Adamsz. Bolswert’s etching (with engraving), “Farmhouses”, 1614

Adamsz. Bolswert (aka Boëtius Adamsz. Bolswerd) (1580–1633)

“Farmhouses”, 1614, plate 5 from the series of 20 plates, “Landscapes with Farmhouses”, after a drawing by Abraham Bloemaert (aka Abraham Bloemaart) (1564–1651) held in the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. (See the complete series in the British Museum nos. D,7.112-129 and D,7.162)

Etching with engraving on fine laid paper trimmed outside the image borderline with thread margins

Size: (sheet) 15.1 x 24.4 cm

Numbered on plate within the image borderline to the right of shading at the left corner: “5” (almost completely erased).

Roethlisberger 1993 234 (Marcel Roethlisberger & Marten Jan Bok 1993, “Abraham Bloemaert and his sons: Paintings and prints”, 2 vols, Ghent, cat. no. 234, pp. 196–7); Hollstein 342

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Plate 5: Farmhouses. Landscape with a man seen from behind in central foreground and carrying two buckets, a house with thatched roof beyond, some large jugs lying around; after Abraham Bloemaert.”

(http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3058305&partId=1&people=132004&peoA=132004-2-23&page=1)

See also the description of the print at the Rijksmuseum: http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.collect.84304

Condition: crisp, well-printed, museum-quality impression in pristine/faultless condition (i.e. there are no tears, holes, folds, abrasions, stains or foxing), trimmed outside the image borderline with thread margins.

I am selling this superb impression of an exceptionally rare print, for the total cost of AU$287 (currently US$224.80/EUR186.29/GBP165.72 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this marvellously expressive mannerist landscape revealing a vision of landscape forms so soft that they seem shaped like clay, 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

This image of farmhouses is far from an everyday way of looking at them. They are what I wish to describe as “special.”

I can envisage that a viewer could see this print by Bolswert as simply a well-executed copy of his former master’s—Abraham Bloemaert’s—drawing. From my way of looking at the linework, however, this is not the case. Bolswert’s lines have a uniquely personal, signature-like, quality to them. In short, this print is not a line-for-line copy of the original drawing based on close observation, but rather it is a translation of what Bolswert saw in Bloemaert’s drawing by the sense of touch. In short, Bolswert has reshaped this rural scene like a blind person might model the form of how each featured subject “feels” like in terms of tactile (haptic) sensory experience.