The British Museum's Quest for Variety
Recent print acquisitions selected by the Curators: Hugo Chapman
Hugo Chapman is Simon Sainsbury Keeper of Prints & Drawings
Käthe Kollwitz Die Carmagnole
Thanks to the Campbell Dodgson’s bequest in 1949 the Museum has a marvellous group of prints by the artist, but Frances Carey during her planning of the UK touring show in 2017-20 of those holdings, Portrait of the Artist: Käthe Kollwitz, pointed out that were some still of her etchings which we ideally should have. This one, in which revolutionary Paris has a strongly Baltic feel, we managed to find in time to be included in the exhibition and the historian Max Egremont, who wrote an essay for the accompanying publication, generously paid for it.
Pierre François Tardieu Passe-partout border surround for five Jacques Callot etchings
We are always on the lookout for prints that tell a story of the inventiveness of printmakers and publishers in finding new ways of marketing their wares: sometimes successfully but often not. As told in Antony Griffiths’ The Print before Photography, the French publisher Jacques Fagnani was much derided for his attempt to extend the copyright of the stock of plates he had acquired by Jacques Callot and Stefano della Bella by arranging them in ornate decorative frames such as this one.
Anonymous Plan and Sections of a Slave Ship
This reminds me of a much missed ally, Karsten Schubert (1961-2019), as he had reserved it, with the aim of presenting it to us, when he caught sight of it at Andrew Edmunds’ gallery. He was, of course, absolutely right in thinking that this rare broadside detailing the horrors of the slave trade would be an important and much consulted addition, and true enough it’s now on view in the Enlightenment Gallery on the ground floor of the Museum.