Samuel Palmer The Cypress Grove Redhill, Surrey, about 1880, completed 1883 Etching 13 x 19 cm Set amid a mountainous nocturnal landscape, a group of nymphs mourn for the shepherd Daphnis who has been blinded by the nymph Nomia for being unfaithful. Loosely based on Virgil’s Eclogues (42-39 B.C.), this work may have been inspired … Read more
Jacques-Philippe Lebas after Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin Le Négligé Paris, 1741 Engraving Paper: 38.6 x 27.4 cm; mount: 63 x 51.5 cm Lebas’ print reproduces ‘The Morning Toilette’, painted by Chardin (1669-1779) in 1741. Many of Chardin’s pictures were of domestic interiors, scenes of childhood and maternal love, all of which were fashionable with 18th-century French audiences. … Read more
Jan Both The Mule Driver Netherlands, 1630s Etching 22 x 29.5 cm The mule with a low-slung head struggling under the weight of a heavy load is a motif that frequently appears in Both’s Italianate landscape scenes. For many, the mule was an affordable means of transport and an ideal working animal, combining the endurance … Read more
Luigi Scaramuccia The Crowing with Thorns Italian, mid 1600s Engraving on laid handmade paper 52.5 x 35 cm Purchased 2000 (No. 2000.2)
Arthur Illies Ripe Cornfield: Evening (Ahrenfeld am Abend) Hamburg, 1896 Colour etching on zinc 18.5 x 14.5 cm A fine impression on wove paper as issued in Pan in an edition of 1,600. This extraordinary colour etching is the product of deep biting a zinc plate and of one printing only. The colours are applied … Read more
Claude Lorrain Sunrise Rome, 1634 Etching Paper: 12.9 x 20 cm; mount: 40.5 x 56 cm This marine scene bustles with activity as figures gesticulate, exchange glances and huddle in groups. The sun, which faintly be seen on the horizon, floods the picture with light and blurs the distant mountains. Opposite the triumphal Arch of … Read more
Antoon Derkzen van Angeren Two Skulls Dutch, 1908-9 Etching 30 x 39.7 cm This etching revives the distinctive Dutch seventeenth-century painting category of vanitas still-life. One or more skulls in isolation was a tradition established by Angeren’s seventeenth-century predecessor, Hercules Seers (1589/90-1633/38). Purchased 2001 (No. 2001.1).
Thomas Rowlandson Dressing for the Masquerade London, 1790 Tinted etching Paper: 37.3 x 51.3 cm; mount: 51.7 x 63 cm The most obvious differences between this print and Rowlandson’s original drawing (Inv. No. 48.9) are the colours. The print has been hand tinted and consequently each version is slightly different from the others. The general … Read more
Wenceslaus Hollar Muscarum Scarabeorum Vermiumque Variae Figurae et Formae 1646 Etchings Wenclaus Hollar was born in Prague, but worked across Europe including in Stuttgart, Strasburg, Frankfurt and Cologne, where he became employed by Thomas Howard, the Earl of Arundel (1585-1646). Howard was a court member of King Charles I, and renowned for his collection of art and … Read more
Lovis Corinth Christ on the Cross (Christus am Kreuz) Berlin, 1919 Woodcut Plate: 51 x 43 m; mount: 73 x 59 cm Christ is shown at his crucifixion, his head crowned by a searing sun and his body scored by the deep lines carved in the wood. Corinth uses chaotic hatched lines to emphasis Christ’s … Read more
Harmenszoon van Rijn Rembrandt The Death of the Virgin Amsterdam, 1639 Etching with drypoint 10.4 x 9.5 cm This is one of the earliest plates in which Rembrandt used drypoint to any considerable extent. Purchased 1939 (No. 39.11)
Pierre Étienne Théodore Rousseau Oaks Among Boulders Barbizon, 1861 Etching Plate: 13.4 x 21 cm; paper: 30 x 40 cm; mount: 40.5 x 55.6 cm This etching was made from Rousseau’s painting La Chene de Roches and published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Rousseau depicts the heart of the forest untouched by human intervention. Rousseau’s … Read more
Jean-François Millet Peasant Returning from the Dunghill France, 1855 Etching Purchased 1965 (No. 65.1)
Jean Morin Omer Talon Paris, early 1650s Engraving Mount: 55.7 x 40.5 cm This portrait is based on Philippe de Champaigne’s full-length painting of Omer Talon (1595-1652) produced in 1649. Champaigne was a founder of the French Academy in the mid 17th century and is best known for his portraits of royalty and important political … Read more
The Bath House Nuremberg, about 1496 Woodcut 388 X 282 MM Dürer depicts an open-air bath house of a kind that was popular in northern Europe around 1500. Male figures are shown at different ages and in varied and complex poses, created by a network of crisp lines that curve and trace the surface of … Read more
