Landscape One
Currently on display at the Royal Academy of Arts is an exhibition on Constable, Gainsborough, Turner and the Making of Landscape. This exhibition demonstrates the immense importance of printmaking in the birth and consolidation of the British landscape school.
One of the principal models for early British landscape artists such as Richard Wilson, was Gaspard Dughet (then usually referred to as Gaspar Poussin- he was Nicolas Poussin's brother-in-law). This print was engraved after one of Dughet's paintings by Francis Vivares, who also made prints of pictures by English landscape painter Thomas Smith of Derby:
[The Cascade.] In the Collection of the Right Honourable Sr: Robert Walpole.
Gaspar Poussin pinx. Vivares Sculp.
Copper engraving with very large margins, paper watermarked. Plate 310 x 400mm. [Ref: 26539] £130.00 (£156.00 incl.VAT)
Thomas Smith was, along with Richard Wilson, one of the first British painters to specialise in landscape. Having spent several years in Rome, Wilson returned to Britain where he brought to bear 'his ability to compose original landscapes of harmonious order and beauty' upon his native landscape. This view of Snowden was engraved by the celebrated William Woollett:
Snowden Hill, and the adjacent Country in North Wales. Le Montagne de Snowden, avec ses Environs dans la Principanté de Galles.
Richard Wilson pinx.t William Woollett Sculp.t
Copper engraving. 406 x 546mm. 16 x 21½".
[Ref: 20365] £260
Thomas Gainsborough, who documented the Suffolk landscape as would John Constable a generation later, was himself a printmaker, although he 'took inspiration not from the great formal reproductive engravings of Woollett and his predecessors but from artist-printmakers of seventeenth-century Holland such as Rembrandt'. One of Gainsborough's larger etchings is The Gipsies:
The Gipsies.
Painted & Etch'd byT; Gainsborough. Engrav'd & Finish'd by J: Wood.
Published by J. Boydell Engraver in Cheapside London 1764
Etching and engraving, platemark 500 x 450mm (19½ x 17½"). Repaired tear on left
Etched by Thomas Gainsborough around 1753-4, and published with additional engraving by Joseph Wood in March 1759. The plate was subsequently reissued by John Boydell in 1764, as a companion to an engraving of Richard Wilson's 'Lake Nemi', also by Joseph Wood.
[Ref: 24274] £590
In the 1770s painter and printmaker Paul Sandby pioneered aquatint engraving as a method of printmaking able to emulate the tones of watercolours and washed drawings. In publishing his views of Wales he contibuted to popularity of Wales for tourists and connoisseurs of the picturesque:
Manerbawr Castle From the Inward Court.
P. Sandby Fecit.
Publish'd according to Act of Parliament by P. Sandby St. Georges Row Sepr. 1st. 1775.
Aquatint with etching in brown ink, state with title in open letters. 240 x 315mm. 9½ x 12½". Trimmed to plate. A strong impression. [Ref: 12164] £220
The development of Picturesque theory, and the resultant guidebooks produced by the likes of Reverend William Gilpin, subsequently spawned the parody The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque (1812), in which a Gilpin-like figure finds himself in a range of comic situations:
Doctor Syntax at an Auction.
Drawn by Rowlandson.
Published July 1, 1810, at R.Ackermann's. 101 Strand.
Coloured aquatint. 159 x 247mm. 6¼ x 9¾".
[Ref: 16190] £85.00 (£102.00 incl.VAT)
Around the time of Sandby's innovations, another significant landscape publication was printed- this was a set of prints made by Richard Earlom from Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis drawings in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire:
[Pastoral scene with nymph and satyr.] From the Original Drawing in the Collection of the Duke of Devonshire. No 55.
Claude le Lorrain delin.t. R. Earlom fecit.
Published Aug. 1st 1774 by John Boydell Engraver in Cheapside.
Mezzotint with etched lines, printed in sepia. 210 x 260mm, 8½ x 10¼".
