CHAPTER XII
Lithography, the convenient invention of Senefelder--Its recent Revival due to the French and Whistler--Legros--Fantin--Whistler’s Lithographs only inferior to his Etchings--C. H. Shannon’s Lithographs the best expression of his art--Lithography and Etching compared--Will Rothenstein--Oliver Hall--The Lithographs of Roussel--Other Draughtsmen--The contemporary Lithograph foolishly costly.
A final chapter I devote to another of the most justifiable and reasonable of the more recent fads in Print Collecting--to a branch of the collector’s pursuit far less important, indeed, and far less interesting than Etching, far less historic than Mezzotint, but far more creditable than the mania of the inartistic for the pretty ineptitude of the coloured print. I am speaking of Lithography.
Men who are familiar with the later development of artistic work, know that not exactly alongside of the very real and admirable Revival of Etching, but closely following behind it, there has proceeded some renewal of interest in the art of drawing upon stone, which, in 1796, was invented by Senefelder. Often, however, nowadays, it is not literally “on stone.” Without defending the change--and yet without the possibility of violently accusing it, seeing the achievements which at least it has not forbidden--I may note that, as a matter of fact, a transfer-paper, and not the prepared stone, is, very frequently in our day, the substance actually drawn on.
Well, the renewal of interest in the art of Lithography owes much to Frenchmen of the present generation, and much to Mr Whistler. I say “the present generation” in talking of the French, because (not to speak of the qualities obtained two generations ago by our English Prout), Gavarni’s “velvety quality” and the “fever and freedom of Daumier” were noticeable, and might have been influential long before the days of our present young men. The work of Fantin-Latour, has been to them an example, and the noble work of Legros, and the work of Whistler. Fantin-Latour--that delightful painter of flowers and of the poetic nude--has endowed us in Lithography as well as in Painting with reveries of the nude, or of the slightly robed. They are all done in freely scraped crayon. A few of them--such as _The Genius of Music_, or the quite recent _To Stendhal_ or _Les Baigneuses_--the collector of lithographs is bound to possess. But I must turn, in detail, to Mr Whistler.
Mr Tom Way, who knows as much about Lithography as any one--and more, perhaps, than any one about the lithographs of Whistler--assured me, a year since, that something like a hundred drawings on the stone, or transfer-paper (for Mr Whistler sometimes uses the one and sometimes the other), had been wrought by one whose reputation is secure as the master-etcher of our time. Since then Mr Way has accurately and eulogistically catalogued them. They amount now, or did when Mr Way finished his catalogue, to exactly a hundred and thirty. But Mr Whistler is always working. Let us recall a few of them--most, though indeed by no means all of them, were first seen in an exhibition held in the rooms of the Fine Art Society. Before then, they were wont to be shown privately, to Amateurs, by one or two dealers. Earlier still, they were not shown at all; though a few of the finest of them had been long ago wrought. There was that most distinguished drawing that was published for a penny in the _Whirlwind_--the lady seated, with a hat on, and one arm pendant. It is called _The Winged Hat_. As in Mr Whistler’s rare little etching of the slightly-draped cross-kneed girl stooping over a baby, one enjoys, in _The Winged Hat_, the suggestion of delicate tone on the whole surface: the working of the face is particularly noteworthy by reason of the subtle way in which the draughtsman had suggested, by means of the handling of his chalk, a different texture. “By means of the handling of his chalk,” did I write?--perhaps a little too confidently. One can’t quite say how he did really get it. But he has got it, somehow.
Then there is that admirable portfolio, of only five or six, the Goupils published--containing the _Limehouse_, mysterious, weird, and unsurpassable, and a _Nocturne_, wholly exquisite. Again, there is _Battersea Bridge_, of 1878, which, good though it is, does not stand comparison with Mr Whistler’s etchings of the same and similar themes. Then there is a rare subject which people learned in Lithography are wont to account a masterpiece in the method--a drawing tenderly washed: a thing of masses and broad spaces, more than narrow lines. It is called _Early Morning_, and is a vision of the River at Battersea. It is faint--faint--of gradations the most delicate, of contrasts the least striking--a gleam of silver and white.
Later, among many others, there have been that drawing of a draped model seated which appeared in the now rare “L’Estampe Originale”; the _fin_ portrait of M. Mallarmé--a writer so difficult to understand, that by the faithful his profundity is taken for granted--some slender, lissome nudes or semi-nudes, most characteristic of Whistler; the _St Giles’s Church_, the _Smith’s Yard_, _Lyme Regis_, the _Belle Dame paresseuse_, with the quality of a chalk drawing; the _Belle Jardinière_, which has something, but by no means all of the infinite freedom of the etching of _The Garden_; again, _The Balcony_ with people peering down from it, as if at a procession--and procession indeed it was, since the thing was wrought on the day of Carnot’s funeral. Then, in the _Forge_ and _The Smith of the Place du Dragon_ there is the tender soft grey quality which people learned in these things conceive, I think generally, to be impossible to “transfer.”
But of the younger artists who have worked in Lithography it is time to say something. Mr Frank Short, with his placid dream of _Putney_, with the intricate rhythm of line of his _Timber-Ships_, _Yarmouth_, should not be passed by. Nor Mr Francis Bate, who, to draw as he has drawn, and see as he has seen, _The Whiting Mill_, could not possibly have been wanting in originality of expression or of sight. Nor Mr George Clausen, again, whose _Hay Barn_ bears witness not only to his easy command of _technique_, but to his flexibility. It is one of those treatments of rustic life in which Mr Clausen has been wont to show the influence of Millet, if not of Bastien Lepage. It is of a realism artistically subdued, yet undeniable. Of the work of C. H. Shannon I must speak a good deal more fully, for of C. H. Shannon, Lithography is the particular art. He is no beginner at Lithography: no maker of first experiments. I do not know that he--like Mr Short--is an engraver in any way. He is not, like Mr Whistler, celebrated on two continents as etcher and painter to boot. He is above all things draughtsman--draughtsman poetic and subtle. The air of Lithography he breathes as his native air.
C. H. Shannon’s art it is by no means easy for the healthy normal person to appreciate at once. It is possible even for a student of the matter to lose sight of Shannon’s poetry and sensitiveness, in a fit of impatience because the anatomy of his figures does not always seem to be true, or because his sentiment has not robustness. I have a lurking suspicion that I was myself rather slow to appreciate him. Few people’s appreciation of the original in Art, comes to them all at once. And touchy folk--unreasonable, almost irresponsible--are apt to blame one on this account. One has “swallowed one’s words,” they say--because one has modified an opinion. The world, even the intelligent world, they querulously grumble, was not ready to receive them. Is that so very amazing? Themselves, doubtless, were born with every faculty matured--they possessed, upon their mother’s breasts, a nice discrimination of the virtues of Lafitte of ’69. Some of us, under such circumstances, can but crave their tolerance--we were born duller.
Of lithographic _technique_, Mr C. H. Shannon--to go back to him, after an inexcusable digression--is a master; and here let it be said that not only does he draw upon the stone invariably, whilst Mr Whistler (it has been named before) sometimes does and sometimes does not draw on it, but he insists also upon printing his own impressions. He has a press; he is an enthusiast; he sees the thing through. The precise number of his lithographs it is not important to know. What is important, is to insist upon the relative “considerableness” of nearly all of them. With him the thoroughly considered composition takes the place of the dainty sketch. Faulty the works of Charles Shannon may be, in certain points; deficient in certain points; but rarely indeed are they slight, either in conception or execution. Of each one of them may it be said that it is a serious work: the seriousness as apparent in the more or less realistic treatment of _The Modeller_ as in _Delia_, ideal and opulent and Titianesque. The _Ministrants_, of 1894, is perhaps his most important. What is more exquisite than the just suggested movements of _The Sisters_? _Sea-Breezes_ is noteworthy, of course, in composition, and refined, of course, in effect.
