Prints & Engravings Fine Art

Copper plate, black ink and a careful hand with watercolor. Antique engravings, etchings, lithographs and fine art prints here come from England, France, Italy and Cuba, from the 17th century to the present. Hand-colored engravings published in London in the 1830s and 1840s share drawers with framed English plates dated 1860. Prints after Sir William Hamilton’s collection of ancient vases, made in Naples around 1791, lay out Greek pottery in flat red and black.

A French engraving from around 1784 and Cuban serigraph posters from 1985 stretch the span. Contemporary work includes signed etchings from an edition of 25, an archival print by James Edward Scherbarth, and limited edition pigment prints of Shiva on a crescent moon, Shah Jahan, a goddess riding a carp and a pair of celestial tigers. Engravings look best hung in tight groups in a hallway or study, matted alike so the subjects can argue among themselves. Two centuries of ink, and still no smudges.