[Ref: 21839] £120.00 (£144.00 incl.VAT)
JMW Turner took Claude's Liber Veritatis as his model when publishing his own series of prints, which he called the Liber Studiorum (1807-24). Turner often etched the initial outlines to these prints himself, emphasising the extent of his involvement with the project:
Drawing of the Clyde. In the possession of J.M.W. Turner.
Drawn & Etched by J.M.W. Turner Esq. R.A. P.P. Engraved by Cha.s Turner.
London Published March 29 1809 by C. Turner No 50 Warren Street Fitzroy Square
Etching and mezzotint with large margins, platemark 210 x 290mm (8¼ x 11½").
[Ref: 27358] £320
Drawn and Etched by J.M.W. Turner Esq. R.A. P.P. Engraved by Cha.s Turner.
London. Published March 29, 1809, by C. Turner, No 50, Warren Street, Fitzroy Square.
Etching and mezzotint with very large margins, very fine, platemark 210 x 290mm (8¼ x 11½"). Uncut. Stamp of art dealer C.W. Dowdeswell verso.
Farmyard scene with labourers conversing in background, a rare depiction by Turner of this subject. A preparatory watercolour is in Tate Britain (D08153).
Rawlinson: 17 (first published state)
[Ref: 27242] £360
Although the Liber plates are those in which Turner had the most personal contribution, they are by no means the only important prints of his work. Another is his great early painting Shipwreck which was reproduced in a large mezzotint by the finest of his engravers, Charles Turner (no relation):
A Shipwreck.
Painted by J.M.W. Turner, Esq. R.A. Engraved by C. Turner, A.R.A.
London: Published Jan.y 16.th 1837, by Ackermann & Co. 96, Strand.
Mezzotint and etching. Plate 590 x 826mm. 23¼ x 32½". Some Damage.
[Ref: 23374] £390
Constable, the third artist in the RA's triumvirate, followed Turner by publishing a selection of prints representative of his works, Various Subjects of Landscape, characteristic of English Scenery (1830-32), from which the following view of Hampstead Heath is taken. Constable did not attempt printmaking himself, but cultivated an intense working relationship with mezzotinter David Lucas, who became Constable's amanuensis for translating his works into printed form:
A Heath.
Painted by John Constable R.A. Engraved by David Lucas.
[n.d. c.1831.]
Mezzotint. Plate 177 x 222mm. 7 x 8¾".
Shirley: 23; [between iv and v].
[Ref: 19291] £120.00 (£144.00 incl.VAT)
Please note we have many more prints relating to all of these artists in our Covent Garden shop.
(All quotations to the excellent gallery guide for the exhibition)
One of the principal models for early British landscape artists such as Richard Wilson, was Gaspard Dughet (then usually referred to as Gaspar Poussin- he was Nicolas Poussin's brother-in-law). This print was engraved after one of Dughet's paintings by Francis Vivares, who also made prints of pictures by English landscape painter Thomas Smith of Derby:
Gaspar Poussin pinx. Vivares Sculp.
Copper engraving with very large margins, paper watermarked. Plate 310 x 400mm. [Ref: 26539] £130.00 (£156.00 incl.VAT)
Thomas Smith was, along with Richard Wilson, one of the first British painters to specialise in landscape. Having spent several years in Rome, Wilson returned to Britain where he brought to bear 'his ability to compose original landscapes of harmonious order and beauty' upon his native landscape. This view of Snowden was engraved by the celebrated William Woollett:
Richard Wilson pinx.t William Woollett Sculp.t
Copper engraving. 406 x 546mm. 16 x 21½".
[Ref: 20365] £260
Thomas Gainsborough, who documented the Suffolk landscape as would John Constable a generation later, was himself a printmaker, although he 'took inspiration not from the great formal reproductive engravings of Woollett and his predecessors but from artist-printmakers of seventeenth-century Holland such as Rembrandt'. One of Gainsborough's larger etchings is The Gipsies:
Painted & Etch'd byT; Gainsborough. Engrav'd & Finish'd by J: Wood.
