Sunlight on Stone; Caudebec-en-Caux
1931. Etching on watermarked antique laid J Whatman Japon paper, 14 1/2 x 7 5/8 inches ( 368 x 195 mm), full margins. Signed, dated and inscribed "II" in pencil in the lower margin. One of only 26 impressions of the second state (of 2), printed in 1931. With the John Taylor Arms ink stamp in black ink in the lower-center margin.
[Fletcher 241 II; French Church Series No. 31].
This magnificent etching was awarded the Mrs. Henry F. Noyes Prize, Society of American Etchers, 1931; the Carle Blenner Best Entry Prize, New Haven Paint and Clay Club, 1950; and the Best Print, Annual Exhibition, Arts and Crafts Association, Meridan, Connecticut, 1952.
Paper: Arms was typical of the artists of this period – he was obsessed with paper, a mania for collecting paper that could/would improve an edition. The quantity he left after his death, distributed by his wife to fellow artists, witnesses his love for finely made paper -paper interesting because of texture, color, distinctive weave. The earliest paper known to have been used by Arms came from a Baptismal Register Kirchen Ordnung, The Reformed Church, Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, 1708, bought in a bookshop in Philadelphia. His early prints, 1915-1919, evidence paper taken from old books with gilded edges. Some prints appear on stationary from the Cisalpine Napoleonic Italy, still bearing the estampe of the office or department; others carry penned ink page numbers, taken from old ledgers of the Eighteenth Century-all beautiful shades of grey, blue and green, handmade, ribbed and otherwise. Some of his color aquatints were printed on full sheets of heavy chine or Japanese vellum, giving a sense of luxury in the richness of the stock and the width of the margins. There was a myriad of modern papers gleaned in England, France, Italy and the United States.
– William Dolan Fletcher, A Man For All Times, p. 15.
Item number: 1036
Price: $2,500.00
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