Before I go on to discuss a few others of the modern men, it may be more interesting to remind the reader--it may be, even to inform him--what is and what may hope to be Lithography’s place. In such signs of its revival as are now apparent, he will surely rejoice. One does rejoice to find an artist equipped with some new medium of expression--some medium of expression, at all events, by which his work, while remaining autographic, may yet be widely diffused. And the art or craft of Lithography, whatever it does not do, does at least enable the expert in it to produce and scatter broadcast, by the hundred or the thousand if he choose, work which shall have all or nearly all the quality of a pencil or chalk drawing, or, if it is desired, much of the quality even of a drawing that is washed. This is excellent; and then again there is the commercial advantage of relatively rapid and quite inexpensive printing. But what the serious and impartial amateur and collector of Fine Art will have to notice on the other side, is, first of all, that Lithography is not richly endowed with a separate quality of its own. With work that is printed from a metal plate, this is quite otherwise. Mezzotint has a charm that is its own, entirely. And Line-Engraving has the particular charm of Line-Engraving. And Etching--the biting, which gives vigour now, and now extreme delicacy; the printing, which deliberately enhances this or modifies that; the burr, the dry-point work, its intended effect; the papers, and the different results they yield, of tone or luminousness--all these things contribute to, and are a part of, Etching’s especial quality and especial delight.
A comparison between Lithography and Etching in particular--putting other mediums aside--leads to further reflections. Lithography lacks the relief of etched work. “You can’t have grey and black lines”--a skilled etcher says to me, who enjoys Lithography as well as Etching, and sometimes practises it--“you can’t have grey and black lines, in that the printing of a lithograph is surface-printing, and every mark upon the stone prints equally black. Therefore for grey work in Lithography, you must have a grain upon the stone--or on the transfer-paper--that your drawing is made on.” And he adds, “Whatever can be done upon a lithographic stone, can be done with a much higher quality upon a plate.” And the soft grey line, he says, when got upon the stone--“well, if that is what you want, in a soft-ground etching it can be got much better.”
As to Mezzotint again, to compare the quality of a fine mezzotint from copper, with any quality that is obtainable in stone, would, generally, be absurd. We are brought back, however, to that which is Lithography’s especial virtue and convenience--it gives the autographic quality of the pencil drawing, of the chalk drawing, of the drawing that is washed.
When, in these last words, I tried to indicate Lithography’s natural limits, and said, practically, that its main function was to produce “battalions” where ordinary drawing must produce but “single spies,” I said nothing that need encourage readers to suppose that its process lay perfectly at the command of every draughtsman, and that the first-comer, did he know well how to draw, would get from the lithographic stone every quality the stone could yield. And this being so, it can surprise no one if in a chapter on the Revival of Lithography I give conspicuous place to the young men who have really fagged at it, rather than to the possibly more accomplished, the certainly more famous artists who have drawn just lately on the tracing-paper, oftener than not in complimentary recognition of the fact that now a hundred years have passed since Alois Senefelder invented the method which, half a century later, Hulmandel did something to perfect.
Mr C. H. Shannon--pre-eminently noticeable among these younger men--has been discussed already. We will look now at the work of another of them--Mr Will Rothenstein, whose mind, whose hand-work, is conspicuously unlike Mr Shannon’s, in that, though he can be romantic, he can scarcely be poetic. A vivid realism is his characteristic, and, with that vivid realism, romance, phantasy, caprice--either or all--may find themselves in company; but poetry, hardly. Mr Rothenstein--as there is some reason, perhaps, for telling the collector--is not only young, but extremely young. His series of Oxford lithographs were wrought, most of them, when he was between twenty and two-and-twenty years old. It was an audacious adventure, with youth for its excuse. For this set of Oxford portraits was to be the abstract of the Oxford of a day. In it, Professors and Heads of Houses are--men who for perhaps a generation remain in their place--but in it, too, are athletes, engaging undergraduates, lads whose achievements may become a tradition, but whose places know them no more. The first part of the “Oxford Characters”--that is the proper name of it--appeared in June 1893. In it, is the portrait of that great Christ Church boating man, W. L. Fletcher, and a portrait of Sir Henry Acland, for which another more august-looking rendering of the same head and figure was after a while substituted. Again, there is an admirable vision of Max Müller--Mr Rothenstein’s high-water mark, perhaps, in that which he might probably suppose to be the humble art of likeness-taking.
Quite outside the charmed Oxford life are the subjects of some of Mr Rothenstein’s generally piquant portraits. There is the portrait of Emile Zola, for instance. I never saw the man. This may or may not be a _terre-à-terre_ view of him. Most probably it is. But certainly the face, with its set lips and hollow cheeks, is cleverly rendered, though in such rendering we may fancy not so much the author of the _Faute de l’Abbé Mouret_ and of the _Page d’Amour_, as the author of _Nana_ and of _Le Ventre de Paris_. Again, there is a portrait, at once refined and forcible, of that great gentleman, path-breaking novelist, and dainty connoisseur, Edmond de Goncourt, elderly, but with fires unquenched in the dark, piercing eyes, and the great decoration, so to say, of snow-white hair. Then again, the pretty, pleasing lady, the fresh young thing with her big bonnet--the lady seen full-face, her lips drawn so tenderly. Such flesh and blood as hers, had the Millament of Congreve. If sometimes in them the anatomy of the figures is expressed insufficiently, these works are at least executed with well-acquired knowledge of the effects to which Lithography best lends itself. It can escape no one that, whatever be their faults, the artist utters in them a note that is his own.
To trace, with fairness, the revival of Lithography, even in England only, it should be mentioned that a generation after the achievements of Samuel Prout--his records of architecture in Flanders and in Germany--and the somewhat overrated performances of Harding, the members of the Hogarth Sketching Club made one night, at the house of Mr Way, the elder--the date was the 15th of December, 1874--a set of drawings on the stone. They must be rare, now. Indeed the only copy I have seen was that shown to me at the printing-house in Wellington Street. One of the best was Charles Green’s drawing of two men--ostlers, both of them, or of ostler rank--one of them lighting his pipe. The hand is excellently modelled: the light and shade of the whole subject has crispness and vigour. Sir James Linton contributed a _Coriolanus_ subject, in something more than outline, though not fully expressed--and yet it is beautifully drawn. Mr Coke sent a _Massacre of the Innocents_, classic and charming in contour; while to look at the _Sir Galahad_ of Mr E. J. Gregory is to recall to mind completely the great Romantic Gregory of that early day.
