Claude Mellan’s engraving, “Country Scene with a Peasant, Cow and Calf”, c1650

Claude MELLAN (1598–1688)

“Country Scene with a Peasant, Cow and Calf”, c1650. (Note that the British Museum and other repositories—including Montaiglon’s catalogue raisonné—do not attribute a date to this print and my attribution is based solely on the idea that the style of the swelling lines employed suggest a date after Mellan’s “Sudarium of Saint Veronica.”)

Engraving on laid paper trimmed along the image borderline and backed with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 13.8 x 19.6 cm

Inscribed on plate: (left of centre at lower edge) “C. Mellan G. F.'”

State ii (of ii)

Montaiglon 540.375; BN XVII.171.283 ii/ii (Anatole de Montaiglon 1856. “Catalogue raisonne de l'oeuvre de Claude Mellan d'Abbeville” Abbeville, P Briex, p 256; this publication is available online at archive.org and may be downloaded free of charge: https://archive.org/details/catalogueraisonn00mont_0/page/254); IFF 283.II (Inventaire du Fonds Français: Bibliothèque Nationale, Département des Estampes, Paris, 1930).

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“Country life scene, with young man tossing grains in a winnowing basket, cow, veal [sic], cat and rooster” (https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1349056&partId=1&searchText=mellan&page=1)

See also the description of this print at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:  https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/393373?searchField=All&sortBy=Relevance&who=Mellan%2c+Claude%24Claude+Mellan&ft=*&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=16

Condition: crisp impression trimmed along the image borderline and laid upon a conservator’s support sheet of washi paper. The upper tip of the left corner is restored otherwise sheet is in excellent condition for its considerable age (i.e. there are no tears, folds, holes, stains or foxing).

I am selling this remarkably well-preserved engraving of great rarity by Claude Mellan—the engraver famous for his masterpiece, “Sudarium of Saint Veronica” [Veil of St Veronica], inscribed with a single spiralling line—for the total cost of AU$320 (currently US$226.07/EUR199.62/GBP226.99 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world (but not, of course, any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries).

If you are interested in purchasing this exceptionally rare and very beautiful print with a curiously perched cat near a crowing rooster, 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