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Framed and on the wall
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Unknown Military Officer in Uniform, Original Antique Lithograph, 1870
£140
$185 · €165
Original print, not a reproduction.
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- Date
- 1870
- Technique
- Lithograph
- Condition
- Good. Good condition for its age. Foxing and light staining to the margins; a small purple star stamp in the lower left margin and a small dark spot in the lower margin. The image is clean. Please review the images for further condition details.
- Collection
- Uniforms & regiments
- Era
- 1816 to 1899, Empire and industry
- Stock no.
- BG-14343-46
An original antique lithograph portrait of an unidentified military officer in uniform, 1870. The sitter is not named on the sheet.
Prints of this kind were issued in their own day for a wide public of collectors, readers and admirers, and where no name is attached they are collected for the quality of the drawing, the character of the face and the hand of the maker.
Lithography was invented by Alois Senefelder in Munich in 1796, and within a generation it had become the favourite medium for the portrait print across the German speaking lands, Austria and France. The artist drew directly on the stone, so a lithographed portrait keeps the softness and immediacy of a chalk drawing, and the portrait lithographers of Vienna, Munich, Dresden and Paris produced likenesses of statesmen, clergy, scholars and private citizens in great numbers between the eighteen twenties and the eighteen sixties.
This sheet comes from a gathering of portraits from across Europe and across two and a half centuries, in engraving, etching and lithography. Portrait prints have been collected in their own right since the eighteenth century, when James Granger's Biographical History of England of 1769 set off a fashion for illustrating books with portraits of the people named in them, and they are still collected today for the sitter, for the maker and for the face itself.
A single portrait frames well in a narrow moulding with a generous mat, and a group of them hung together, whether by period, by profession or simply by the strength of the faces, makes one of the most satisfying walls there is for a study, a library, a landing or a dining room.
The sheet is in good condition for its age, with foxing and light staining in the margins and a small collector stamp; the lithographed portrait itself is clean.
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.