In the Paris Exhibition of Lithographs and in that at Mr Dunthorne’s, there have figured a group of subjects done lately by well-known Academicians and others, and printed--some of them with novel effects--by or under the close direction of Mr Goulding, that famous printer of etchings, who now, it seems, has the laudable ambition of rivalling, as a printer of lithographs, the great house of Way. He has his own methods. The original work is of extremely various quality. Much of it was produced somewhat hurriedly. I do not mean that the drawings were done rapidly, or that it would have been wrong if they had been; for, obviously, the rapid drawing of the capable is often as fine as the slowest, and has the interest of a more urgent message. I mean that they were done, for the most part, by those not versed, as yet, in such secrets as Lithography possesses. Yet, coming often from artists of distinction, many of them have merits. Not much is finer than a girl’s head, by Mr Watts. It is mostly “in tone”; and it is scarcely too much to say of it that it is strong as anything of Leonardo’s--as anything of Holbein’s, one might as easily declare, did not Holbein’s name suggest, along with strength, a certain austerity which Mr Watts mostly avoids. There is a graceful figure-drawing by Lord Leighton, who was interested in the new movement, but who was far too sensible to set vast store by what--as I remember that he wrote to tell me--was the only lithographic drawing he had ever executed. There are strong studies by Sargent--rather brutal perhaps in light and shade--of male models, whose partial nudity there is little to render interesting.
We are brought back then to the work of artists not Academicians at all--men some of them comparatively young in years, but older in a faithful following of the lines on which the craft of Lithography most properly moves. There is Mr C. J. Watson, for instance. The personal note--which, I cannot conceal it, I esteem most of all, and most of all must revel in--the personal note may be, with him, a little wanting; but thorough craftsman he undeniably is. And by Mr Oliver Hall, one of the most delightful of our younger etchers, who as an etcher has been treated in his place, there is a vision of some grey sweeping valley--_Wensleydale_--with trees only in middle distance, or in the remote background. In it, and perhaps even more especially in that quite admirable lithograph, _The Edge of the Moor_, we recognise that way of looking at the world which we know in the etchings; but the intelligence and sensitiveness of the artist have suffered him, or led him rather, to modify the work: to properly adapt it to the newer medium. _The Edge of the Moor_ is, I have implied, quite masterly; and then again there is a tree-study in which Mr Hall recalls those broad and massive, yet always elegant sketches made by the great Cotman, in the latest years, generally, of a life not too prolonged.
Again, among fine lithographs exhibited or not exhibited, there is, by Mr Raven Hill, _The Oyster-Barrow_--a marvellously vivid, faithful study of “Over the Water” (or of Dean’s Yard, it may be) by night--and the equally momentary, spontaneous vision of _The Baby_, with the rotundity of Boucher, and more than the expressiveness of the late Italian: a baby lost, one must avow, to all angelic dreams, and set on carnal things. Perhaps Mr George Thomson’s best lithograph remains the _Brentford Eyot_, though there is charm of movement in at least one figure-study. By Mr Charles Sainton there is a luxurious head of just the type one might expect from the author of silver-points seductive and popular. Mr Walter Sickert’s work, whether you like it or not, at least has, visibly, its source in personal observation and deliberate principle.
By M. Théodore Roussel there are a whole group of lithographs, dainty and delightful, exquisite and fresh--with so much of his own in them, as well as something, of course, of Mr Whistler’s. By the side of his _Scene on the River_--a quaint Battersea or Chelsea bit, I take it--place one of his supple nudities, and against his supple nudity, place his _Opera Cloak_. Charming! all of them. The man is a born artist--he not only draws but sees: sees with refinement and distinction. And there must come a time when Roussel’s work will be appreciated far more widely.
By Mr Jacomb Hood there is a spirited elderly man’s portrait, and an _Idyll_--a Classical or an Arcadian _pas de quatre_--of singular, unwonted charm. By Mr Corbett, the semi-classical landscape painter, there is a nude study--a torso, magnificently modelled. By Mr Solomon Solomon there is a _Venus_, correct in draughtsmanship of course; nor wanting in dramatic quality, for it is not the undressed woman of too many students, but Aphrodite herself--“Vénus, à sa proie attachée.” And lastly--since I cannot merely catalogue--there is Mr Anning Bell, who has bestowed on us enjoyable designs--book-plates _hors ligne_ indeed, so charming are they in their reticence and grace and measured beauty. In Lithography, we may be thankful for the Tanagra-like grace of his _Dancing Girl_. But “Why Tanagra?” am I asked. Because Classical without austerity: provokingly Modern, and yet endowed with the legitimate and endless fascination of Style.
And now, to end with, it seems advisable to say something on the very practical matter of the acquisition of lithographs by the collector, and on their cost. The money value of the lithograph is most uncertain. When the lithograph appears in a popular magazine--the actual lithograph, remember; no merely photographic reproduction of it--it is, on publication, valued at a couple of shillings, or at a shilling, or, as in the extraordinary case of publication in the extinct _Whirlwind_, even at a penny. The prices I have named are, most of them at least, absurd; but on the other hand the dealer’s price--sometimes the original artist’s price--for an impression, is wont to be excessive. A lithograph can be printed--as magazine issue suffices to show--in considerable numbers. Nothing restricts it as the ordinary unsteeled etching is restricted: still less, as the dry-point is restricted. There is no reason, except the scantiness of the public demand, why it should not be issued in an edition almost as large as that of the average book. Nor is the printing costly. Nor has the drawing on stone or transfer-paper involved anything more of labour, skill, or genius, than is involved in the preparation of a single chapter of a fine novel--of a single paragraph in a fine short story. Yet while the novel sells probably at six shillings, and the whole short story (and other short stories along with it) sells, very likely, at three-and-sixpence, the impression of a lithograph--unless, as I have said before, it be published in a magazine--is seldom sold for less than a guinea or two. The Fine Art Society asked something like three guineas apiece, I think, for the lithographs of Whistler, even when it first exhibited them. Things, of course, have occurred that have raised their value since. I mentioned the circumstance to a man who was interested in the question, both as artist and connoisseur. “You do not want to vulgarise lithographs,” he said, “by issuing too many impressions.” I wonder how many impressions of Gray’s “Elegy” have been issued? And how many of the “Ode to Duty”? And I wonder whether Wordsworth and Gray have been “vulgarised,” because the fruit of their genius has been widely diffused?
APPENDIX
CERTAIN WOODCUTS
Though when this volume was first planned, it was supposed that in its regular course it might embrace a chapter upon Woodcuts, mature consideration and the progress of the work revealed to me the undesirableness of treating either by my own or by a more qualified hand the theme of Woodcuts, at any important length; and in adding here a Note on certain examples of that ancient art, it is convenient that I should say plainly why the matter is left to an Appendix.
First, then, treatment exhaustive, or adequate, could only have been supplied by some one other than myself: my own knowledge of woodcuts being merely that of an outsider who cannot withhold a measure of interest from any departments of Art. To have invited the continued presence of an expert--an enthusiast in the particular thing--would have been at least to deprive the book of that unity of sentiment which comes of undivided authorship, and which even in a work of this sort may conceivably be a benefit: moreover, although a complete Guide to Old Prints must include of necessity many words about Woodcuts, it was doubtful whether the subject of “Fine Prints” involved even a mention of them. I mean, it might be argued, plausibly, that Woodcuts, however fine in their design--and the design of the giant Dürer was given to some of them--are in the very nature of things scarcely “fine” in execution. To say that the best recall the utterance of noble sentiment by rough and uncouth tongue, is not for a moment to minimise their sterling worth. Lastly, too, the collectors of them--in England at least--are scanty in the extreme. When--one may ask--do they appear at Sotheby’s? As objects of research, they seem hopelessly out of fashion. It may be that they had their day when only the Past was thought interesting. But it has been one of the objects of this book to acknowledge specially the interest of more modern achievement, and not to call contemporary genius only “talent,” until it is contemporary no longer, and, being dead--and dead long since--may be accorded its due.