Published by J. Boydell Engraver in Cheapside London 1764
Etching and engraving, platemark 500 x 450mm (19½ x 17½"). Repaired tear on left
Etched by Thomas Gainsborough around 1753-4, and published with additional engraving by Joseph Wood in March 1759. The plate was subsequently reissued by John Boydell in 1764, as a companion to an engraving of Richard Wilson's 'Lake Nemi', also by Joseph Wood.
[Ref: 24274] £590
In the 1770s painter and printmaker Paul Sandby pioneered aquatint engraving as a method of printmaking able to emulate the tones of watercolours and washed drawings. In publishing his views of Wales he contibuted to popularity of Wales for tourists and connoisseurs of the picturesque:
P. Sandby Fecit.
Publish'd according to Act of Parliament by P. Sandby St. Georges Row Sepr. 1st. 1775.
Aquatint with etching in brown ink, state with title in open letters. 240 x 315mm. 9½ x 12½". Trimmed to plate. A strong impression. [Ref: 12164] £220
The development of Picturesque theory, and the resultant guidebooks produced by the likes of Reverend William Gilpin, subsequently spawned the parody The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque (1812), in which a Gilpin-like figure finds himself in a range of comic situations:
Drawn by Rowlandson.
Published July 1, 1810, at R.Ackermann's. 101 Strand.
Coloured aquatint. 159 x 247mm. 6¼ x 9¾".
[Ref: 16190] £85.00 (£102.00 incl.VAT)
Around the time of Sandby's innovations, another significant landscape publication was printed- this was a set of prints made by Richard Earlom from Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis drawings in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire:
Claude le Lorrain delin.t. R. Earlom fecit.
Published Aug. 1st 1774 by John Boydell Engraver in Cheapside.
Mezzotint with etched lines, printed in sepia. 210 x 260mm, 8½ x 10¼".
[Ref: 21839] £120.00 (£144.00 incl.VAT)
JMW Turner took Claude's Liber Veritatis as his model when publishing his own series of prints, which he called the Liber Studiorum (1807-24). Turner often etched the initial outlines to these prints himself, emphasising the extent of his involvement with the project:
Drawn & Etched by J.M.W. Turner Esq. R.A. P.P. Engraved by Cha.s Turner.
London Published March 29 1809 by C. Turner No 50 Warren Street Fitzroy Square
Etching and mezzotint with large margins, platemark 210 x 290mm (8¼ x 11½").
[Ref: 27358] £320
London. Published March 29, 1809, by C. Turner, No 50, Warren Street, Fitzroy Square.
Etching and mezzotint with very large margins, very fine, platemark 210 x 290mm (8¼ x 11½"). Uncut. Stamp of art dealer C.W. Dowdeswell verso.
Farmyard scene with labourers conversing in background, a rare depiction by Turner of this subject. A preparatory watercolour is in Tate Britain (D08153).
Rawlinson: 17 (first published state)
[Ref: 27242] £360
Although the Liber plates are those in which Turner had the most personal contribution, they are by no means the only important prints of his work. Another is his great early painting Shipwreck which was reproduced in a large mezzotint by the finest of his engravers, Charles Turner (no relation):
Painted by J.M.W. Turner, Esq. R.A. Engraved by C. Turner, A.R.A.
London: Published Jan.y 16.th 1837, by Ackermann & Co. 96, Strand.
Mezzotint and etching. Plate 590 x 826mm. 23¼ x 32½". Some Damage.
[Ref: 23374] £390
Constable, the third artist in the RA's triumvirate, followed Turner by publishing a selection of prints representative of his works, Various Subjects of Landscape, characteristic of English Scenery (1830-32), from which the following view of Hampstead Heath is taken. Constable did not attempt printmaking himself, but cultivated an intense working relationship with mezzotinter David Lucas, who became Constable's amanuensis for translating his works into printed form:
Painted by John Constable R.A. Engraved by David Lucas.
[n.d. c.1831.]
Mezzotint. Plate 177 x 222mm. 7 x 8¾".
Shirley: 23; [between iv and v].
[Ref: 19291] £120.00 (£144.00 incl.VAT)
Please note we have many more prints relating to all of these artists in our Covent Garden shop.
(All quotations to the excellent gallery guide for the exhibition)
