A bouquet in a brown urn

Book Description

Etching printed in colors. Inscribed upper right: 134. 6¼ x 4½ inches; on a sheet 14½ x 8¼ in. (uneven). 16 3/4 x 11 3/4 (mount). Johannes Teyler (1643 - before 1709) was born and lived in Nijmegen, Holland, where he was an engineer, draughtsman and mathematics teacher. He must have been well thought of since his career entailed extensive and extended journeys all over Europe, including tutoring at several courts. Additionally, he was an experimental printmaker specializing, with spectacular success, in developing a technique of printing line etching in colors. This quest was at the time at the leading edge of printing development, with many printers in England, France, Italy and elsewhere experimenting and publishing treatises. Teyler's prints are distinguished by their delightfully bright palette, which contrasts with the murkier achievements of his rivals. In 1688 he was awarded a 25-year patent on his technique by the States of Holland and West Friesland. Teyler's prints are extremely rare and known principally through albums in public collections: an album of 185 prints in the British Museum; 142 prints in Amsterdam, and collections in Berlin and Washington, DC (Library of Congress: Lessing Rosenwald Collection). He appears to have printed very few impressions from each plate, and not all the plates were etched by him; Teyler was content to print from plates made by others, which he either borrowed or purchased.

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