Picture yourself having just acquired an old master print (say, a Rembrandt etching) at an auction. The print is in a exceptional good state, and you bought it at a reasonable price (“reasonable” meaning in reasonable relation to the size of your wallet, of course). After the auction, this well know old print conaisseur which you watched lingering around the specimens shown at the pre-sale exhibition approaches you and tells you with that calm voice expressing a life full of old master print expertise: “Madam/Sir, I have to to tell you: your print has been Schweidlerized“.

Schweidlerized? What does he mean?

1. The print is a fake (“swindle”)
2. The print has been skillfully repaired, virtually invisible to the eye, or
3. The print was sold (at an auction etc.) at a much higher price than what it is actually worth.
   

Read on for the solution and the rediscovery of a tremendously valuable book.

“Anyone who has only a small amount of time available and thinks he might be able to finish my book on the streetcar, or somewhere else in between other activities, is better off leaving my book alone. It will not do him any good. It is not just an entertaining piece of literature, a pleasant chat in more or less beautiful words.“

Thus are the introducing words of the book “Die Instandsetzung von Kupferstichen, Zeichnungen, Büchern usw.”, published first in 1938 in Berlin, a book which has long been out of print. Roy Perkinson, Head of Paper Conservation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has done a very fine job in translating the text of the 1950 version and in adding eleven case studies (including woodcuts by Albrecht Altdorfer and Urs Graf; engravings by Albrecht Dürer, Marcantonio Raimondi,  Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Martin Schongauer, Lucas van Leyden and the Master of the Housebook,  and etchings by Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn and Anthony van Dyck). All quotations in this post are from this edition.

The author of the mentioned book is  the German restorer Max Schweidler, born 1885 in Berlin. The year of his death is unknown, which is not the only mystery surrounding his life. His brother, Carl (1884-1962) was said to be the even more skilled restorer, but he didn’t describe any of of his methods in a publication.

Both Carl and Max Schweidler had an extensive knowledge of how to repair age-related damages of works on paper in such a perfected way that later experts would have difficulties even in spotting them. Max Schweidler specifically pointed out the results of  “wrong ” (or at least different) restoration methods, thus the subtitle “Past Mistakes and New Methods…“  of his book. He admits that he had to be “rather pedantic about the details” of his methods, but he found the detailed explanations absolutely necessary in order to reach the ultimate goal of his understanding of restoration: “...transmitting these treasures in the best possible condition to future generations“.

What follows is a critical overview of  the methods of past restorers  and a meticulous account of his own methods.  Although there are inaccuracies (e.g. Schweidler’s knowledge of paper making) and procedures nowadays obsolete, Schweidler’s book can still be regarded as a seminal work in this area. Perkinson’s edition provides a cornucopia of facts about the manufacture of paper, the treatment (not necessarily removing)  stains, the cleaning of prints, drawings and books and the treatment of mounted prints and much more. Perkinson briefly also touches on the interesting question of where the limits of any restoration work are. He concludes that “… in the end it is not a problem that a repair was done so well as to be almost undetectable but rather that there was no disclosure of this fact “(p. 8).

So, if there are “Schweidlerized” prints, drawings or books in your collection: congratulations for being able to discern them and respect to the work of Max Schweidler, who was indeed capable to preserve those valuable items for future generations.

Max Schweidler: The Restoration of Engravings, Drawings, Books and other Works on Paper, 2nd edition, 1950, translated and edited by Roy Perkinson. The Getty Conservation Institute, Los Angeles,  2006.

The book is available directly from the Getty Conservation Institute or from Amazon.

Max Schweidler taking a sheet out of the tray (p. 49)

Another technical study to the engraving Battle of the Nudes by Antonio del Pollaiolo (case study 11 in Parkinson’s edition) was conducted by Moyna Stanton, Associate Conservator of Works of Art on Paper at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Her findings are available online: Pollaiuolo: Finding the Pieces of the Puzzle, where you will also find additional facts on the works of the Schweidler brothers.

