Peter Mazel Prints and Multiples

Leonard Merchant's mezzotint, "Snail in Cup" is inscribed for fellow artist, Fritz Eichenberg. While a student at the Central School for Arts and Crafts in London, a young Leonard Marchant found an engraving rocker in a cupboard and proceeded to turn himself into a master of the painstaking art of mezzotinting. Marchant, who has died in Shrewsbury aged 70, grew up in Simonstown, the Royal Navy's enclave in South Africa. Though his first job was as a parliamentary messenger, he taught himself to paint and, aged 19, was given a one-man show in Cape Town. Fired by this success, he left for England to study painting and, he claimed, to escape the stifling home atmosphere created by his Catholic mother and aunts. (His father was killed in the second world war.) Without contacts in London, he phoned Jacob Epstein, whose recommendation resulted in a grant to study briefly at the Central School. It was later, when studying full-time at the Central, that he saw the mezzotints of the Japanese master, Yozo Hamaguchi, in a London gallery. He was hooked. Creating a mezzotint is tedious in the extreme. The copper plate must first be prepared with a "rocker" which roughens the surface. A plate may be "rocked" 30 or 40 times. The rough texture is then reduced with a burnisher and a scraper, allowing the print a range of tones from velvety black through the greys to white. Marchant's plates could be months in the making. But the technical demands were the least of his worries. In its 18th- and 19th-century heyday, mezzotint was solely a reproductive medium, for copying masters such as Reynolds and Turner. The development of photography rendered it unfashionable, and by the 1960s the technique, known as la manière anglaise, was a bygone medium. Marchant, by now a teacher in printmaking at the Central, began to create original mezzotints with a colleague, Radavan Kraguly. A perfectionist, he seemed to revel in the straitjacket procedure. Perhaps it was the metaphor of bringing darkness out of light that appealed to this straight-talking, sometimes sombre, man, who would suddenly relax and light up like a gleaming hue on one of his prints. His work was of squares and triangles with the occasional cat, black and ominous, and carefully arranged still lifes, featuring plants, a seed pod, a pot he might have bought at auction to celebrate the sale of a print. There were one-man shows, notably at the Bankside Gallery. He sold well at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, was a Florence Biennale prizewinner, spent a fellowship year at the British School in Rome, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. But making mezzotints was not a paying job. Marchant and his South African wife...

Etching, drypoint, and roulette on watermarked Hallines cream laid paper, 3 3/4 x 5 7/8 inches (95 x 148 mm), full margins. A very good impression of this charming image, with all of...

Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, Plate No. 39; Unidentified tree with moth, caterpillar and pupa. The Netherlands: 1705....

Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, Plate No. 6; Thistle and Moths. The Netherlands: 1705. Engraving with hand coloring in w...

Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, Plate No. 26; Cocoa plant, caterpillar, pupa, and butterflies. The Netherlands: 1705. En...

Carol Wax describes her circular images as "most often quasi abstract works that refer to ancient islamic designs using the shapes and attributes of animals, in this case the deer. T...

The Sparrow Hawk is an aquatint and drypoint print on chine from one of the deluxe copies of Picasso's 1942 Histoire Naturelle - Textes de Buffon series. The image size is 10.5 x 8 inches, unsigned as issued, and framed in a contemporary silver and gray moulding. One of about 36 prints that exist with Picasso's remarqued title in French, from the edition of 262 (there were 226 portfolios, some with additional sets on varying papers). Catalogue - Cramer #37 The exceptional etchings from Picasso’s Histoire Naturelle – Textes de Buffon are a masterful combination of sugar-lift aquatint and drypoint, showcasing a full range of gray tonalities. The etchings of animals, birds and insects are considered some of the most beautiful and most unusual examples of Picasso’s graphic work. Roger Lacourière, Picasso’s master printer, pulled the prints for each etching between 1939-1942. It was Lacourière who taught Picasso the sugar-lift aquatint technique which allowed him to mimic the effect of brushstrokes in these etched images. Picasso first explored the technique in his plates for the Vollard Suite, but it was in the creation of the Buffon images that he fully realized its stunning, painterly potential. For the edition, 226 portfolios were produced with the first thirty-six counting as deluxe compilations. These rare deluxe sets were on diverse papers (chine, japon or vergé ancien) and each included a complete additional suite showing Picasso’s title remarques along the bottom. As such, the remarqued versions of the prints are quite rare with just thirty-six of each produced for the edition (with the exception of The Wolf which is never remarqued – the image always fills the entire etching plate). These prints are based on the writings of French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, who extensively documented the natural world in his monumental work Histoire Naturelle. Picasso’s association with the project to illustrate parts of the Buffon came during a tumultuous time in European history – the prelude to, and early years of, World War II. As the continent was ravaged, Picasso lived through the disaster in Paris, which the Germans occupied in 1940. These prints could be seen as a political statement – Picasso channeling his artistic expression into a form of resistance art...

