L'Alexandre Noir, Kerner Hand Colored Grape Engraving, circa 1811
€ 1 120
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
circa 1811
Mapmaker / artist
Johann Simon von Kerner
Publisher
Johann Simon von Kerner, Stuttgart
Technique
Stipple engraving
Coloring
Original hand color
Sheet size
59.5 × 48.2 cm (23.4 × 19.0 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-14458-8
What the condition grades mean
Excellent
Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good
Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good
Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair
Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Condition
Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom and top edges. Scattered foxing in the margin. All four corners complete. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the bottom and right.
About this sheet
This antique stipple engraving, finished by hand in watercolor and body color, of the grape variety L'Alexandre Noir comes from Johann Simon von Kerner's Le Raisin, ses especes et varietes, made at Stuttgart about 1811. The sheet shows the largest composition of the group: a stout cane at the left, a broad five lobed leaf worked in deep green and olive, and a long heavy bunch of blue black grapes falling the full depth of the sheet, with two single berries, one whole and one cut, placed beside it.
This sheet comes from Johann Simon von Kerner's Le Raisin, ses especes et varietes, Stuttgart, about 1811. Kerner was born at Kirchheim in 1755 and died at Stuttgart in 1830, and he spent his working life painting plants for the Wuerttemberg court in a wine growing country. The sheets are printed on wove paper watermarked C and I Honig, the Dutch paper that European artists of the period bought for work they intended to last.
The long heavy bunch and the modeling of the bloom on the individual berries, laid in body color over the transparent washes, make this one of the strongest sheets from the work. The medium is a stipple engraving finished by hand in watercolor with gouache. The transparent washes carry the leaf and the flesh of the fruit, and the opaque body color is reserved for the bloom on the dark berries and for the highlights on the cane, which is the finishing a trained botanical colorist of the period gave a plate worked from the living plant. It hangs beautifully singly above a sideboard, and two or three sheets from the work on one wall give a dining room or a hallway the kind of botanical sequence that is almost impossible to assemble from loose plates at this scale.
Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom and top edges. Scattered foxing in the margin. All four corners complete. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the bottom and right.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
