Enfilade

The long eighteenth century in the latest issue of Print Quarterly:

Print Quarterly 40.3 (September 2023)

a r t i c l e s

• Vitalii Tkachuk, “Averkiy Kozachkovskyi and Western Sources of Kyiv Prints, 1720s–40s,” pp. 265–86.

This article features the oeuvre of the Ukrainian engraver Averkiy Kozachkovskyi (active 1721–46), whose illustrated output by the press of the Orthodox monastery Kyiv of the Caves (Kyiv Pechersk Lavra) numbers about forty engravings. He primarily produced book illustrations, but also illustrated printed oaths taken by new members of the local student confraternity. His sources derived largely from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Catholic imagery from German, Flemish, and French schools, several of which are discussed in detail throughout the article, especially the compositions of Peter Paul Rubens. Such borrowings testify to the willingness of Orthodox recipients to accept imagery—unaltered in iconography or style—stemming from other denominations and cultures. The paper contributes to our knowledge of Ukrainian engraving and to the study of the global transfer of images during the early modern period.

• Nicholas J.S. Knowles, “Thomas Rowlandson’s The Women of Muscovy and Other Russeries after Jean-Baptiste Le Prince,” pp. 287–301.

This article discusses a previously unidentified series of prints by Thomas Rowlandson (1757–1827), after Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734–1781), mentioned only as a single lot in the sale of his art collection and studio contents. No definitive set of these “Various Dresses of the Women in Muscovy” has been found, but the author has identified several substantial groups in public and private collections; the largest of these, with twenty-two prints, is in the British Museum. Most of these Rowlandson impressions reside among Le Prince originals and have previously been catalogued as by or after Le Prince. As a series overall, five hundred and forty impressions are claimed to have been produced in the lot description. The article continues with an in-depth discussion of the series and its context. An appendix lists all known impressions of Rowlandson’s Women of Muscovy prints and their location.

n o t e s  a n d  r e v i e w s

• Mark McDonald, Review of Susan Stewart, The Ruins Lesson: Meaning and Material in Western Culture (The University of Chicago Press, 2020), pp. 322–25. This book explores the significance of ruins in Western art and literature, paying close attention to the evidentiary role of prints and how the printmaking process parallels the ruinous lifecycle of its subject matter. In the review, Piranesi is cited as a fascinating example of creating trompe l’oeil in his prints, while later discussions focus on the discovery and metaphorical associations of Rome’s antique ruins in the eighteenth century.

• David Bindman, Review of the exhibition catalogue, Edina Adam and Julian Brooks, William Blake: Visionary (Getty Publications, 2020), pp. 330–31. This brief review pertains to a previously rescheduled, now forthcoming, exhibition on William Blake at the J. Paul Getty Museum. The author examines the collecting of Blake in America and some of the curatorial choices for this anticipated show.

• Patricia Mainardi, Review of Pascal Dupuy and Rolf Reichardt, La caricature sous le signe des révolutions. Mutations et permanences, XVIIIe–XIXe siècles (Presses Universitaires de Rouen et du Havre, 2021), pp. 331–34. This book and review introduce the origins and rapid development of caricature during the French Revolutionary period, focusing on how topical imagery and signs manifested into an accessible visual language capable of being understood by ordinary citizens at the time. More importantly, many of these signifying tropes, such as severed heads and raids on government buildings have become universally recognisable up to the present day.

• Mark Bills, Review of Tim Clayton, James Gillray: A Revolution in Satire (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2022), pp. 353–57. This extensive review of the latest monograph on James Gillray highlights the British artist’s unique achievements in the world of graphic satire. The book bravely tackles some of his previously neglected areas, such as very early and pornographic prints, or previously unpublished ones that can now be contextualised. The same is true of Gillray’s interplay of word and image (his titles, conversations and commentary of the images), which the author believes is Clayton’s most original piece of scholarship in this book.

• Jeannie Kenmotsu, Review of the exhibition catalogue, Hans Bjarne Thomsen, ed., Japanische Holzschnitte: Aus der Sammlung Ernst Grosse / Japanese Woodblock Prints: From the Ernst Grosse Collection (Michael Imhof Verlag, 2018), pp. 357–60. This review recognises the value of this catalogue in bringing Ernst Grosse and his collecting practices to a larger audience, especially since the Museum Natur und Mensch’s collection of Japanese woodblock prints was a historically important case of intersection between European japonisme and ethnological approaches to non-Western cultures. Most of Grosse’s acquisitions were made through the art dealer Hayashi Tadamasa.

Left: Edmé Jeaurat after Antoine Watteau, Talagrepo, Monk of Pégou, ca. 1731, etching and engraving, 24 × 17 cm (Cambridge, MA, Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum). Right: Gabriel Huquier after François Boucher, Flautist and Child Timpanist, ca. 1742, etching and engraving, sheet, trimmed 30 × 24 cm (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art).

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The long eighteenth century in the latest issue of Print Quarterly:

Print Quarterly 40.2 (June 2023)

A R T I C L E S

Roger Vandercruse Lacroix, Secretaire with Marquetry, ca. 1765, tulipwood, stained marquetry with bronze mounts and marble top, 114 × 73 × 38 cm (Private collection, Image courtesy Christie’s, London).

• Kee Il Choi Jr., “Watteau and Boucher Conjoined: Imagining China in Marquetry,” pp. 138–49.

This article examines the previously unknown pairing of Chinoiserie prints based on designs by Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) and François Boucher (1703–70) to create the pictorial marquetry veneered onto two nearly identical writing desks (secrétaires en armoire) attributed to the cabinetmaker Roger Vandercruse called La Croix or Lacroix (1727–99). Each cabinet retains traces of either the original engraving or the colour deployed to bring these ‘paintings in wood’ to life. This discovery not only exemplifies the role of prints in disseminating the chinoiseries of both Watteau and Boucher but also sheds light on the working practices of marqueteurs in eighteenth-century Paris.

