Title: OLD MASTER THROUGH MODERN PRINTS
Date: October 26, 2011
Time: 10:30 AM & 2:30 PM
Exhibition: Fri., Oct. 21, 10-6
Sat., Oct. 22, 10-4
Mon., Oct. 24, 10-6
Tues., Oct. 25, 10-6

Contact Person: Todd Weymen
tweyman@swanngalleries.com

On October 26, Swann conducted an auction of Old Master through Modern Prints. The opening portion of the sale included a selection of 50 exceptional etchings by Rembrandt van Rijn. These included an early impression of The Descent from the Cross: Second Plate, etching and engraving, 1633; Christ Healing the Sick (The Hundred Guilder Print), etching, engraving and drypoint, circa 1643-49; and two landscapes from 1641, Landscape with a Collage and Large Tree, and The Windmill, etching and drypoint.

A particularly strong selection of 19th-century prints featured Mary Cassatt’s very scarce Feeding the Ducks, color aquatint and soft-ground etching with drypoint, circa 1894; Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Confetti, color lithograph, 1894; Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Le Chapeau Épinglé (2e planche), color lithograph, 1898; and many excellent examples by James A.M. Whistler, such as Finette, drypoint and etching on Japan paper, 1859; Palaces, Brussels, etching, 1887; and Garden, etching and drypoint, 1897-80.

Among the American prints of note were luminous color woodcuts by Gustave Baumann, including Morning Sun, 1932; more color woodcuts by Bror J.O. Nordfeldt; Childe Hassam’s Fifth Avenue, Noon, etching, 1916; Thomas Hart Benton’s The Race, lithograph, 1942; and the Paul Cadmus portfolio Twelve Etchings, one of 35 numbered copies, 1979.

Featured in the European prints section were Georges Braque’s Composition (Nature morte aux verres), etching and drypoint, 1912; Henri Matisse’s Nu assis, bras gauche sur la tête, lithograph, 1926; Marc Chagall’s color lithographs Disrobing Her with His Own Hand, 1948, Printemps au Pré, 1961 , and Le Grand Bouquet, 1963; Georges Roualt’s Automne, color aquatint, 1938; and Pablo Picasso’s Quatre Femmes nues et Tête sculptée, etching and engraving, 1934, and Femme nue à la Source, color linoleum cut, 1962.