But I should like to tell the beginner in the study of Prints one or two quite elementary things--as, for instance, that the best and the most numerous of old Woodcuts are German; that not a few of the earlier masters of Copperplate Engraving carried out upon the wood-block certain of their designs; that in the days of Bewick the art had a certain revival, finding itself well adapted--in book illustration at all events--to the rendering of Bewick’s homely and rustic themes. And so one might go on--but after all, Book Illustration is no part of one’s theme. Let it just be mentioned about Bewick--before we leave the English woodcuts for the earlier masters--that the rarest and in some respects the most important of his works (not, I think, the most fascinating) is the piece known as the _Chillingham Bull_. When only a few impressions had been taken from it, the original block split. Hence the print’s scarcity; and in its scarcity we see in part at least the cause of its attractiveness.
A passage in the last annual report made by Mr Sidney Colvin to the Trustees of the British Museum--in his capacity as Keeper of the Prints--reminds me of a splendid gift made lately to the nation by the munificence of Mr William Mitchell: a gift which the possession of money alone, and of a generous intention, could not have empowered him to make; only deep knowledge, and real diligence in the art of collecting, made the thing possible. Through Mr Mitchell’s gift there passes into the store-house of the Department of Prints this connoisseur’s collection of German and other Woodcuts, including a series of those by Albert Dürer, which is almost complete, and “quite unrivalled,” Mr Colvin says, “in quality and condition.” The whole array includes 1290 early woodcuts, chiefly, as will be seen, German, and constituted for the most part as follows:--104 by anonymous German artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; 151 single cuts by Albert Dürer, together with the Little Passion (set of proofs), the Life of the Virgin (first state, without text), and the Great Passion, the Life of the Virgin, and the Apocalypse (all with Latin text, edition of 1511); 63 by Hans Schaufelein, including two sets of proofs of two series of the Passion; 18 by Hans Springinklee, including 14 proofs of illustrations to “Hortulus Animæ”; 7 by Wolfgang Huber; 36 by Hans Baldung; 7 by Johann Wechtlin; 19 by Hans Sebald Beham; 43 by Lucas Cranach, including a unique impression of the St George, printed in gold on a blue ground; 60 by Albert Altdorfer; 40 by Hans Burgkmair; 313 by or attributed to Hans Holbein; 9 by Urs Graf; 12 by Heinrich Holzmüller; 14 by J. von Calcar; 5 by Jost Amman; 11 by Anton von Worms; 16 by Lucas van Leyden; 6 attributed to Geoffroy Tory; one attributed to Marie de Medicis; the large view of Venice by Jacopo de’ Barbarj, first state; 9 by Niccolò Boldrini; 5 by I.B. with the bird.
An inspection of this collection alone, in the Museum Print Room, constitutes, at first hand, an introduction to the study of an ancient, quaint, and pregnant art.
So much had I written when there came to me a note from Mr O. Gutekunst, curiously confirming, on the whole, the view that I had taken as to the small place filled by Woodcuts, generally, in the scheme of the modern collector. It is not, however, so much on this account that I print the note here, as because it contains one or two particulars--especially as to money value--not named by me, and which may be of interest. “The history of Woodcuts,” says Mr O. Gutekunst--instructing my ignorance--“begins, as you know, practically with printed books in which the woodcuts took the place of the miniatures, etc., in Manuscripts. During almost the whole of the Fifteenth Century the Woodcut was thus confined to illustration, and belongs far more to the bibliophile than to the Print-collector. _Vide ‘Biblia Pauperum’_ and similar works--in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands--Block Books, Incunabula, etc., etc. The great period of Wood Engraving as a distinct art by itself--a then and now appreciated mode of expression of the artist--is the first half of the Sixteenth Century.” Mr Gutekunst then cites to me works by masters, some of whom have been named. “There were Dürer, Cranach, Holbein, Altdorfer, Brosamer,” he says. “Fine specimens of these men’s work, particularly portraits, and when printed in one, two, or more colours, are now, and always must have been, exceedingly rare, with prices varying from, say £20 to £80 for single very fine specimens. The decadence begins with Jost Amman, for instance, in Germany, and Andreani, say, in Italy, where the works of earlier, and more particularly the masters of the wrong half of the Sixteenth Century, were reproduced in chiar-oscuro.” With the exception perhaps of the remarkable impressions in Mr Mitchell’s collection, Mr O. Gutekunst asserts that the finest specimens always were most appreciated in Germany, and adds, “There has ever been more interest taken in Woodcuts by German collectors than by any others.”
POSTSCRIPT: 1905
I somehow omitted from the First Edition of this book the reference I ought to have made to Charles Jacque. It is not necessary to treat him at length; for, while few etchers have been more prolific, it must always be recollected that to be prolific is not to be important. It is by quality that an artist, in any Art, alone becomes important. Charles Jacque’s quality varies. Many of his etchings are merely dexterous memoranda of his pictures--done for his own service, presumably, rather than for the world. Even here, he can often be very spirited; sometimes even very desirable. He has done most vivacious _croquis_. And, for those whom the vivacious _croquis_ does not content, it should be named that he has done likewise highly serious and more obviously well considered work, full of the true pictorial quality--and done it with the force of a painting in monochrome, and with an etching’s spontaneity.
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It happens that I have just a little amended, in the text of this volume, the reference to Maxime Lalanne. By way of exception, that reference is not now quite as it stood at first: so that perhaps it may not be necessary to say anything more of Lalanne here, except just this--inequality is his characteristic, as well as elegance. He knew his business too well ever to work unadroitly. Methods of all sorts lay at his command--I do not mean “tricks.” But what did not lie at his command, was invariable fineness or freshness of vision. That is not to be wondered at. Now, however, that we have seen, at Mr Richard Gutekunst’s, the artist’s own Collection of his etchings, we have seen for the first time what they can be--in quite perfect impressions. And the result is, that true Collectors, who hitherto have been little busied about him, will look to it that Lalanne does not remain unrepresented in their portfolios.
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Since I made my reference to Mr D. Y. Cameron, in the text, that most serious artist has more than justified anything I may have prophesied about him. In the old spirit, yet with even more marked excellence, he has continued and extended his work; and it will not be deemed out of place for me to mention that two years ago he had done so much and so well, that I addressed myself to making a Catalogue of what he had up to that time produced. My own belief in him is made evident by recording this circumstance. And a considerable Public--now eager for his prints--shares my convictions about him.
* * * * *
Muirhead Bone, in the lines that are now being written, finds himself named for the first time in this book. Of the younger etchers, there is absolutely no one who, I do not mean as regards variety of theme, but as regards perfection and intricacy of work upon a given plate, can accomplish so much. His certain and brilliant draughtsmanship, and his skill in the _technique_ of Etching--of Dry-Point especially--have been applied chiefly to records, un-Méryon-like--that is to say, vivacious and very matter-of-fact, rather than solemn or poetic--of vanishing London. Behold his _Clare Market_. If the old “Gaiety” Theatre disappears from the Strand, Mr Muirhead Bone finds it in his heart to be consoled by a new one. And he depicts the slow departure of the old, and the up-building of the new. He, more than any one, has revealed the interest of scaffolding. But he is not always re-building. Sometimes--as in his plate called the _Shot Tower_, but really devoted, not to that only, but to Waterloo Bridge and the North Lambeth Shore--nothing is threatened. And there is a hay-mow by him, “seen” in dry-point, very much as Dewint would have seen it in Water-colour. Broad, yet extraordinarily observant, is Muirhead Bone’s work.