• Lesley Fulton, “Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein’s Album of Prints in the British Museum,” pp. 150–69.

Fulton explores the Homeric subject matter and scenes depicted in the British Museum’s album of 81 previously unidentified etchings and engravings. Intended for Tischbein’s Vases and Homer projects, the etchings and engravings were prepared in Naples towards the end of the eighteenth century. Connections are made to motifs derived from painted vases and their relationship to Tischbein’s project for Sir William Hamilton’s Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases (Naples and Germany, 1791–1803). Further analysis links the prints to the artist’s massive Illustrated Homer project in the first quarter of the 19th century. The paper highlights the discrepancy between the identification of an antique motif made in the late eighteenth century and how it is interpreted today. A contemporary document—probably a stocklist—from the Tischbein archive at Oldenburg in Germany, undated but drawn up between 1799 and 1808, has made it possible to identify the subject of each print and also to explain its original place in the album. The Appendix correlates the British Museum prints with their description as given in the Oldenburg document and also their correspondence with Tischbein’s various publication projects. Fulton concludes that the British Museum album probably served as a sales catalogue to which new material could be added as it arrived in the artist’s workshop.

N O T E S  A N D  R E V I E W S

• An Van Camp, Review of Gitta Bertram, Nils Büttner, and Claus Zittel, eds., Gateways to the Book: Frontispieces and Title Pages in Early Modern Europe (Brill, 2021), pp. 175–76. This edited volume presents fifteen essays on frontispieces and title-pages found in books printed between 1500 and 1800. Written by established academics as well as PhD candidates, the contributions explore how frontispieces intersect art and literature and how the printed images can be interpreted (contributions by Malcolm Baker, Martijn van Beek, Miranda L. Elston, Alison C. Fleming, Daniel Fulco, Lea Hagedorn, Constanze Keilhoz, Fabian Kolb, Hole Rößler, Delphine Schreuder, Alice Zamboni, and Cornel Zwierlein).

• Séverine Lepape, Review of Małgorzata Łazicka, ed., Old Master Prints from the 15th Century to the 1820s: German School, Barthel Beham and Sebald Beham. The Print Room of the University of Warsaw Library, Catalogue of the Collection (University of Warsay Library, 2019), pp. 176–78.

• Michael Matile, Review of the exhibition catalogue, Kurt Zeitler, ed., Venedig, La Serenissima: Zeichnungen und Druckgraphik aus vier Jahrhunderten (Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2022), pp. 180–83. The Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich recently presented a cross-section of its rich treasures of Venetian prints and drawings from the late fifteenth to the eighteenth century.

• Antony Griffiths, Review of Joyce Zelen, Blinded by Curiosity: The Collector-Dealer Hadriaan Beverland (1650–1716) and his Radical Approach to the Printed Image (Primavera Pers, 2021), pp. 186–89. The book focuses on Hadriaan Beverland’s activities during his last years, from 1680, which he spent as a ‘paranoid alcoholic drifting through the pubs and brothels of London’. He also assembled at least two little known manuscripts with new images composed of cut-out fragments of prints. The review highlights two portrait prints seemingly commissioned by Beverland himself which Griffiths believes ‘stand far outside the traditional canons of portraiture’, as well as the discovery by Zelen of a major sale of Beverland’s print collection held in 1690.

• Kristel Smentek, Review of Marianne Grivel, Estelle Leutrat, Véronique Meyer and Pierre Wachenheim, eds., Curieux d’Estampes. Collections et collectionneurs de gravures en Europe, 1500–1815 (Universitaires de Rennes, 2020), pp. 189–91. This review presents a swift overview of newly found documentary insights relating to individual and institutional collections of prints, largely focusing on French collectors and on the eighteenth century. Of the latter, mention is made of Albert Duke of Saxe-Teschen correspondences, Joseph-Dominique d’Inguimbert’s display practices, which included mounting between rollers, the collecting and marketing of French fashion prints, and the formation of print collections documenting the history of France, as was the case with Charles-Marie Fevret de Fontette.

• Mark McDonald, Review of Jessica Maier, The Eternal City: A History of Rome in Maps (University of Chicago Press, 2020) pp. 192–94. This review highlights interesting anachronistic features in topographical depictions of a reinvented Rome, for example, in Leonardo Bufalini’s woodcut map from 1551, the Baths of Trajan are depicted as a complete structure when it was in fact ruinous at the time. Further analysis pertains to the functions of printed maps, often as guides for pilgrims and secular tourists visiting important churches and historic sites.

• Christian Rümelin, Review of the exhibition catalogue, Celia Haller-Klinger, and Anette Michels, eds., Graphiksammler Ernst Riecker (1845–1918) und Otto Freiherr von Breitschwert (1829–1910) (Graphik-Kabinett Backnang, 2018), pp. 194–95. A review relating to two German collections formed around the turn of the nineteenth century, one of which focused on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century regional artists.

• Michael Matile, Review of the exhibition catalogue, Anne Buschoff, Marcus Dekiert and Sven Schütte, eds., Linie lernen: Die Kunst zu zeichnen (Wallraf-Richartz Museum & Fondation Corboud, 2021), pp. 195–96. This review pertains to a catalogue illustrating the history of drawing education from Cennino Cennini to their depictions in sixteenth- to eighteenth-century prints.

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Note (added 12 June 2023) — The original posting was updated to include reproductions of the two prints after Watteau and Boucher.