The Vulture is an aquatint and drypoint print on chine from one of the deluxe copies of Picasso's 1942 Histoire Naturelle - Textes de Buffon series. The image size is 10.6 x 8 inches, unsigned as issued, and framed in a contemporary silver and gray moulding. One of about 36 prints that exist with Picasso's remarqued title in French, from the edition of 262 (there were 226 portfolios, some with additional sets on varying papers). Catalogue - Cramer #37 The exceptional etchings from Picasso’s Histoire Naturelle – Textes de Buffon are a masterful combination of sugar-lift aquatint and drypoint, showcasing a full range of gray tonalities. The etchings of animals, birds and insects are considered some of the most beautiful and most unusual examples of Picasso’s graphic work. Roger Lacourière, Picasso’s master printer, pulled the prints for each etching between 1939-1942. It was Lacourière who taught Picasso the sugar-lift aquatint technique which allowed him to mimic the effect of brushstrokes in these etched images. Picasso first explored the technique in his plates for the Vollard Suite, but it was in the creation of the Buffon images that he fully realized its stunning, painterly potential. For the edition, 226 portfolios were produced with the first thirty-six counting as deluxe compilations. These rare deluxe sets were on diverse papers (chine, japon or vergé ancien) and each included a complete additional suite showing Picasso’s title remarques along the bottom. As such, the remarqued versions of the prints are quite rare with just thirty-six of each produced for the edition (with the exception of The Wolf which is never remarqued – the image always fills the entire etching plate). These prints are based on the writings of French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, who extensively documented the natural world in his monumental work Histoire Naturelle. Picasso’s association with the project to illustrate parts of the Buffon came during a tumultuous time in European history – the prelude to, and early years of, World War II. As the continent was ravaged, Picasso lived through the disaster in Paris, which the Germans occupied in 1940. These prints could be seen as a political statement – Picasso channeling his artistic expression into a form of resistance art...

Four plates from The Wondrous Transformation of Caterpillars and their Strange Diet of Flowers. “Wolfsmelk Rupsen;" “Wolfsmilch, Raupe und Schmetterling" Amsterdam: J F Bernard, 1730. Each an engraving with hand coloring in watercolor and gouache printed on one sheet of watermarked Honig cream laid paper, each measures 6 1/4 x 5 inches (157 x 121 mm), sheet measures 20 5/8 x 14 inches (522 x 355 mm), full margins. With handling creases in the lower right sheet quadrant, as well as minor, loose cockling, otherwise in very good condition. The colors are superb with exceptionally fresh and bright saturation. Engraved between 1679 and 1683, printed 1730. Plates included: No.1:I; No. 2:1; II & III. MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN was one of the most highly respected entomologists of the 17th century, and remains today one of the field's most significant figures. A German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator, she reared herself on the study of caterpillars, and made tremendous contributions to the knowledge of the life cycles of numerous species. Until her detailed and careful study of the process of metamorphosis it was thought that insects were "born of mud," through spontaneous generation. Trained as a miniature painter by her stepfather, she published her first book of illustrations in 1675, at the age of 28. In 1679, Merian published the first volume of the two-volume series on caterpillars, The Wondrous Transformation of Caterpillars and their Strange Diet of Flowers; the second volume followed in 1683. Each volume contained 50 plates that she engraved and etched. In 1699, Merian traveled to Dutch Guiana...

The Donkey is an aquatint and drypoint print on chine from one of the deluxe copies of Picasso's 1942 Histoire Naturelle - Textes de Buffon series. The image size is 10.5 x 8 inches,...

Mezzotint on Lana paper Signed and numbered in pencil Image Size: 4.63 x 3.5 inches Edition : 90 copies in mint condition Laurent Schkolnyk is internationally recognized as a maste...

Copper-line engraving. 1781. From John Latham's 'General Synopsis of Birds' 1781-1785, and its Supplements. Plate number top left. Laid paper. John Latham was the leading English or...