x<^ Irerm. Q!^ndTQb)s CHATS ON OLD PRINTS THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS tVith Frontispieces and many Illustrations. CHATS ON ENQLISH CHINA. By ARTHUR HAYDEN'. CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE. By Arthur Havden. CHATS ON OLD PRINTS. (How to collect and valuo Old Engravlnfs.) By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON COSTUME. By G. Wooluscrokt Rhead. CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK. By E. L. Lowes. CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA. By J. F. Blacker. CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES. By J. J. Foster, F.S.A. CHATS ON ENQLISH EARTHENWARE. (Companion volune to " Ctaat« on EnglUh Ctalaa.") By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS. By A. M. Broadley. CHATS ON PEWTER. By H. J. L. ]. MASSfe, MA. CHATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS. By Fred. J. Melville. CHATS ON OLD JEWELLERY AND TRINKETS. By MacIver Percival. CHATS ON COTTAQE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURB, (Companion volume to " Chat* on Old Furniture.") By Arthur Hayuen. CHATS ON OLD COINS. By Fred. W. Bukgess. CHATS ON OLD COPPER AND BRASS. By Fred. W. Burgkss. CHATS ON HOUSEHOLD CURIOS. By Fred. W. Burgess. CHATS ON OLD SILVER. By Arthur HAYnE.\. CHATS ON JAPANESE PRINTS. By Arthur Davison Ficke. CHATS ON MILITARY CURI05. By Stakley C. Johnson. CHATS ON OLD CLOCKS AND WATCHES. By Arthur Hatden. CHAT5 ON ROYAL COPENHAGEN PORCELAIN. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON OLD SHEFFIELD PLATE. (Companion volume to "Chat* on Old Silver.**) By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON OLD ENGLISH DRAWINGS. By Randall Davies. CHATS ON WEDGWOOD WARE. \ By Hakrt Barnard. BYB PATHS OF CURIO COLLECTING. By Arthur Hatdbm. With Frontitpiece and 72 Pull pafe Illustrations. LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD. VEW YORK: F. A. STOKES COMPANY. Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arGliive.org/details/cliatsonoldprintsOOIiaydiala fffu^Ui^. ^^ >gUC,^~.^ (f.iyi.iity-^^j,.• ^f^ld ^ t lftmm^gA Chats on Old Prints BY ARTHUR HAYDEN ADTHOK or "CHATS ON ENGUSH CHINA ' AND "CHATS ON OLD FCRNITURB' WITH no ILLUSTRATIONS AND A COLOURED FRONTISPIECE T. FISHER UNWIN LIMITED Bouverie House Fleet Street First EcUticn • 1900 Suand Impression . 1907 SMond Ediium (Tkird Impression) 1909 Fourth Impression 1913 Fiflh Impression . 1919 Sixth Impression . • • • 1920 Seventh Impression 1923 Eighth Impression . 1928 {All rights reserved) TO MV WIFE WITHOUT WHOSE LOVING AND PATIENT CO-OPERATION THIS VOLUME COULD NEVER HAVE BEEN WRITTEN 1265656 PREFACE The study of prints begins in the nursery in the contemplation of toy-books with pictures, unaccom- panied by any uneasy qualms as to " states." It is a matter open to question whether the younger units of the present generation, who have grown up in the environment of the pictorial magazine and journal and the thousand-and-one forms of illustration by modern process, quite realise the departure from the older methods of engraving. Finely wrought steel engraving is a lost art, and the wood engraver of middle-Victorian days with his sandbag, his boxwood block, and his graver has gone to that most permanent of all furrows, the grave itself, which Time has cut enduringly. In order therefore to approach the study of prints, the beginner has to look back to accustom his eye to engraver's work of a time immediately preceding our own. To-day photo-mechanical processes have taken the place of the graver and the skilful hand and trained eye of the craftsman behind it. In the course of the volume it will be shown what sins of 8 PREFACB commission and omission have almost led to the extinction of both steel and wood engraving, and it may be here briefly stated that time and the cost of production are the greatest factors governing this result It is not my intention to cast a stone at modem process work, which has done so much to extend the knowledge of the fine arts. The engraver's interpreta- tion of a picture or his rendering of a design was not always too faithful, and by the aid of the camera, line-drawing in particular can be rendered line for line in facsimile. It would be as logical to quarrel with Caxton's printing press because it supplanted the manuscripts of ecclesiastical writers with their wealth of illumination. In the present volume an attempt is made to indicate the lines upon which a man possessed of artistic taste may proceed in order to acquire a fair working knowledge of the subject of old prints, and to point the way whereby with a^ limited outlay he may be able to derive unlimited enjoyment in collecting specimens of engraving of great artistic excellence. The number of persons are obviously few who can afford to pay ;^2,ooo for the etching of Rembrandt with the Sabre, or ;^200 for Lady Talbot engraved in mezzotint by Valentine