* * * * *
At the Annual Exhibitions of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, there have been noticed--since the year when _Fine Prints_ first appeared--contributions, not in the least to be despised, by Miss Constance Pott and Miss Margaret Kemp-Welch. Really, some of them--Miss Kemp-Welch’s simple _In the Marsh_, for instance--are so good that they should almost suffice to enable their authors to survive the deplorable disadvantage of being only women. Quite hopefully may one look on the artistic future of these ladies--on the public recognition of it.
* * * * *
At present, however, I find in the work of a man not yet spoken of--Mr E. Charlton--more absolute unity, without monotony of repetition--more artistic individuality, in fine. Why is it not already better known? Useless question, as far as the big Public is concerned, when people go into the Exhibition and fancy that some of the best work is the self-assertive work of Mr Brangwyn, that leaps to their eyes. The German proverb says--or Mr Robert Browning once told me that it said--“What has a cow to do with nutmegs?” And what have people who do not understand in the least the spirit of Etching, got to do with modest, thoughtful little records of harbours, quays, and all that lies about them--of warehouse, boat and barge--by this dainty, accurate draughtsman, Mr Charlton, who does not want to knock any living mortals down--metaphorically speaking--by the work of his needle, but to charm them rather, to put on them the spell, wrought on those who are worthy to receive it, by the rhythm of intricate line? The lines that delight me on a quay--in a harbour--by the sheds and steamers of Newhaven or Lymington, say--delight me yet more, because they are refined upon, in the modest etchings of Mr Charlton.
Among contemporary Frenchmen, Eugène Béjot, with his Montmartre and Seine pieces, must unquestionably be named--and some of his work possessed.
* * * * *
And now we come down to grosser matter--to questions of Price. Scattered about the volume, will be found references to prices given for noble prints--and prints not noble--and of these references some are not as representative as they were eight years ago. I will not go into great detail here; but I will say a few things. First, I will say that, broadly speaking, the tendency is towards a marked increase in money value, particularly for good work, and good original work. Some few interesting artists--it is true--scarcely hold their own. The money value of Hollars--not of late years excessive--has not materially increased. Hogarth’s prints are, I consider, quite absurdly cheap--but foolish people, not in the least particular as to the things they read, are sometimes very squeamish as to the things they see. Some Dutch etchers, not discussed much in the course of my volume, are amongst those towards whom sensible interest turns. It cannot be long before the admission is made generally, that Bega--with his truth of action and his magnificence of composition, addressed to tavern themes--is fully Ostade’s equal, and not at all his follower. Of course, the greatest Dutchman--Rembrandt--increases steadily in money value. There is no fine print by Rembrandt which--bought at the current price for it--should not be, in the phrase of stock-brokers, a very “safe lock-up.” Dürers, too, have rightly gone higher; and there must be more and more recognised the happy invention and the perfect craftsmanship of the Behams and Aldegrever.
* * * * *
Interest shifts a little in regard to the Mezzotints after Sir Joshua. The money value of his pretty women--generally of title--has been so high, that, if there is common-sense left in the land, it can scarcely get much higher; but knowing people are beginning, I believe, to buy the less celebrated women--such as the _Miss Oliver_ it may be (in the illustration to the present edition of this book)--and the finer of the mezzotint portraits of men, not only after Sir Joshua, but after Romney. Turner’s “Liber” is looking up again, and the demand for Constables--David Lucas’s smaller mezzotints--will certainly not diminish.
French Eighteenth Century Prints--whether the grave Chardins, the stately Watteaus, or the lighter records of light loves--are worth more than when I wrote eight years ago: partly because well-to-do English people of taste have now taken to buying them. As for the “coloured print”--at the best, rather dainty--it will, I trust, have had its day before long.
* * * * *
The best Modern Etching--whether English or French--is more and more valued. A set of Seymour Haden’s Paris publication, “Etudes à l’Eau Forte”--consisting of twenty-five prints, worth, eight years ago, about thirty guineas together--sells to-day for a hundred and twenty. Still more conspicuous, however, is the rise in Méryons and Whistlers. At the Wickham Flower Sale, in London, last December, Méryon’s print of the _Morgue_--a Second State--fetched £86; his _St. Etienne-du-Mont_, £58; his _Galérie de Nôtre-Dame_, £56. There was no fine _Abside_ at that Sale; but elsewhere a fine First State has fetched over £200, and a fine Second State, £140. As for Whistlers, at the Wickham Flower Sale--to take three instances of different periods in the master’s work--the _Kitchen_ went for thirty-one guineas; the _Garden_ for forty; and _Pierrot, Amsterdam_, for fifty-six.
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A New Edition. 1880.
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---- Le Département des Estampes à la Bibliothèque Nationale.
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---- Les Drevet: Catalogues Raisonnés de leur Œuvre. 1876.
DOBSON, AUSTIN. Life and Works of William Hogarth. 1891.
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DUPLESSIS, GEORGE. De la Gravure de Portrait en France. 8vo. 1875.
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FISHER, RICHARD. Early History of Engraving in Italy. 1886.
GILPIN, WILLIAM. An Essay on Prints. 8vo. 1781.
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---- Etched Work of Rembrandt. A Monograph. 1879.
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A Second Edition, revised. 8vo. 1892.
