Print Quarterly Publications

Review: Nineteenth-century Reproductive Prints

Author(s): Donato Esposito
Review by: Donato Esposito
Source: Print Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 2 (JUNE 2008), pp. 222-223
Published by: Print Quarterly Publications
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41826718
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 Nineteenth-century Reproductive Prints
Donato Esposito
Robert Verhoogt, Art in Reproduction: Nineteenth-Century
Prints after Lawrence Alma-Tadema , Jozef Israels and Ary Scheffer ,
Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2007, 718 pp., 29
col. and 102 b. & w. ills., €59.50.
Impeccably researched, splendidly written and hand-
somely produced, this volume is a welcome addition to the
steady scholarly interest in (reproductive) printmaking in the
nineteenth century. Despite its hefty 700 pages it is none the
less immensely readable, owing to a thoughtful and compact
design. The broad scope of the volume also reaches far
beyond the three Dutch-born painters on whom Verhoogt
focusses, who had special relationships with their printed
reproductions, and outlines the theoretical, commercial,
practical and artistic frameworks for print production.
These artists cover virtually the entire nineteenth century,
from Scheffer's first print after his work in 1817, to Alma-
Tadema in 1907. Their shared background yet different
working contexts makes these three painters interesting
examples to pursue. Despite the abundance of research
materials - letters, published reviews, art works, contracts,
advertisements, stock lists - the nineteenth century is one of
the least investigated eras with regard to print production.
Most Old Masters have been decendy researched, but this is
not so for this period's practitioners. This is largely due to
prevailing prejudices against the art of a time that did not
rush headlong towards a notional avant-garde. Happily, this
position has largely evaporated and Verhoogt's contribution
is therefore a much-welcomed addition to the growing liter-
ature and the more so for his clear and structured approach.
The examples and illustrations in the book likewise
extend beyond the three Dutchmen. The dust jacket fea-
tures William Macduff's irresistible Shaftesbury, or Lost and
Found (1862; Museum of London), which was also the dust
jacket to Anthony Dyson's superb Pictures to Print: The
Mneteenth-Century Engraving Trade (1984), to which in many
ways the present volume is the successor. In a book virtually
impossible to fault here, Verhoogt had not known that the
painting was acquired by the Museum of London in 1993
and lists its location as 'private collection'. This is unfortu-
nate, since Verhoogt is up to date on a vast range of topics,
including the sale in 2002 of a rare photograph, the earliest
known, made in 1825, which interestingly reproduces a
seventeenth-century print. The dust jacket's image of two
young boys staring at the window display of the print pub-
lisher Henry Graves & Co at 6 Pall Mall in central London
was probably commissioned by the publisher, who soon
issued the painting as a print, in 1864. The display contains
a number of recently published prints after contemporary
British painters, including Edwin Landseer's Saved (1859),
PRINT QUARTERLY, XXV, 2008, 2
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John Everett Millais's The Order of Release (1856), Thomas
Faed's The Mitherless Bairn (i860) and, at the centre, Frederick
Sandys's portrait of the dour philanthropist, f1 Earl of
Shaftesbury (1855). Verghoot is entirely correct in his summa-
tion of a painting as (among other definitions) a 'cluster of
rights that could be exploited', and in the examples of the
three painters presented here this exploitation yielded fruit-
ful and far-reaching results. Sadly the index is wanting,
failing to cite any artworks mentioned in the volume.
Perhaps the most interesting example was that of
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who was one of the best-known
painters in the late nineteenth century and was avidly col-
lected on both sides of the Channel and the Adantic. Prints
contributed to this glowing fame in no small measure. He
made his Paris Salon début in 1864 with Pastimes in Ancient
Egypt, 3000 Tears Ago (1863; Harris Museum and Art Gallery,
Preston), which secured him a gold medal and launched
what was to become his specialism: history painting and its
peculiarly nineteenth-century variant, historical genre. That
same year Alma-Tadema met the art dealer and print pub-
lisher Ernest Gambart (1814-1902), who transformed his
career and placed it on an international platform, as he had
previously done with Israels and Scheffer. Prints again were
central to this transformation and the two men would
become inextricably linked. In 1870 Alma-Tadema moved
to London. He later became a British citizen, was knighted
in 1899 and received the Order of Merit in 1905. These hon-
ours, and many others, were due in part to the shrewd oper-
ating tactics both of Alma-Tadema and his primary dealer,
which made his work among the most visible in an already
commercially heated atmosphere. In March 1871 Gambart's
business was transferred to his nephew, Léon Henri Lefèvre,
who through another later partnership formed Pilgeram &
Lefèvre, continuing the closeness with the painter that his
uncle had initiated and even operating from the same
premises at iA King Street in London.
