Swann April 28 Auction = Old Master Print Connoisseurship Opportunity

Visiting the Fogg Museum on Harvard’s campus years ago I experienced an opportunity heretofore unmatched! After donning the white gloves, the requested 19th century impression of the “same” Rembrandt print was placed on a table in front of me BESIDE a treasured lifetime impression. As my eyes “pingponged” between the two examples, the difference in lines, shading, emphasis, quality became both immediately and not so immediately apparent.

Don’t have time to visit a print study room offering this level of opportunity? Spend $40 for Swann auction house’s April 28, 2011 catalogue titled Old Master Through Modern Prints.

Lot 86

Lot 83

Lot 85

Lot 83 is estimated to sell for $30,000 – $50,000

Lot 85 is estimated $8,000 – $12,000

Lot 86 is estimated $7,000-$10,000

Lot 83 represents state 7 of 9 identified by Biorklund.

Lot 85 is state 9 of 9 by Biorklund

Lot 85 is state 9 of 9 by Biorklund

It mostly boils down to quality of impression and rarity of same, where Lot 83 still shows evidence of Rembrandt’s intended drypoint.

This auction catalogue acknowledges all the books print collectors and academics rely on strictly with respect to Rembrandt’s etchings.  Most are out of print:

• Biorklund’s  Rembrandt’s Etchings  True or False
• Usticke’s  G.W. Nowell-Usticke Rembrandt’s Etchings States and Values
• White and Boon  Rembrandt’s Etchings (2 volumes)
• Hind     Arthur Hind  A Catalogue of Rembrandt Etchings

You can visit Swann’s online catalogue at www.swanngalleries.com, but this is a great catalogue for your library.  It addresses collector marks as well as watermarks too.

Corinne Cain of www.SavvyCollector.com

(I do not have financial ties to Swann’s auction house or any other auction house)