O'Neill Verner was a teacher, a mother, an artist, an ardent preservationist, and a skilled autodidact. Having previously focused on painting, in the early 1920s she found herself deeply moved by printmaking as a media, and especially so by the simple, peaceful themes and tableaus she discovered in Japanese art. She embarked on a effort to teach herself Japanese printmaking techniques, and in the process, produced the charming images of every day life in Charleston and its environs that earned her recognition as a cultural icon in her day, and in more modern times, as the mother of the Charleston Renaissance, which flourished well into the 1930s. In 1923 she opened a studio in Charleston where she focused on documenting the local color and the architecture and landscape that distinguishes Charleston as one of the South's most beautiful cities, all the while applying the gentle and poetic thematic sensibilities of Japanese printmaking. O'Neill Verner soon found herself in high demand when municipalities and institutions throughout the country sought commissions from her to document the beauty of their grounds and historic buildings. She worked as far north as the campuses of Harvard and Princeton, and extensively across the South, including in Savannah, Georgia, where through sweeping commissions she was able to marry her love of southern preservation and art. O'Neill Verner was a lifelong learner, and continued a path of edification that led her to study etching at the Central School of Art in London, to travel extensively through Europe, and to visit Japan in 1937, where she studied sumi (brush and ink) painting. She was a founding member of the Charleston Etchers Club, and the Southern States Art League. Her works are represented in the permanent collections of leading museums across the American south, and in major national institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston's Museum of Fine Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. O'Neil Verner...
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Previously Available Items
Portrait of Mrs. Monkton Hill
By Mortimer Menpes
Located in New Orleans, LA
A beautiful haunting portrait of Mrs Monkton Hill Born in Adelaide, South Australia, Mortimer Menpes came to England in 1875. By the time of his momentous meeting with Whistler in 1...
Category

Late 19th Century English School Mortimer Menpes Prints and Multiples

Materials

Drypoint

Portrait of Whistler with the White Lock, Wearing a Monocle.
By Mortimer Menpes
Located in Storrs, CT
Mortimer Luddington Menpes, N.E.A.C., R.B.A., R.E., R.I., R.O.I. c. 1880. Drypoint. Menpes 22. 6 1/2 x 5 3/4 (sheet 11 x 8 7/8). A fine impression printed on '[ing]res FRANCE' coun...
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Drypoint

Mortimer Menpes prints and multiples for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Mortimer Menpes prints and multiples available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Mortimer Menpes in engraving, drypoint, etching and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large Mortimer Menpes prints and multiples, so small editions measuring 6 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Harry Rogers, Ohara Koson, and Max Pollak. Mortimer Menpes prints and multiples prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $150 and tops out at $3,500, while the average work can sell for $490.

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