Grosvenor Prints

Just in case you missed it our new listing for the ABA Chelsea Rare Book Fair is here! This catalogue of over 400 interesting & curious items, contains a large selection of satire , UK & foreign topography , portraits , natural history , sporting , decorative scenes and of course ephemera .  Highlights to look out for are a beautiful mezzotint portrait of Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar II I   and some wonderful animal etchings by A. Radclyffe Dumore. See below for some images to whet your appetite:   [Fencing.] Tabula I. J. Gelle Collonien sculp: [Leiden: B. & A. Elzevir: 1630.] Large engraving. 490 x 700mm (15¾ x 27½"), with large margins. Tear at top, two creases as normal. Small margins. A plate from Gerard Thibault's 'L'académie de l'espée', illustrating the geometry that the author considered of utmost importance in sword fighting. Of particular interest is the use of Thibault's 'mysterio...

The Houghton Revisited exhibition currently taking place at Houghton Hall in Norfolk provides the opportunity to see some of Robert Walpole's collection displayed in its original setting for the first time since Walpole's famous collection was sold to Catherine the Great of Russia in 1779. Like several other famous collections, the paintings in the Houghton collection were engraved and published, in an ambitious project organized by the Georgian print world's 'Commercial Maecenas' John Boydell, with the result that even after the paintings had left for Russia, they continued to exert great influence on British artists and connoisseurs in engraved form. Here we show a selection of engravings from paintings in the Walpole collection: This full-length portrait of Robert Walpole hung in his 'blue damask bed chamber', although like several of the prints in this list it is not part of the Houghton exhibition: Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford....

Windsor conceived as a stage design, the artistic education of a young aristocrat, and reflections on the Thames Embankment in a selection of prints connected with painter and printmaker Paul Sandby (c.1731-1809). Sandby started out working for the Board of Ordnance as a draughtsman, honing the skills he would subsequently exploit in his prints and watercolours, but aside from his skills as a landscape artist he was also a talented caricaturist. He produced a set of biting satires against Hogarth and also a set of London Cries which avoid the generic sentiment so often found in such subjects. The following two prints also show Sandby's skill as a caricaturist: The Well Fed English Constable. P.Sandby Invt. MDarly sc. Pubd. according to Act of Parlt. Octr. 1st: 1771 by MDarly Engraver No.39 Strand. Etching, 350 x 250mm. 13¾ x 9¾". Some offsetting. A watchman in profile patting his enormous belly, holding his staff, two dogs slavering at a dead fowl in h...

The National Portrait Gallery is currently exhibiting a selection of William Nicholson's striking portraits in a temporary display , including these prints of Whistler and Sarah Bernhardt: James McNeill Whistler. William Nicholson. [London, 1899 by William Heinemann]. Lithographic reproduction of a hand-coloured woodcut. Printed area: 245 x 220mm. (9¾ x 8¾"). Foxing to edges; mounted on board as issued. From the folio of twelve portraits by William Nicholson published in 1899. Colin Campbell, 'William Nicholson: The Graphic Works': 22B [Ref: 28326]   £160.00   (£192.00 incl.VAT)   Sarah Bernhardt Lithographic reproduction of a hand-coloured woodcut , 250 x 240mm Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, published in the New Review in 1897. Colin Campbell, 'William Nicholson: The Graphic Works': 20B £65 (£78 incl. VAT) To see other prints by Nichol...