A detail from a 17th century engraving shows English businessmen John Guy meeting Beothuk in Trinity Bay

An interesting dispute about a copperplate engraving published in 1628 depicting merchants from the Old World trading with Native Americans seems to be settled for now. Canadian archaeologist William Gilbert challenges the traditional interpretation of the scene taking place in New England, but rather interprets it as an early encounter of the English merchant John Guy with Beothuk Indians in Newfoundland, thus making it a part of early Canadian history.

William Gilbert has published his findings in Post-Medieval Archeology; a PDF version of the paper can be found here. Gilbert points out an interesting characteristic of this and similar engravings illustrating the story of the accompanying text: The ships and boats depicted in the engraving are part of an early version of a picture story; they show the same vessel and boat at different stages of the story told.

The controversial engraving is now thought to be a work of Basel-born engraver Matthäus Merian, although the credits of the whole Americae series still go to the de Bry family.

CBC news article: Archeologist reclaims slice of Canadian history through engraving

Canada.com article: Early engraving of English meeting aboriginals traced to N.L.

On the reverse of the engraving and etching “Silence” by French engraver Laurent Cars (1699-1771) after the painting by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), a handwritten inscription was found. The only thing I found out so far was that it is in French, and that it starts with “Cette epreuve…” (“This proof…”). If anybody is able to provide a transcription, I would very appreciate it.

Click on the picture below too see a full-sized version of the inscription.

Laurent Cars after Jean-Baptise Greuze: Silence!

Spiraling prices for Old Master paintings and drawings are common in todays auction market. Take for example the over eight million British pounds paid for the study of The Risen Christ by Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564), sold at Christie’s in 2000.

I was wondering what the highest price ever paid for an Old Master Print (engraving or etching) might be, and came across a news article from the New York Times edition of November, 1983:

A first state engraving (or etching, dry point and engraving, to be precise) of “St. Jerome Reading in an Italian Landscape” by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was sold at Christie’s in 1983 for $181′500. This was the highest price for a print ever fetched at an auction, surpassing even the previous record held by Picasso’s “Minotauromachie”, sold in 1981 at Christie’s as well.The engraving was bought by David Tunick, a New York based art dealer specialising in Old Master and Modern Prints.

Now i’m wondering whether this still holds true. If not, who might be the new top selling Old Master etcher/engraver? I’d bet on Rembrandt, Dürer or Mantegna…

Links:

New York Times: Rembrandt Engraving Brings Record $181,500.-

“St. Jerome Reading in an Italian landscape” at the University of Michigan Art Museum

Note: This started as a reply to a comment of an earlier post ; since one can’t easily add formatting, pictures etc. in a comment, i decided to publish it in form of a post.

Nicolas (1739-1792) and his brother Robert (1754-1854) Delaunay (sometimes also referred to as De Launay) were both active as engravers/etchers in Paris. Nicolas, pupil of Louis-Simon Lempereur (1728-1808) and later entitled to Graveur du Roi (“Royal Engraver” of Louix XV), was one of the contributors of engravings to the 1773-83 edition of J. J. Rousseau’s Oeuvre Complètes (Complete Works) after designs of Jean Michel Moreau (also called Moreau le Jeune).

One of Nicolas Delaunays most popular compositions after Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) is Les hasards heureux de l’escarpolette (“The Happy Accidents of a Child’s Swing“). Artheque cites also La bonne mère as one of his “big” compositions.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard painted several versions of La Bonne Mère (“The good mother“). Emma Barker parker puts the painting in a “genre galant” context, combining “eroticism and domesticity in a distinctly comic fashion” [2]. The young woman, supposedly to watch over the two small children, seems distracted by the white cat and the boy pouring water to her right. She does not exhibit the complete absorption in her maternal duties expressed in scenes by Chardin for example. The title La bonne mère is not by Fragonard, this is a later addition by the engraver Nicolas Delaunay. The title was subsequently also used for the painting, emphasizing the domestic component of the composition.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The good mother, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, La bonne mère, around 1770, private collection, USA.

