The Two Asses and Dundrum River

The Two Asses and Dundrum River

Dundee Art Galleries & Museum: 272-1987-108

Artist: Haden, Francis Seymour

Date: 1863

State: 2/2 | 2/4

Size: 15.2 x 22.9 cm

Medium: Etching | Etching and Drypoint

Details Etching & Etching with drypoint. Black ink on thin paper. The mount states that this print was created by printing the two plates on a single sheet of paper. The stamp at the bottom left is a British Penny Inland Revenue stamp. H. Nazeby Harrington states that Haden added this as a receipt to some of the Études à l’eau-forte subscribers. The inscription reads: ‘This plate is a part of the square one which follows it. Both were drawn under the mordant and afterwards cut. The balance would have been better preserved if the division had not been made, and if this white space had been filled in with strong work as intended. S.H.’
Description These scenes depict the banks of the river on the Viscount of Hawarden’s estate in South Tipperary, Ireland. These plates were originally intended as one before being separated and no impressions exist before division. Only a few rare examples exist where the two prints have been trimmed and mounted very closely on a single sheet of paper. Even rarer is where the plates were mounted closely together as a single print as in this example. Only two or three impressions are known.Frederick Goulding (1842-1909), Haden’s preferred printer in London, noted that:

In the December of this year [1866] I commenced the printing of two etchings by Seymour Haden which he used for illustrating an article in the Fine Arts Quarterly Review, published in 1867; and this was really the commencements of my printing his etchings. I see by my books that two thousand of each plate were printed, and wonder what became of them all. I do not think that very many were ever issued. They were printed at the Firm of Day and Son where I was still at work. The plates were really one large plate cut into two, one being titled ‘A River’s Bank,’ the other ‘The Two Donkeys.’ I never say a proof of the uncut plate, but I have a proof of the two plates printed together, on which Haden wrote – “To F. Goulding, with thanks for excellent printing” – and I have prized this proof ever since.

Martin Hardie, Frederick Goulding: Master Printer of Copper Plates. Stirling, Eneas MacKay, 1910, pp.52-3.
Catalogue Entry The Two Asses

  1. Philippe Burty, Catalogue of Haden’s Etchings in Études à l’eau-forte par M. Francis-Seymour Haden. Jules Claye, Paris, 1866 (53)
  2. Sir William Drake, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Francis Seymour Haden. London, Macmillan and Co., 1880. (43)
  3. H. Nazeby Harrington, The Engraved Work of Sir Francis Seymour Haden, P.R.E. Liverpool, Henry Young & Sons, 1910 (50)
  4. Richard S. Schneiderman, A Catalogue Raisonné of the prints of Sir Francis Seymour Haden. London, Robin Garton Ltd., 1983 (46A)

Dundrum River

  1. Sir William Drake, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Francis Seymour Haden. London, Macmillan and Co., 1880. (42)
  2. H. Nazeby Harrington, The Engraved Work of Sir Francis Seymour Haden, P.R.E. Liverpool, Henry Young & Sons, 1910 (49)
  3. Richard S. Schneiderman, A Catalogue Raisonné of the prints of Sir Francis Seymour Haden. London, Robin Garton Ltd., 1983 (46B)
Other Collections According to Richard S. Schneiderman, A Catalogue Raisonné of the prints of Sir Francis Seymour Haden. London, Robin Garton Ltd., 1983.The Two Asses

  1. Collection of Alexis Pencovic, San Francisco, California, USA
  2. British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London, England, UK
  3. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France
  4. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
  5. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  6. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
  7. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA
  8. Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, USA
  9. University of Michigan Museum of Art, Iowa City, Iowa University of Kentucky, University Art Museum, Lexington, Kentucky, USA
  10. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Dundrum River

  1. Collection of Alexis Pencovic, San Francisco, California, USA
  2. Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead, England, UK
  3. Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
  4. Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, USA
  5. Museum of Fine Art, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  6. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
  7. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA

Single impressions mounted together;

  1. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
  2. Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, USA
  3. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
  4. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA

 Two plates printed together on one sheet;

  1. Collection of Alexis Pencovic, San Francisco, California, USA

See Schneiderman for locations of other states.
References
  1. Rodney K. Engen, Dictionary of Victorian Engravers, Print Publishers and Their Works. Cambridge , Chadwyck-Heley, 1979
  2. Garton and Co., British Printmakers 1855-1955. Wiltshire, Garton and Co., 1992
  3. Kenneth M. Guichard, British Etchers 1850-1940. London, Robin Garton Ltd., 1977
  4. Martin Hardie, Frederick Goulding: Master Printer of Copper Plates. Stirling, Eneas MacKay, 1910
  5. Ian Mackenzie, British Prints: Dictionary and Price Guide. Woodbridge, Antique Collectors’ Club, 1998

 

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