[Rarebooks] fa: 18th-/19th-Century ENGRAVINGS, ORIGINAL DRAWINGS, WATERCOLORS - FOLIO in VELLUM (Duplessis-Bertaux, Jacques-Louis David{?})

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 12. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/ybbt4dbo <http://tinyurl.com/ybbt4dbo>

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


A bound collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century engravings and prints, as well as original artwork in ink, pencil and pastels; views, portraits, buildings, battle scenes, etc. Approx. 100 in total; various sizes; some laid down and some mounted on stubs. Tall folio (42 cm) in full period vellum. Occasional spotting, browning and light soiling, but generally in good or better condition. Rear paste-down with the early ownership signature of John Scott Moncrieff; additionally some of the plates show the clipped signature of what appears to be a Robert Scott Moncrieff, possibly the prominent Scottish lawyer of that name (1793-1869) who had a son named John. (The elder Scott Moncrieff was also an amateur artist and caricaturist of note, and some of the original drawings here may be in his hand). Further supporting a Scottish provenance is a label on the reverse of one of the prints, reading: "A. Lesage, printseller & framemaker, 21 Hanover Street, Edinburgh" (fl. 1830s).
Among the contents:

A fine full-page original ink wash attributed (in pencil in the lower margin) to Jean Duplessis-Bertaux (1747-1819). A manuscript caption identifies the work as a view of ruins in Taormina, Sicily ("vue des Ruines du proscenium ou avant scene de l'ancien theatre de Taorminum, en Sicile"). On laid paper watermarked "D & CB" (Dirk & Cornelius Blauw), measures 41 x 26 cm.

An original pen and ink drawing of a rocky landscape with two men, one resting in the foreground with dog; measures 29 x 19 cm, mounted on a hand-colored backing, tipped onto the rear pastedown at the bottom edge. On the reverse of the backing is an early ink notation, "David signé," and the drawing itself is signed "David" in the lower-left corner. Landscapes were not the usual métier of the neo-classical French artist Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) and, admittedly, it seems unlikely that an original drawing by him would wind up in a Scotsman's scrapbook, but you never know… Perhaps it's more likely a copy of a work by him, or the work of an entirely different artist with the surname "David?”

A set of three large pencil copies of late 18th-century engravings of young children. The artist has added the original engraver's name ("Julius Tidd, Sc.") and dated the drawings September 3rd, September 27th, 1813 and October 2nd, 1813.

Seven full-page lithographs after Constant Bourgeois (by C. de Lasteyrie) from Bourgeois' Recueil de vues et fabriques pittoresques d'Italie, 1817 (three trimmed and laid down, the others untrimmed and mounted on stubs).

Etc., etc.