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A Second Edition, enlarged. 1896.
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INDEX
_Abside de Nôtre-Dame_, 72, 73, 74
_Adam and Eve_, 144, 146, 166
_Æsacus and Hesperie_, 192
_Agamemnon_, 101, 104
Aldegrever, 15, 154, 155, 156
Altdorfer, 150, 151
_Amsterdam, View of_, 53
_Ancient Italy_, 207
_Angerton Moss_, 135
Annis, 198
Antonio da Brescia, 164
_Antwerp Cathedral_, 44, 46
_Arche du Pont Nôtre-Dame_, 72
_Arms of Paris_, 81
Armstrong, Elizabeth, 135
_Arundel_, 207
Arundel, Lord, 42
_Assemblée au Concert_, 185
_Assumption_, 164
Audran, 171
Aumüller, 150, 152, 153
Aveline, 171
Avery, Samuel, 83, 109
_Baby, The_, 234
Baccio Baldini, 161
Bacon, Sir Hickman, 69
_Les Baigneuses_, 220
_Bain Froid Chevrier_, 81
_Balcony, The_, 112
Bale, Sackville, 166
_Bal Paré, Le_, 183
Barnard, John, 38, 146
Barrett, Edward, 109
Bartolozzi, 25, 26
Bartsch, Adam, 141, 149, 163
Basire, James, 190
_Basle_, 203
Bate, Francis, 225
_Battersea Bridge_, 120
_Battersea: Dawn_, 108
_Battersea Railway Bridge_, 107
_Battersea Reach_, 103
Baudelaire, 82
Baudouin, 183, 184
_Bêcheurs, Les_, 68
Beham, Barthel, 149, 150
Beham, Hans Sebald, 149, 150, 152-154
_Beignets, Les_, 182
Béjot, Eugène, 248
Bell, Anning, 235
_Ben Arthur_, 203, 204
_Bénédicité, Le_, 179
Beraldi, 84
_Beresford, Hon. Mrs_, 218
Binck, Jacob, 149, 155
Binyon, 36
_Black Lion Wharf_, 116
Blanc, Charles, 48
Bocher, Emanuel, 179
Bolingbroke, Miss, 131, 135
Bolswert, 13
Bone, Muirhead, 246
_Bonne Mère, La_, 182
_Bonus, Ephraim_, 59
_Border Towers_, 133
_Borghese Gardens_, 129
_Bosquet de Bacchus_, 173
Boucher, François, 181, 182
Bouillon, Jules, 166, 175
_Bouvier, Le_, 38, 39, 193
Boydell, Alderman, 193
Bracquemond, 82
_Brentford Eyot_, 234
Brion, 171
_Brocca Italienne_, 89
Brooke, Stopford, 109, 145, 198, 201
Brosamer, Hans, 149
Buccleuch, Duke of, 57, 203
_Buffoon and Two Couples_, 154
Burty, P., 82, 83
_Butterflies_, 45
_Calm, A_, 203
_Camargo, Mlle._, 176
Cameron, D. Y., 133, 134
_Campo, Vaccino_, 37, 39
_Canal, The_, 56
_Carrier’s Stable_, 219
Cars, Laurent, 171, 176
_Carwardine, Mrs_, 218
_Cattle Going Home in Stormy Weather_, 37, 38
_Cecilia, Saint_, 162, 167
_C’est un Fils, Monsieur!_, 186
_Chain Pier, Brighton_, 133
_Chalice, The_, 46
_Challoner, Sir Thomas_, 46
_Champs Elysées_, 173
_Chantres Espagnols_, 127
Chardin, 18, 19, 34, 87, 177-180
Charlton, E., 247
_Charles the Fifth_, 154
_Chemise en levée_, 182
_Chiffre d’Amour_, 183
_Christ Healing the Sick_, 58
_Christ Descending into Hell_, 166
_Christopher, Saint_, 142
Cipriani, 26
_Clare Market_, 246
Clarke, Mary Constance, 201
Claude, 16, 37-39
Clausen, George, 225
Clément, 166
Clint, 198
_Clovelly_, 21, 37, 205, 206
_Coat of Arms with the Cock_, 144, 146, 147, 153
_Coat of Arms with a Skull_, 144, 146, 147
Cochin, 171
Colnaghi, 56, 59, 147, 175, 202, 219
Colvin, Sidney, 164, 243
_Combe Bottom_, 106, 107
_Communion dans l’Eglise St Médard_, 127
_Concert, Le_, 183
_Conflagration in Bordeaux_, 85
Constable, 20, 210, 211, 249
Cooke, George, 21
Cooke, William, 21
_Coppenol_, 60
Corbett, 235
_Coriolanus_, 231
Corot, 85
_Cottage with Dutch Hay Barn_, 17, 54
_Cottage with White Palings_, 53
Crepy, 173
_Crowhurst_, 196
_Crûche Cassée_, 181
_Dance of Cupids_, 166
_Dance of Damsels_, 164
_Dance by the Waterside_, 38
_Dance under the Trees_, 38, 39
_Dancing Girl_, 235
Danlos, 166, 167
Daubigny, 85
David, 187
Dawe, 198
Day, Mr Justice, 69
Dean, John, 218
_Death Surprising a Woman_, 154
Debucourt, 27
Delaborde, 164
Delâtre, 118
_Delia_, 226
Demarteau, 182
_Départ pour le Travail, Le_, 68
Deprez, 23, 58, 107
_Derby, Elizabeth, Countess of_, 218
_Désir de Plaire_, 177
Dewint, 129, 211
Diderot, 170, 181
_Directeur des Toilettes_, 185
Dowdeswell, Walter, 109
Drake, Sir William, 102, 106, 121
Drevet, 13, 214
Duflos, 182
Dumesnil, 38
Dunkarton, 198
Dunthorne, 106, 122
Duplessis, 163
Durazzo, 164
Dürer, Albert, 14, 139-147, 161
Earlom, 97, 193, 212, 213
_Early Morning_, 224
Easling, 198
East, Alfred, 135
“Eaux-Fortes sur Paris,” 77
Edelinck, 13
_Edge of the Forest_, 135
_Edge of the Moor_, 233
_Edinburgh_, 43
Eisen, 183
_Elliot, Mrs_, 218
Ellis, F. S., 118
_Embarquement pour Cythère_, 173
_Empty Pitcher_, 40
“England and Wales,” 205
_Entombment_, 166
_Entrée du Convent des Capucins_, 80
_Epées, Langues de Bœuf, Poignards_, 94
_Erasmus_, 84
_Erith Marshes_, 107
_Etienne-du-Mont, St_, 72, 76
_Étude de Jeune Fille_, 98
_Etude du Dessein_, 179
_Evening, Bosham_, 130
Faber, junior, 212
_Family, The_, 41
_Fanny Leyland_, 61, 101, 115, 121
Fantin-Latour, 222
_Farm behind Scarborough_, 128
_Farmyard with a Cock_, 192
_Farmer’s Stable_, 219
_Femme à la Tasse_, 98
_Fight for the Standard_, 154
Fisher, Richard, 38, 41, 57, 146, 153, 163
Fisher, R. C., 73
_Fishermen Going Out_, 219
_Flagellation, The_, 166
_Forge, The_, 121
_Four Naked Women_, 143
Fragonard, 182, 183
_Fribourg_, 85
_Fruit Shop_, 120
Gainsborough, 215, 217, 218
_Galérie de Nôtre-Dame_, 72
Galichon, 163
_Garden, The_, 112, 121
Geddes, 52, 66, 67
“Gemmes et Joyaux de la Couronne,” 89, 91, 97
_Genii, The Three_, 140
Girtin, 194
_Glaneuses, Les_, 68
_Gobelet d’Argent, Le_, 178
Goff, Colonel, 131-133
_Goldweigher, The_, 55
_Goldweigher’s Field_, 54, 55
Goncourt, Edmond et Jules de, 184
_Goncourt, Edmond de_, 231
Gonse, Louis, 90, 96
Goulding, 118, 232
_Grande Toilette, La_, 186
Gregory, E. J., 232
Green, Charles, 231
Green, Valentine, 218
_Greenwich, Long View of_, 45
Greuze, 19, 180, 181
_Grim Spain_, 105
Gutekunst, 41, 58, 147
Gutekunst, O., 244
Gutekunst, R., 122
_Haaring, Old_, 59
Haden, Seymour, 38, 39, 64, 100-107
Hall, Oliver, 134, 135, 233
_Halliford-on-Thames_, 66
Halsted, 201
Hamerton, P. G., 73, 107, 160, 161
Hamilton, Lady, 217
Hamilton, Dr, 216
_Haut d’un Battant de Porte, Le_, 84
Heaton, Mrs, 145
Helleu, P., 22, 98
Herkomer, 131
_Heureuse Fecondité, L’_, 182
Heywood, Rev. J. J., 43, 82
Higgins, Alfred, 69
Hill, Raven, 234
_Hind Head Hill_, 203
Hippesley, Sir John, 201
Hirsch, 82
_Hiver, L’_, 176
“Histoire de la Porcelaine,” 88, 89, 90, 95, 97
Hodges, 198
Hogarth, 18
Holbein, 57
Holford, 17, 55, 58, 166
Hollar, Wenceslaus, 36, 42-47
