THE COLUMN OF ST. MARK, VENICE

Artist: R. P. Bonington ____________ Engraver: J. W. Allen

 

Note: the title in the table above is printed below the engraving

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PRINT DATE: This lithograph was printed in 1851; it is not a modern reproduction in any way.

PRINT SIZE: Overall print size is 7 1/2 inches by 10 1/2 inches including white borders, actual scene is 8 inches by 9 1/2 inches.

PRINT CONDITION: Condition is excellent. Bright and clean. Blank on reverse. Paper is quality woven rag stock paper.

SHIPPING: Buyer to pay shipping, domestic orders receives priority mail, international orders receive regular air mail unless otherwise asked for.  We take a variety of payment options, more payment details will be in our email after auction close.

 

FROM THE ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: THERE have been few painters whose early death caused more general regret among the admirers of British Art, than was felt at the loss of Richard Parkes Bonington, in the year 1828, at the age of twenty-seven. Few gave greater promise of one day reaching "the topmost round" in his profession, had his life been lengthened only to a few more brief years: as it was, however, he left a name behind him that will endure coeval with his works.

Bonington's family settled in Paris, when he was about fifteen or sixteen; his artistic education may therefore be said to have been begun and completed in the French metropolis and in Italy, which he visited; indeed the French claim him as their own, and pride themselves on the success which followed his residence among them. It is a fact that he had attained great distinction in France before his name even had reached his countrymen in England. The first appearance of his pictures here was in 1826, when he sent two small paintings to the British Institution, which attracted no little attention by the high qualities they exhibited. One of the two is that here engraved; Mr. Vernon, with that discriminating judgment which marked all his purchases, immediately securing one of the gems for his own gallery.

The powers of this artist were as varied as they were indisputable; architectural subjects, landscapes, coast scenes, marine views, and even historical subjects, came alike within the grasp of his mind, and the range of his discursive pencil. Of the last-mentioned class of painting, there are but few examples, yet those are of a quality to cause deep regret that his career should have terminated ere he had carried out the idea, which it was known he had entertained, of producing a series of pictures from incidents in the Middle Ages, in which he was desirous of combining and showing the value of the finish of the Dutch school, the rigor of the Venetian, and the magic of the English. The word "magic," as thus applied, is not a compliment we have paid our artists; it was used by a French writer, in Paris, in alluding to the death of Bonington, and the loss which was thereby occasioned to the new school of painting. Bonington possessed in a peculiar degree all those qualifications which make up a good artist; he knew how to select a fitting subject for the pencil, and having chosen it, he knew how to treat it in the most effective and suitable manner. His composition or design is excellent; his drawing, whether of figures, architecture, or natural scenery, almost without a fault; and his coloring rich, powerful, and true. His principal defect lies in. his distances, which sometimes want those aerial tints requisite to keep the several component parts in their proper places, and to give harmony to the entire subject; we see this deficiency in the picture of St. Mark's column, where the Dogana is brought too prominently forward in proportion to its actual distance from the point of sight.

The work is painted with a broad sun-light effect; is little elaborated; and may altogether be considered as an excellent example of the style and genius of the artist.

 

BIOGRAPHY OF ARTIST: Richard Parkes Bonington (b Arnold, nr Nottingham, 25 Oct 1802; d London, 23 Sept 1828) was an English painter. His father, also called Richard (1768-1835), was a provincial drawing-master and painter, exhibiting at the Royal Academy and the Liverpool Academy between 1797 and 1811. An entrepreneur, he used his experience of the Nottingham lace-manufacturing industry to export machinery illegally to Calais, setting up a business there in late 1817 or early 1818. In Calais the young Richard Parkes Bonington became acquainted with Louis Francia, with whom he consolidated and expanded whatever knowledge of watercolour technique he had brought with him from England. Under Francia's direction Bonington left Calais for Paris where, probably not before mid- or late 1818, he met Eugène Delacroix. The latter's recollection of Bonington at this time was of a tall adolescent who revealed an astonishing aptitude in his watercolour copies of Flemish landscapes. Once in Paris Bonington embarked on an energetic and successful career, primarily as a watercolourist. In this he was supported by his parents who sometime before 1821 also moved to Paris, providing a business address for him at their lace company premises.

 

Please note: the terms used in our auctions for engraving, etching, lithograph, plate, photogravure etc. are ALL prints on paper, and NOT blocks of steel or wood or any other material. "ENGRAVINGS", the term commonly used for these paper prints, were the most common method in the 1700s and 1800s for illustrating old books, and these paper prints or "engravings" were created by the intaglio process of etching the negative of the image into a block of steel, copper, wood etc, and then when inked and pressed onto paper, a print image was created. These prints or engravings were usually inserted into books, although many were also printed and issued as loose stand alone lithographs. They often had a tissue guard or onion skin frontis to protect them from transferring their ink to the opposite page and were usually on much thicker quality woven rag stock paper than the regular prints. So this auction is for an antique paper print(s), probably from an old book, of very high quality and usually on very thick rag stock paper.

A RARE FIND! AND GREAT DECORATION FOR YOUR OFFICE OR HOME WALL.