Vintage / Antique? lithograph

My favourite lithograph, but I love everything done by Paul de Longpre’ . I have three of his prints, but this is the oldest I’ve been trying to track this one down it has a different texture to it. It almost looks like a watercolor. I did trace where the lithograph was made. Montague Marks who was an artist living in New York. There was an interesting article speaking about him, trying to start up and stir up some interest with other artists for producing lithographs. It didn’t seem to takeoff at that time but obviously this one was produced I’d like to find some more information on it, it does have a date on it of 1893 and it is titled “Poppies” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_de_Longpr%C3%A9 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montagu_Marks Prints in the United States, 1900-1918
Reba White Williams
The progress of printmaking in the United States
Even at the height of the late nineteenth-century
has not been an orderly one, with a gradual growth in passion for prints, American artists showed little inter-the number, the types and the quality of prints pro- est in lithography. In 1896 Montague Marks, editor of duced. Instead, American printmaking has been the Art Amateur, tried to establish an American Society episodic, with periods of enthusiasm and excitement, of Painter-Lithographers, but he inspired only a hand-followed by a decline in interest, and even indiffer-ful of artists to attempt lithography, and only a few of ence. For example, many American artists made etch- their efforts were successful.' In any event, even if a ings in the late 187os and 188os, but by the 18gos the large number of artists had wished to make lithographs, craze was over. A combination of factors caused the it would not have been possible, for there were no litho-death of the passion for etching, including the lack of graphers in the United States willing to work with talented etchers' and the public's demand for the new artists. The few artists who made lithographs, made and novel. As Joseph Pennell wrote in 1895, 'There them in Europe.' was a period of great activity in American etching a
Thus, at the turn of the century, the art of print-
few years ago . . . however, this brief, spontaneous making in the United States was at a low ebb. When movement . .. seems rather to have spent itself and
American print collectors bought prints, they were by
America, like so many other countries, is waiting for European artists, or American imitations of European something new to turn up*?
works. The artists making prints in the United States
Wood-engraving suffered a similar fate. In the 18gos were, for the most part, second-generation (and and 188os several American wood-engravers - second-rate) etchers - followers of Whistler - whose Timothy Cole (1853-1931), Frederick Juengling European landscape subjects and architectural studies (1846 8g), William B. Closson (1848-1926), Elbridge satisfied the tastes of conservative American collectors.
Kingsley (1843-1918), and Henry Wolf (1842-1916) -
There were, of course, a few exceptions, of whom
were famous, both for the quality of their engravings, the most outstanding was Arthur Wesley Dow and for their attempts to turn wood-engraving, a (1857-1922), who in 18g had begun to make colour reproductive craft, into an original art form, with woodcuts (fig, go). In 1895, about 200 of these were signed and limited editions. But by the turn of the cen- shown at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the first tury, technological change had all but ended the use of exhibition of colour woodcuts by an American.' But wood-engravings in magazines such as The Century and making them was tedious and time-consuming, since Harpers, and few artists were willing to learn this art Dow, unlike Japanese artists, was forced to cut his own without the possibility of publication. Wood-engrav- blocks, and compensated for this by making tiny ing, even more than etching, went into dormancy.' prints: he inspired few followers.'
1. Carl Zigrosser opined that the numerous etchings clubs of the
18gos were short-lived because most of the etchers were so poor:
Prints and Their Creatoes: A World Histery, New York 1937, p. go.
2. Quoted by Edgar Breitenbach, 'Graphic Arts', in American Graphics and Painting in the Late Nineteenth Century', Archises of American Art Journal, ix/3. July 1gig, p. 23.
For an introduction to the 'New School of Wood Engraving'.
J. Watrous, A Cmiary of Ammican Pintmating, 1880-1?80,
Madison, WI 1984, pp. 20-26.
F. Weitenkampf, American Lithography of the Present Day', International Studio, xaVIl, December 1930, Pp. 39-43, 10.
Weitenkampf wrote that only two artists inspired by Marks made works of real significance: two female portraits by J.
Alden Weir, and On the Scene by H. W. Ranger. Joseph Pennell in Lishegraphy and Lichagraphers, New York 1915, p. 222, wrote that on the occasion cited above by Weitenkampf,
'Lithographs
were made by J. C. Beckwith, Alden Weir, H. W. Ranger, F Hopkinson Smith, J. Lauber, James G. Brown, Ruger Donobo, and Cleveland Coxe. But these were experiments, and except for the work of H. W. Ranger, have little quality? American artists" lack of interest in artistic lithography may have been party the resalt of the huge number of commercial chro-molithographs produced between 18go and 1goo. See P. C.
Marzio, The Democratic Art: Pidures for a sgth-Century Ammica, Boston 1979.
3. For more on this topic, see C. Adams, Crayonstone: The Life and Work ef Bolton Breum, Albuquerque 1993, and J. Flint, Porincetoun Minters, A Hoodout Tradition, Washington, D.C. 1983.
6. N.B. Green, Arthar Wesley Dose and His Infamca, exhibition cata-logue, Ithaca, New York, Herbert E. Johnson Museum of Art, 1990, p. 10.
7. One exception was Eliza Draper Gardiner, who saw Dow'
1895 exhibition, and, as a result, successfully taught herself how to make her own woodblock prints; Green, op el, p. 14.
PRINT QUAKTERLY, XIV, 1997, 2