Print news from around the world Monday, Mar 23 2009 

Art market and Auction and Engraving and Etching and van dyck oldprints 00:20

A short roundup of print news from around the world:

Youenoch has an aminated version of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

Mercuriuspoliticus was delighted to see  “The Headless Horseman”, an engraving by Pierre Lombart which underwent some drastic changes.

Clara Lieu spotted the grouchiest looking putto ever in the etching/engraving Allegory of the Arts by the Italian Andrea Giovanni Podesta (1608-~1674).

The iconic woodblock print  In the well of the great wave off Kanagawa by Katshushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was sold at Christie’s for $68’500. The equally beautiful The Tama River in Musashi province from the same series Fugaku sanjurokkei (The thirty-six views of Mount Fuji) fetched $5’000.

Edward Sozanski shows us When European prints went supersized.

 

“Your print has been Schweidlerized” Tuesday, Mar 17 2009 

Engravings and Etchings and Restoration and Techniques oldprints 00:21

Max Schweidler - The Restoration of Engravings, Drawings etc.

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 known 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.

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