_Hollar_, 46
_Holy Island Cathedral_, 203
Hood, Jacomb, 135, 234
Hoppner, 215
Horne, Percy, 216
Holroyd, Charles, 128, 129
Horsburgh, 37
_Hubert, Saint_, 147
Huet, Paul, 67
Hulmandel, 229
Hume, Sir Abraham, 57
Hutchinson, 121
Huysum, Jan Van, 97
Hymans, Henri, 99
_Ile Enchantée, L’_, 174
_Incendie, L’_, 127
_Ingleborough_, 206
_In the Marsh_, 247
_Isis, Temple of_, 204
“Italy,” The, 207
_Itchen Abbas Bridge_, 133
Jacque, Charles, 245
Jacquemart, Albert, 86
Jacquemart, Jules, 86-97
_Jealousy_, 145
Jeaurat, 180
_Jeu de Cache-cache_, 176
_Jeu de l’Oye_, 179
_Jeu de Quatre Coins_, 176
_Jewish Bride, The Great_, 60
_Jonghe, Clément de_, 17, 61, 62
Joseph, Samuel, 95
_Jupiter et Léda_, 182
Kemp-Welch, Margaret, 247
Kennedy, 109, 111
Keppel, Frederick, 68, 100, 109
_King’s Lynn_, 135
_Kitchen, The_, 119
Kneller, 213
_Knight of Death, The_, 145, 147
Knowles, James, 79
Koehler, 141
Lacroix, 179
_Laitière, La_, 181
Lalanne, Maxime, 85
Lancret, 18, 175
_Landscape with a Flock of Sheep_, 56
_Landscape with an Obelisk_, 54, 56
_Landscape with a Tower_, 17
_Large “Pool,” The_, 120
Larmessin, De, 176
Lavreince, 184, 185
Lebrun, 67
_Leda_, 154
_Ledikant_, 63
Legros, Alphonse, 126-128, 222
Leighton, Lord, 233
Lely, 20
_Letitia, The Story of_, 219
Lewis, 194
Leyden, Lucas van, 14, 156, 157
“Liber Studiorum,” 20, 189, 204
“Liber Veritatis,” 191, 193
_Lime-Burners_, 121
Linton, Sir J. D., 231
_Little Boathouse_, 105
Loftie, Rev. W. J., 150, 153, 154
_London from the Top of Arundel House_, 45
_London from Greenwich_, 203, 204
_London Bridge_, 120
_Low Tide and the Evening Star_, 130
_Low Tide: Mouth of the Hampshire Avon_, 133
Lucas, David, 20, 210, 211, 249
_Lucretia_, 162, 167
Lupton, Thomas, 198
_Lutma_, 17, 60
M‘Ardell, 20, 214
Maberly, 29
Macgeorge, B. B., 73, 79, 82
_Madonna with the Sleeping Child_, 154
Mansfield, Howard, 73, 83
Mantegna, 13, 161, 164, 165
Marc Antonio, 13, 162
_Marchande de Moutarde_, 121
_Margate_, 37
_Margot la Critique_, 84
_Marriage à la Mode_, 19
Marshall, Julian, 39, 45, 46
Maso da Finiguerra, 159
Massard, 19, 181
_Master of the Caduceus_, 163
_Master of 1466, The_, 161
May, W. H., 131
Meder, 41
Meer, Van der, 96
_Melancholia_, 140, 144, 145, 147
_Mère de Rembrandt au Voile Noir_, 61, 115
Méryon, 21, 69-83
Metsu, 96
Middleton-Wake, Rev. C. H., 49, 141, 143
_Mill Bridge, Bosham_, 130
Miller, William, 21, 205
Millet, Jean-François, 67, 68
_Ministrants_, 227
_Miroir Français_, 92
Mitchell, William, 243
_Modern Italy_, 207
_Mont St Gothard_, 203
“Monte Oliveto,” 128
Moreau le jeune, 19, 186
_Morgue, The_, 72
Morland, 12, 216, 219
_Mort et le Bûcheron, La_, 127
_Mort du Vagabond, La_, 127
_Muff, The_, 115
_Muffs_, 44
_Mytton Hall_, 103, 106
_Naissance de Vénus_, 182
_Naked Woman seen from behind_, 63
Nanteuil, 214
_Nativity, The_, 140
_Nave of St George’s Chapel_, 44
Niel, 82
_Nine Barrow Down_, 105
_Nocturne, Battersea_, 223
_Norfolk Bridge, Shoreham_, 132
_North of London, Six Views in the_, 45
Noseda, Mrs, 202
Noseda, Urban, 219
_Oakhampton Castle_, 199
_Océanie_, 80
_Old Clothes Shop_, 120
_Oliver, Miss_, 249
_Omval_, 55
_Orage, L’_, 96
_Ornament with a Cuirass_, 154
_Ornament, Panel of_, 157
Ostade, 36, 40, 41
_Out of Study-Window_, 104
_Painter, The_, 41
_Palaces_, 121
_Palace, Stirling_, 133
_Paris, Isle de la Cité_, 119
Parthey, 43
Passavant, 141
“Passion, Little,” 142
“Passion upon Copper,” 142
Pater, 176, 177
_Peasant Paying his Reckoning_, 41
_Peckham Rye_, 66
Pencz, 149, 155
Pennell, J., 131
_Perspective_, 173
_Petit Pont_, 73
_Petite Pompe_, 81
_Pickled Herring Stairs_, 121
_Pine Trees, Christchurch_, 132
_Plague, The_, 167
_Pompe Nôtre-Dame_, 73
_Pont-au-Change_, 72, 74
_Pont-au-Change vers 1784_, 79, 80
_Pont Neuf_, 72
_Pont Neuf et la Samaritaine_, 79
_Pope’s Villa_, 191
“Ports of England,” 206, 207
Pott, Constance, 247
_Pourvoyeuse, La_, 178
_Premier Baiser_, 96
_Price’s Candle-Works_, 120
_Procris and Cephalus_, 192
_Putney_, 225
_Putney Bridge_, 120
Pye, John, 191
_Quarrel with Drawn Knives_, 41
_Quarter Boys_, 130
_Rag Gatherers_, 119
_Rape of Europa_, 39
Raphael, 12, 162
Rapilly, 179
_Ravisher, The_, 144
Rawlinson, W. G., 189, 190, 201
_Receipt, The_, 67
Reid, G. W., 141
Rembrandt, 16, 17, 48-65, 88
_Rembrandt Drawing_, 57, 58
_Rembrandt with a Sabre_, 58
_Rembrandt with a Turned-up Hat_, 58
_Rembrandt Farm, A_, 133
_Rêve d’Amour_, 96
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 12, 215, 216
“Richmondshire,” 206
_River in Ireland_, 101
“Rivers of France,” 207
_Road in Yorkshire_, 211
_Rochoux’s Card_, 81
Roget, J. L., 196
Romanet, 186
Romney, 12, 217
Rops, 99
Rosenberg, Dr, 150, 155
Rothenstein, Will, 229
_Round Temple_, 129
Rousseau, Théodore, 67
Roussel, Théodore, 234
_Royal Exchange_, 46
Rubens, 13, 174
_Rue des Mauvais Garçons_, 82
_Rue des Toiles_, 80
Rupert, Prince, 18
Ruskin, 198
_Salière de Troyes_, 94
_San Biagio_, 121
_Sawley Abbey_, 105
Say, W., 197
Schöngauer, Martin, 139, 140, 161
Scotin, 19
Scott, W. B., 149, 151, 155
_Sea Shells_, 46
_Seasons, The_, 45
Senefelder, 221
_Severn and Wye_, 199, 204
Shannon, C. H., 225-227
_Shepherd and Shepherdess Conversing_, 38, 39
_Shere Mill Pond_, 103, 106
Short, Frank, 129, 130
_Shot Tower_, 247
_Sichel, Mr_, 125
Sickert, Walter, 234
Siegen, Ludwig von, 209
_Six, Burgomaster_, 59
_Sleeping till the Flood_, 130
Smith, Challoner, 212
Smith, John, 20, 213
Smith, J. Raphael, 18, 213
_Smith of the Place du Dragon_, 224
_Snyders_, 40
_Sortie de l’Opéra_, 186
“Southern Coast,” 204, 205
_Speke Hall_, 121
_Spring_, 211
_Stamford_, 206
_Stonehenge_, 195
_Stork and Aqueduct_, 195
_Stourbridge Canal_, 130
_Strang, Ian_, 125
Strang, William, 124, 125
_Summerland_, 211
_Summer Storm_, 132
_Sunset_, 37
_Sunset on the Thames_, 105
Surugue, 171
_Suttermans_, 40
_Sylvius_, 60
Tardieu, 171, 173
Taunay, 27
Taylor, J. E., 201
Techener, 97
“Thames Set,” 118, 121
Thausing, 145
Theobald, H. S., 69
Thomas, Ralph, 108
Thompson, J. Pyke, 73
Thomson, George, 234
_Three Trees, The_, 55
“Tickets,” 26
_Tillie_, 120
_Timber Ships_, 225
_Toilette, La_, 184
_Toilette, La Grande_, 186
_Tolling, Van_, 60
_Tombeau de Molière_, 78
_Tour de l’Horloge_, 72
_Tourelle, dite “de Marat”_, 78
