Desseins des Meilleurs Peintres des Païs-Bas, d'Allemagne et d'Italie; du Cabinet de Monsieur Gérard Joachim Schmidt à Hambourg Gravés d'Après les Originaux de Même Grandeur par Jean Théophile Prestel, Peintre
Prestel, Johann Gottlieb
Vienna. Chez Artaria & Compl. 1779
Sold
First and only edition of Prestel's profoundly ambitious print series reproducing Old Master drawings in original size and with accurate colour.
Johann Gottlieb Prestel (1739 - 1801) was an outstanding engraver who had developed his own process, similar to aquatint, for the production of engraved plates after original drawings. Prestel's reproductions offered a very high level of accuracy of line as well as colour and the book's production is designed to give the effect of an original drawing. The drawings represented here, all from the collection of the little-known Hamburg merchant Gerhard Joachim Schmidt (1742 - 1801), are by Raphael, Rubens, Domenichino, Michelangelo and van Dyck among others (a full and detailed list is available on request).
Prestel, who had travelled in Italy in the 1760s, living in Rome and Venice, married his most promising pupil Maria Katharina Höll (1747 - 1794) and the plates in this collection are engraved by one or the other (several are signed in the plate). The first plates were issued in 1775 after the pair had settled in Nuremberg although they were not at first successful and Prestel was bankrupt by 1782. A move to Frankfurt, financed by Prestel's patron H. S. Hüsgen, proved more successful and further plates were issued in 1782 - 1784. A copy of the present work was advertised in 1781 in the Journal zur Kunstgeschichte for 20 Gulden with 12 plates as a complete set; the additional plates from Frankfurt are present in this copy which explains the difference in dating to the title. Financial difficulties caused Prestel's wife to leave him in 1786, moving to London with their children, where she established herself as a successful female engraver.
Prestel's work is necessarily rare and OCLC locates only the copy in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.
Johann Gottlieb Prestel (1739 - 1801) was an outstanding engraver who had developed his own process, similar to aquatint, for the production of engraved plates after original drawings. Prestel's reproductions offered a very high level of accuracy of line as well as colour and the book's production is designed to give the effect of an original drawing. The drawings represented here, all from the collection of the little-known Hamburg merchant Gerhard Joachim Schmidt (1742 - 1801), are by Raphael, Rubens, Domenichino, Michelangelo and van Dyck among others (a full and detailed list is available on request).
Prestel, who had travelled in Italy in the 1760s, living in Rome and Venice, married his most promising pupil Maria Katharina Höll (1747 - 1794) and the plates in this collection are engraved by one or the other (several are signed in the plate). The first plates were issued in 1775 after the pair had settled in Nuremberg although they were not at first successful and Prestel was bankrupt by 1782. A move to Frankfurt, financed by Prestel's patron H. S. Hüsgen, proved more successful and further plates were issued in 1782 - 1784. A copy of the present work was advertised in 1781 in the Journal zur Kunstgeschichte for 20 Gulden with 12 plates as a complete set; the additional plates from Frankfurt are present in this copy which explains the difference in dating to the title. Financial difficulties caused Prestel's wife to leave him in 1786, moving to London with their children, where she established herself as a successful female engraver.
Prestel's work is necessarily rare and OCLC locates only the copy in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum.
[31 unnumbered leaves]. Folio. (615 x 445 mm). Leaf with engraved calligraphic title and 30 engraved plates, the majority with additional aquatint, each printed recto only to a single leaf with wash borders and manuscript captions in sepia ink or printed title beneath each plate, one plate (number 28) with printed title label to verso. (Sheet size: 610 x 430 mm). Contemporary paper-backed blue paste boards.
#43001