The print La bonne mère by is a combined etching and engraving, Delaunay created it in 1779 [1], during the same time he had published a series of engravings/etchings depicting domestic scenes and maternal duties. This series included five mirrored prints after compositions by Fragonard (including L’Heureuse fécondité, Dites-donc, s’il-vous-plait, Les baignets ) and Le Bonheur du ménage, after Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734-1781) [3] .

La bonne mère is dedicated to the fermier-général , Ménage de Pressigny (“dédiée à Monsieur de Pressigny Conseiller Fermier Generale de sa Majesté”), who had owned the painting (“Tire du Cabinet de M: Menage de Pressigny”), shown above, now in a private collection. It appears together with the mentioned Les hasards heuereux de l’escarpolette on a price list issued by the engraver [4]. Both prints were a huge success already at that time. In the case of La bonne mère, the prints seemed almost to surpass the popularity of the painting, or at least the watercolor drawing by Fragonard of the same scene, (exhibited in 1781), which was praised as depicting “a topic, well known by the nice engraving by M. de Launay” [5].

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[1] Emma Barker, Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment, 2005, p. 120.

[2] Emma Barker, Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment, 2005, p. 272, note 23.

[3] Jean Siméon Chardin 1699-1779: Werk, Herkunft, Wirkung, 1999, p. 415.

[4] Emma Barker, Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment, 2005, p. 133.

[5] Emma Barker, Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment, 2005, p. 274, note 54.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) is generally credited to be the first scientist to use an optical telescope for astronomical purposes. In 1609, he made his first own “telescopium” and pointed it to the starry nocturnal sky. Thus, he not only discovered four Jupiter moons but also made an important discovery about our own lunar companion: the moon has a jagged surface and is not a smooth spehere. He presented his findings one year later in his famous book Sidereus Nuncius (“Starry Messenger”), illustrated with various copper engravings. Over 500 copies of the book were printed. It was assumed that the original watercolor paintings of the moon, which served as the original for the engravings, were those preserved in the National Library in Florence, Italy. When scientists from Berlin and Padova now compared these drawings with the engravings, it was clear that they differed in many details. They could not be the original drawings used for the engraved illustrations.

To the great surprise of the scientists and the whole scientific community, the original paintings have been found now in a copy of the Sidereus Nuncius preserved in New York. Detailed analyzes (including determination of the age of the paper) confirmed the fact that these drawings were made before the engravings and that they are indeed works by Galileo himself. He probably used one of the first printed copies, which did not include any illustrations, to amend them with his own drawings, which in turned served as the original for the engravings.

The wonderful Rarebookroom gallery shows a copy of the Sidereus Nuncius, check pages 10, 12 and 13.

Additional web articles:

• The Galileo skteches that turned the universe on its head (with pictures of the original drawings)
• Galileo’s forgotten celestial sketches
• Galileis erste Mondbilder entdeckt (in german)

A short postscriptum to our last post: we referred to the French engraver of the print after van Mieris as “Mathieu Blot“, as the inscription in the lower right corner of the engraving suggests:

Now, in the literature we can’t find an engraver named Mathieu Blot, he is always referred to as Maurice Blot.

Let’s first look at the trustworty Manuel de l’amateur d’estampes (1821):

“Blot (Maurice), graveur, né à Paris, en 1754, mort dans la même ville en 1818, élève d’Aug. de Saint Aubin, à gravé d’un fort bon style, et d’après différens maîtres. (Blot Maurice, born in Paris in 1754, died in the same city in 1818, pupil of Aug. de Saint Aubin, engraved in a strong, good manner and after several different masters)”.

Emile Dacier in his La Gravure Française (1944) writes (p. 148):

“Blot (Maurice), Paris (1753-1818). Élève d’Augustin de Saint-Aubin, il a joui pendant sa vie d’une grande reputation, grâce à des estampes d’après Aubry, Fragonard etc., [...] (Blot Maurice, pupil of d’Augustin de Saint-Aubin, he enjoyed big reputation during his lifetime because of his engravings after Aubry, Fragonard etc.)”

Arthur Hind in his A History of Engraving & Etching (p. 425, reprint of the 1923 edition):

“Blot, Maurice. Engraver. Paris 1753-1818″.

