We have donated these prints to Special Collections at Bizzell Memorial Library. Through the library, they will be available to view, study and enjoy for many years to come.
Dutch, French, English, American, and Italian artists from the Baroque, Romantic, Neoclassical, Barbizon and Surrealist movements. Artists include Perrier, Worlidge, Vivares, Renoir and Dalí as well as some that are unattributed.
Click on any image to enlarge it and see a slide show of all the work on this page.
The auction closed November 16. Minimum bids were half the appraised value of the prints. For more about the collection and the auction, please see this page.
Baroque
Unknown, Dutch or Italian 17th century
Title Unknown/ Master Builder
Copper engraving
Image size: 6 x 7 inches
Framed
Appraised Value: $1,500
Thomas Worlidge, English, 1700-1766
Worlidge specialized in etchings either copied from, or in the style of Rembrandt. Received his artistic training from Genoese refugee, painter Alessandro Grimaldi, and engraver Louis-Philippe Boitard. Worlidge lived in London but spent his winters in Bath, painting portraits of society members. He described himself as a painter, and probably earned his living by painting portraits, but he is best remembered for his etchings and mezzotints.
Portrait of a Bishop, after Rembrandt
1754 drypoint
Image size, 6.5 x 5 inches
State i/iii or State iii/iii; W31; D21; Lifetime impression before Worlidge’s widow issued new impressions in 1767 with number ‘4’ added in top right.
State i/iii or State ii/iii; W87, D27; State iii is a later impression after the publisher Robert Pollard added aquatint to make new impressions in 1790 from a plate by that time nearly forty years old.
Unframed
Appraised Value: $1,500
Neoclassicism and Romanticism
Unknown, 18th Century, possibly Richard Earlom, English (1743-1822)
Arcadian Pastoral
Etching with mezzotint
Image (plate) size: 10 x 7.5 inches
Title and artist unknown
Unframed
Appraised Value: $200
Thomas Vivares, British 1735-1821
Son of the artist, Francois Vivares (1709-1780), who taught him etching and engraving. He began exhibiting around 1755 and won a prize from the Society of Arts in 1761. He was a constant exhibitor there and at the Royal Academy and the Free Society from 1764 to 1788. Thomas Vivares then dedicated himself to teaching art techniques, particularly drawing.
Two Cows standing in a pond, one drinking, with a large spreading tree on the right
1773 soft-ground etching
Image size: 7 x 9 inches
Plate 11; After George Morland “Published Jany 1, 1800, by John P. Thompson, 6[?] Newport Street, London”; From an unidentified series, see Francis Buckley in ‘George Morland’s Sketch Books and their Publishers’
Unframed
Appraised Value: $200
Two Wayfarers on a wooded path walking to right, sea in the distance behind
1773 soft-ground etching
Image size: 7 x 9 inches
Plate 12; After George Morland “Published Jany 1, 1800, by John P. Thompson, 6[?] Newport Street, London”; From an unidentified series, see Francis Buckley in ‘George Morland’s Sketch Books and their Publishers.’
Unframed
Appraised Value: $200
Impressionism and Beyond
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French, 1841-1919
Renoir was, with Claude Monet, one of the catalysts of the Impressionist movement. He was best known for portraiture, figurative work, and voluptuous bathing women. Renoir’s work evolved throughout his lifetime, influenced by a broad range of artists. He experimented constantly, taking up sculpture and printmaking in his late years.
As his work reached its apex, Renoir fought encroaching paralysis from rheumatoid arthritis. He altered his painting technique but continued to produce art until his death.
Portrait of Richard Wagner
1900 lithograph
Image size: 16.5 x 12.75 inches
Renoir loved music and greatly admired Richard Wagner. When visiting Palermo, Sicily, he was able to meet Wagner and convince him to sit. The session only lasted thirty five minutes, but resulted in two paintings and, several years later, this lithograph. You can read an account of the meeting and see the first portrait on the Musee d’Orsay website.
Original lithograph printed in black ink on wove paper with the Arches script watermark. From the edition of 100 (there were also a few trial proofs); the only state; published by Ambroise Vollard; printed by Auguste Clot; Delteil 33
Unframed
Appraised Value: $1,200
George Henry Smillie, American 1840-1921
A member of one of the most active and influential families in the art circles of New York City, George Smillie was acquainted at an early age with his father’s many engraved translations from American landscapists. He began studying under James Hart in 1861 and soon thereafter exhibited works at the National Academy, which launched his career. In the 1870s he traveled to Europe and was greatly influenced by the Barbizon School, embracing plein-air painting and a more Impressionist palette.
An Old New England Orchard
1883 drypoint
Image size: 12 x 8 inches
Signed and dated in plate lower left: “Geo H. Smillie – 1883”; published in “Original Etchings by American Artists” (Cassell and Co.)
Unframed
Appraised Value: $200