_Tourelle, Rue de la Tixéranderie_, 72
_Trees on the Hillside_, 134
Turner, Charles, 191, 197
Turner, J. M. W., 20, 21, 188-208, 210
“Twenty-six Etchings,” 117, 118
_Two Buffoons_, 154
_Two Fauns_, 166
Vandyke, 36, 39
_Vanneaux et Sarcelles_, 84
Vaughan, Henry, 201, 211
“Venice,” The, 112, 117
_Venus and Cupid_, 154
_Vignette with Four Cupids_, 154
_Vieux Coq, Le_, 85
_Virgin by the City Wall_, 140, 147
_Virgin with the Child in Swaddling Clothes_, 143
_Virgin and Child with the Monkey_, 144
_Virgin with Long Hair_, 146
Vokins, 216
_Vosterman, Lucas_, 40
Vosterman, 13
_Wael, De_, 40
_Wakefield_, 191
Walsh, Jacob, 163
Ward, William, 197
_Wareham Bridge_, 105
_Water Meadow_, 106
Wasset, 75, 82
_Watercress Gatherers_, 204
Watson, C. J., 233
Watteau, 171-175, 177, 181
Way, T. R., 222
_Weary_, 121
_Westminster Bridge_, 119, 121
Wheatley, 27
Whistler, 100, 107-121, 222-224
_Whistler’s House_, 103
_Whitstable_, 37
Wilkie, Sir David, 67
Willshire, Dr, 29
_Windmill Hill_, 104, 105
_Windy Day_, 134
_Winged Hat, The_, 223
Witte, De, 99
_Woman with the Arrow, The_, 63.
_Yarmouth_, 206
_Zaandam_, 107, 121
Zoan Andrea, 164
THE END
PRINTED BY OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH.
_Uniform with this Volume_
The Coin Collector
By W. Carew Hazlitt
_New and Revised Edition_
Illustrated with 12 full-page Plates depicting 129 Rare Pieces
_Pub 7s. 6d. net_
CONTENTS
Introductory--Collectors and Collections--Value of Coins--Unique or Remarkable Coins--Greek Coins--Rome--Continent of Europe--United Kingdom--The Coin Market--Terminology--Bibliography--Description of Plates--Index.
“Mr Hazlitt is an expert in regard to coins; his book from the practical standpoint is trustworthy.”--_Notes and Queries._
“We may say at once that we have a very interesting and instructive volume before us. The subject is, of course, only lightly touched upon, and no attempt at dealing with any section of it in detail is made. This is as it should be in a book on coins in general.”--_Antiquary._
“Perhaps as excellent an introduction to the study of a delightful pursuit as could have been written.”--_Daily Telegraph._
“Abreast of the latest discoveries and theories, and is sure of a welcome from the general reader as well as from the collector.”--_Scotsman._
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Old Violins
By Rev. H. R. Haweis
_New Edition_
Illustrated by 12 full-page Plates of Violins by Celebrated Makers
_Pub 7s. 6d. net_
CONTENTS
Prelude--Violin Genesis--Violin Constitution--Violins at Brescia--Violins at Cremona--Violins in Germany--Violins in France--Violins in England--Violin Varnish--Violin Strings--Violin Tarisio--Violins at Mirecourt, Mittenwald, and Markneukirchen--Violin Treatment--Violin Dealers, Collectors, and Amateurs--Postlude--Dictionary of Violin Makers--Bibliography and Description of Plates.
“In matters pertaining to Old Violins he is known as a specialist, and, moreover, one who writes in a pleasant flowing style, which cannot be said of all specialists. His ‘Old Violins’ therefore scarcely needs recommendation. He discourses about Italian, French, and English violins, about varnish, strings, bows, violin dealers, collectors, and amateurs. There are some fine plates, a dictionary of violin makers, and a bibliography. The book is one for reading, and also for reference, and in its lighter pages for recreation.”--_Athenæum._
The Book Collector
By W. Carew Hazlitt
A General Survey of the Pursuit, and of those who have engaged in it, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time; with an Account of Public and Private Libraries, and Anecdotes of their Founders or Owners, and Remarks on Bookbinding and on Special Copies of Books, illustrated with a beautiful photogravure of a famous sale of books at Sotheby’s, square cr 8vo, art canvas, gilt top, fore and under edges uncut.
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“As Mr Hazlitt shows, his field of choice is wide enough. Ancient typography fascinates some, but here a long purse is needed. Bibles and Testaments, Liturgies, Books of Hours, or similar devotional works appeal to others. The British Museum Library, for instance, is singularly rich in editions in all languages of the ‘Imitatio Christi.’ Books of travel, of voyages, and on topography, such as county and town histories, have all their devotees, and of late years the search for Alpine literature has become so much keener that some books, printed barely forty years ago, have quite doubled their published price. Yet even the systematic collector, as Mr Hazlitt tells us, often runs risks. Here, as among all things human, fashions and whims exist, and a particular class of literature may have ‘booms’ and ‘slumps,’ like certain ‘stocks’ of a questionable character. The books, for instance, in William Morris’s library were ‘below mediocrity in state,’ and of little intrinsic value, yet they excited keen competition, and went for sums ‘which were simply absurd.’”--_Standard._
“The subject abounds with stories, for, indeed, in a sense which the author of the aphorism little imagined, _habent sua fata libelli_. We might fill columns with curiosities about the buying and selling of books from these pages. Mr Hazlitt, however, is not of the non-literary collectors; no man could write such a book as this about the subject if he were. Readers, therefore, as well as buyers, may find ‘The Book Collector’ to their taste. Then there is the eleventh chapter, with its many interesting anecdotes of inscriptions; often the casual name or note which some purchaser or owner of a bye-gone time has written will be of more interest than the volume itself.”--_Spectator._
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_Illustrated with upwards of 450 Engravings on Wood_
Amateur’s Guide to Architecture
By S. Beale
Embracing Egyptian, Assyrian, Roman, Grecian, Italian, Renaissance, and Early English Specimens of Tombs, Doors, Windows, Arches, Bridges, Aqueducts, Balconies, Roofs, Supports, Porticos, Turrets, Steeples, Pillars, Columns, Ornaments, Capitals, Mouldings, examples of Wood Carving, etc.
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CONTENTS