Granville’s engraving, “Classical landscape in a circular format after Gaspar Poussin”, 1741

Granville (fl.1741–1757) after Gaspar Poussin (aka Gaspard Poussin; Gaspard Dughet; Gasparo Duche; Le Guaspre; Gaspre) (1615–75)

“Classical landscape in a circular format after Gaspar Poussin” (descriptive title only), 1741, from an album of 44 (?) engravings after Italian landscapes painted by Poussin, Lorrain, Rosa, Rembrandt, Coutois and Lauri, published by Charles Knapton (1700–42). Note that this impression is from the original 1741 edition and that a later restrike edition was published in 1806 (see BM’s restrike impression, no. 1977,U.19.17).

Etching with engraving on laid paper trimmed along the platemark and lined onto a support sheet of fine washi paper.

Size: (sheet) 36.9 x 34.1 cm; (image borderline) 33.7 x 33.4 cm; (tondo) 33.5 cm dia.

Lettered below the image borderline: (left) “Gaspar Poussin pinx. / Published July 20. 1741. by C. Knapton.”; (centre) “In the Collection of William Lock Esqr.”; (right) “Granville sculp. / 1 foot 8 inches: 1/2 diameter.”

Lifetime impression from the first edition of 1741. Note that there may be two states of this print as the description offered by the BM has a change to the inscription on the plate at the lower left from “Gaspar Poussin pinx.” (shown on this impression) to “Gaspar Dughet pinx.” (see BM no. 1977,U.19.17). This may, however, simply be an oversight in the BM's description.

Boisclair 1986 G.5 (Boisclair 1986, “Gaspard Dughet”, Paris)

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Landscape with five figures: two seated in the foreground, at centre, with trees at left; third figure reclining on the right; beyond a stream and a waterfall, with two figures and buildings on the left bank, and hill on the right bank; stretch of water in the distance; within circle. 1741”

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3022957&partId=1&searchText=Granville+william+lock&page=1 ).

The curator of the BM also offers a description of the album of prints in which this engraving features: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3315840&partId=1&searchText=1977,U.19.1.&page=1

See also the description offered by the Yale Centre for British Art regarding the album in which this print features:

“An album of engravings of Italian landscapes published by Charles Knapton and Arthur Pond, after paintings mostly by Gaspar Poussin but also several by Claude Lorrain and one each by Rosa, Rembrandt, Courtois, and Lauri, from various private collections including Sir Robert Walpole's; engraved by Vivares, Chatelain, Granville, James Wood, P.C. Canot, and J. Mason; published by Knapton in 1741-1742 and by Pond in 1742-1746." (http://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/2074127

Condition: richly inked lifetime impression trimmed along the platemark. The sheet is lined onto millennium quality washi paper. There are losses at corners of the sheet, but the missing corners have been replenished.

I am selling this spectacularly large, rare and sensitively executed engraving for the total cost of AU$155 (currently US$121.40/EUR103.15/GBP92.04 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this very beautiful print of the utmost rarity, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

Like the figures featured in Francisque Millet’s composition discussed in the previous post, here again the importance of the figures and what they might be doing is secondary to the expression of a grand view of landscape. What I am suggesting is not that the figures don’t play a role; they do. For instance, the two figures in the foreground are clearly there to “catch” the eye and the hand gesture of the figure on the right helps to direct attention into the pictorial depth of the scene. Instead, I am suggesting that any sense of a meaningful narrative triggered by the placement of the figures is of minor importance to the intention of showing the landscape itself as the conceptual point of the image. Indeed, this image created by Gaspar Poussin, the pupil and son-in-law of the great Nicholas Poussin, fits very well with the mould of other seminal works of the 17^th century where the idea that landscape as a subject in itself was taking hold.