Even in the caption to an illustration of the very same engraving [1], the artist is called Maurice Blot. Now Maurice Blot is indeed known as the significant engraver of many works by Fragonard and others (see his engraving the Lock for example). There is no biographical information on a Mathieu Blot. So, who is he? A relative? Maurice signing under a different name? Why would he do that? We don’t know. So let’s adopt the opinion of the majority: the engraver is Maurice Blot.

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[1] Jean Siméon Chardin 1699-1779: Werk, Herkunft, Wirkung, 1999, Hatje Cantz, p. 354, Fig. 1.

At first sight, this lovely, rather small (18 x 23.5 cm) engraving just depicts a Genre scene of a boy blowing soap bubbles, with his mother standing smiling behind him. Let us explore why there may be something else luring behind than just a scene from an untroubled childhood.

The engraving is a mirrored copy of the painting A Boy blowing Bubbles, a subject which was executed several times by Dutch fijnschilder (”fine painter”) Franz van Mieris (1635-1681). Today, the painting can be admired in the Mauritshuis in The Hague [1].

Frans van Mieris, Boy blowing bubbles, 1663, oil on panel, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague.

At the end of the 18th century, the painting was part of the Picture Cabinet of the French Jean-Baptiste Pierre le Brun (1748-1813) in Paris. It was during this time when the French Mathieu Blot (1753-1818) produced his print, which was then sold by the Parisian print dealer Poignant (”Se vend à Paris chés Poignant M^ds. D’Estampes, rue et Hôtel Serpente). This was not the first reproduction of this painting: between 1676 and 1678 Dutch engraver Cornelis H. van Meurs had already produced one [2].

The engraving presented here reproduces in an itself virtuoso style the illusionistic picture space: we can discern the weathered state of the window frame and the surrounding wall. A snail is crawling towards the boy, who is self-forgettingly blowing his soap bubbles, while his mother is knowingly smiling towards the observer.

It is this weathered state of the window frame which provides us with a first hint towards the motto of this post. Time has left its traces in the decaying stone and wood objects. The snail seems to have started its long way from outside the picture space (in the original painting, it is crawling over the carved Roman numerals MDCLXIII = 1663). The sunflower was chosen because of its daily movement. And last but not least, the fragile soap bubbles exist only for a blink of an eye.

Mathieu Blot after Frans van Mieris, Boy blowing bubbles, etching and engraving, between 1778 and 1780, private collection.

In this sense, soap bubbles are associated with the transience of life. In the sixteenth century, the Dutch philosopher Erasmus reintroduced the Latin expression “Homo bulla” (”man is a bubble”) in his “Adagia”, a collection of sayings published in 1572. A vanitas etching by the Dutch Karel van Sichem (d. 1608), published 150 years earlier, shows a young boy sitting on a skull and blowing bubbles. “Homo” is written over one of them: a skull as the symbol of death and bubbles representing the transience of man’s life on Earth.

Karel van Sichem: Homo Bulla, around 1617 [4].

The lovingly smiling mother pointing knowlingly at her son may illustrate a further transient element: Even love is as fragile as a bubble and has to be approached with caution (the sunflower was also known as the “trumpet of love”) [5].

Did you notice the blueish color of the leaves in the painting, especially the sunflower leaves? The original green color was made of yellow and blue pigment. During the centuries, the yellow pigment has broken down, leaving only the blue. Even the painting itself is only a bubble in time…

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[1] Otto Naumann, Frans van Mieris The Elder (1635-1681), Monographs on Dutch & Flemish Paintings, Volume II: Catalogue & plates, Davaco: 1981, p. 70-76).

[2] Jean Siméon Chardin 1699-1779: Werk, Herkunft, Wirkung, 1999.

[3] Margaret Doyle, The Art of Frans van Mieris, National Gallery of Art, Washington, February 26 – May 21, 2006.

[4] Zacharias Heyns (?), Nievwen Ieucht Spieghel, Verciert met veel schonne nieuwe Figuren ende Liedekens te voren niet in druck gewest, The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 843 B 25.

[5] Naumann, pp. 75-76.