The marketing and sale of Alma-Tadema's oils (and
watercolours) and the equivalent for the prints made after
them went hand in hand. Paintings were sometimes com-
missioned from the painter expressly for reproduction and,
in turn, paintings were sent on long tours, often abroad, to
publicize printed reproductions. Print publishers often
deployed ingenious marketing strategies. Prints were often
made - or at least marketed - to form pendants with one
another, even if the prints reproduced the work of different
painters. In 1884, for example, Thomas Agnew & Sons
advertised Alfred Louis Brunet-Debaines's etching of
Charles Edward Johnson's FingaVs Cave, Staffa, published in
June 1884 as a pendant with Millais's Chill October by the
same etcher, previously published in January 1883.
 CATALOGUE AND BOOK REVIEWS 223
103. Emile Boilvin, Portraits of Paul Rajon , 1867, etching, 133
X 120 mm (London, British Museum).
Sometimes prints after paintings were themselves exhibited
as independent objects, although the strict hierarchy in
operation at the time meant that these were usually kept
away from paintings and displayed in separate spaces. The
Times noted Auguste Blanchard's 'large and severe' engrav-
ings of The Picture Gallery and The Sculpture Gallery after Alma-
Tadema's enormous pair of paintings, 'which claimed and
received ample tribute of recognition in the display of work
in black and white at the last [Royal] Academy exhibition
[in 1878]' and that had themselves been shown at the Royal
Academy (and the Paris Salon) a few years beforehand.1
Pilgeram & Lefèvre also published work after Israels, includ-
ing his celebrated Past Mother's Grave in December 1880 by
Leopold Lowenstam.
One of Alma-Tadema's favourite printmakers, and a
close friend, was the Frenchman Paul Rajon (see fig. 1Ô3).
His reputation was such that at his death in June 1888 The
Times lamented the departure of 'one of the greatest of
modern French etchers', signalling that Rajon's (and there-
fore Alma-Tadema's) internationalism was 'equally well
known in the artistic circles of Paris, London and New
York'.2 Extraordinarily, he was so well known throughout the
United Kingdom that the Liverpool Mercury , the Newcastle
i. 'Recent Engravings', The Times , 27 August 1878, p. 10.
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Weekly Courant , Birmingham Daily Post , the Leeds Mercury and
Darlington's Northern Echo carried the news of his death, and
some of these notices were ahead of the London-based
newspapers! Carel Vosmaer felt unqualified admiration for
Rajon's work and described his etching A Roman Emperor: AD
41 published in February 1877 as 'one of the finest and most
complete interpretations of a painting through means of
etching', extolling the 'pleasure of all those little lines, fol-
lowing their movements and intersections, feeling what the
draughtsman felt'. Verhoogt's use of judicious quotes is
exemplary. Contemporary nineteenth-century voices enliv-
en much of the text and provide an opportunity that the
author has not lost. He has trawled periodicals for interest-
ing reviews of the reception both of exhibitions and indi-
vidual prints; and although they are numerous, scholars
who overlook these will do so at their peril. Verhoogt has
incorporated them into the text seamlessly. These reviews
are joined by unpublished material found in the
Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the University of Leiden and
elsewhere. In a revealing pronouncement, John Ruskin took
great exception to some strands of contemporary painting
popular with the 'common' crowd that josded in front of the
print publishers on Pall Mall, King Street and the Strand,
and noted the decline of a wholesome output in painting
that was 'superceded, in the windows that stop the crowd, by
the thrilling attraction with which Doré, Gérôme, and
[Alma-] Tadema have invested the gambling table, the
duelling ground, and the [ancient Roman] arena'. None the
less, Alma-Tadema oversaw that his pictures were both satis-
factorily and profitably reproduced, and was accommodat-
ing in allowing more than twenty of them to be shown in his
retrospective at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1882, claiming in
part 'authorship' of the printed reproductions in his exhibi-
tion.
Alma-Tadema is remarkable for himself supplying paint-
ed replicas or reduced watercolour versions of his work for
reproduction. In addition, he often loaned photographs and
related drawings to his printmakers to clarify any 'difficult'
passages. This was an unusually generous gesture. Moore,
McQueen & Co. had, for example, commissioned Rebecca
Solomon to make a copy of Millais's Christ in the House of His
Parents (1849-50; Tate, London) for an engraving issued in
1866. Alma-Tadema was immensely proud of the reproduc-
tions after his work and Verhoogt has discovered that the
painter owned 33 framed photogravures and more than a
dozen etchings and engravings of his work, all signed by
him. This superb volume points to an interesting avenue of
research in which more remains to be done. Alma-Tadema's
commercial and critical reception in France, for example, is
one possible future focus. Daunting, though, is the path left
to follow in the wake of such accomplished research and
assured presentation
2. 'Obituary', The Times , 21 June 1888, p. 9.