£200.00
Frank Short mezzotint titled ‘ Stonehenge at Day Break‘ made after a drawing by Turner. Printed in 1897 on wove with a water mark indicating that the paper is hand made. Signed in lower right margin by the artist in pencil. There is a small pigment in the paper which looks blue on the surface of the print and a scattering of foxing on verso, else very good.
Plate size 22 x 28.5cm (8.75 x 11.25 inches)
Sheet size 27.3 x 39cm (10.75 x 15.5 inches)
Turner intended the ‘Liber Studiorum’ to consist of 100 prints but only 71 were released during his lifetime. He did continue to work on potential prints for the ‘Liber’ after he had finished publishing the series. A number of related unfinished drawings and plates were found in his studio after his death.
The engraver Sir Frank Short (1857-1945) copied a selection of Turner’s original ‘Liber’ prints as a student. He later engraved plates based on Turner’s unfinished designs for the ‘Liber’. This print, ‘Stonehenge at Daybreak’, was made by Short in 1897 based on one of these designs.
The ‘Liber Studiorum’ illustrated Turner’s arguments for the supremacy of landscape painting. The title means ‘book of studies’ in Latin. It contained no written text, instead it was made up of individual mezzotint prints on paper. They were released in fourteen parts from around 1807 until 1819.
SHORT, Frank
Frank Short mezzotine ‘A Tribute to J. W.Muller’
£125.00