Green, or even ;^20 for the stipple engraving. The English Fireside, by P. W. Tomkins. There is a twenty-shilling public whose art instincts are not less acutely developed, but whose spending capacity is strictly limited by the resources of a slender purse. It is for this public PREPACB { that this little volume is intended. It is my hope that it will quicken into being the dry bones of the subject and stimulate the collector into collecting with fine and discriminating taste. The end of the journey may be close and unremitting study at the Print Room of the British Museum or the Art Library at South Kensington, or at Christie's or any other fashionable auction-room, but in the less competitive fields of the lower slopes of print collecting there is unlimited pleasure to him who loves "the lesser things done greatly." Explanatory definitions accompanied by enlarge- ments of portions of prints will prove valuable to the beginner in identifying the differing processes of engraving. Illustrations of a print during stages of its progress under the engraver's hand and when finished, will enable the collector to acquire some knowledge of the technique of en- graving. Typical examples are given of prints by well- known masters in wood engraving, line engraving, stipple, mezzotint, lithography, and etching. Allusion is made to the finer specimens and prices given, but the volume is intended to appeal to a wider public than that usually associated with the collecting ol "rare states" of prints. It is the opinion of the author that prices do not necessarily follow the artistic qualities of engravings, being more subject to fashionable caprice than anything collected at the present day. It is hoped that the suggestions given in this volume in regard to the various schools of neglected engravers wiU — " iO PREFACE prove of assistance to collectors who love engraving for its own sake. It is not easy to collect without capital, nor is it easy to collect wisely with capital. In the former case, where prices are of little moment, the pleasure to be derived is greater than in the latter where a shifting market brings heartaches and disappoint- ment I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to the courtesy of Messrs. Greorgfe Routledge and Sons for their kind permission to include an illustration of a wood engraving, The Dipping Place, after Birket Foster, which appeared in one of the renowned fine art series of volumes issued by them in the ** Sixties." To Messrs, Ward, Lock & Co. I am similarly indebted for kind permission to reproduce two illustrations, one from their celebrated edition of "The Arabian Nights," containing some of the finest work in design and in wood engraving of that period, and the other from " Groldsmith's Works (1865), illuminated with a hundred masterly illustra- tions after G. J. Pinwell. To Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. I desire to record my obligation for their courtesy in permitting the use of two fine illustrations The Great God Pan, from a design by Lord Leighton, and Cleopatra^ from a design by F. Sandys, published in the Comhill Magazine, which has continued since the days when Thackeray edited the first number in i860 to the present day to hold a place of honour among English magazines. To the proprietors of Good Words, with which — PREPACS II the Sunday Magazine is now incorporated, I am, by kind permission, reproducing two illustrations one after F, Sandys, Until Her Death, and the other The Withered Flower, which appeared in the pages of these well-known journals, now taking a new lease of life under the present management. From the pages of the Graphic I am reproducing a specimen of wood engraving by permission of the proprietors, and similarly the same privilege has been accorded to me by Messrs. Cassell & Co. in regard to an illustration which appeared in the Magazine of Art. To those of my friends who have, over an extended period, generously lent me their aid in prosecuting researches into the technique of engraving and into the byeways of the subject, and have encouraged me and stimulated my labours over a wide area, I tender my grateful acknowledgment of full indebtedness and appreciation. ARTHUR HAYDEN. September, 1906. PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION It is with great pleasure that I have to record the continued success of this volume. This new edition has several cor- rections in regard to printer's errors, and on p. 73 the price of Meryon's L'Abside de Ndtre Dame de Paris in its first state is corrected to ^^350. Similarly, on p. 245, the price of John Raphael Smith's mezzotint of Mrs. Carnac, first state, is corrected to J[,^^o, and a footnote added that a specimen fetched 1,160 guineas in 1901. The title of one of Nanteuil's portraits, p. 154, has been altered from Lt la PREFACE Grand Turenne dans sa jeunesse to Le Coniie de Dunois dans sa jeunesse.