BACKGROUND HISTORY ON PRINT : Louis XIV, the King of France, was a generous patron of the arts. During his long reign (1643-1715), he sought to raise standards of taste and sophistication in the Arts and so a number of royal academies were founded, including the Academy of Painting and Sculpture (1648), the Academie de France in Rome (1663) and the foundation of the Academie royale d'Architecture (1671). This formalized a system for the training of French architects and by elevating artisans to academicians, the power of the medieval guilds was eroded and centered instead on the patronage of the king. Subsidized by the state, the Academy of Architecture was free to those, aged fifteen to thirty, who could pass the entrance examinations. By the nineteenth century, students were obliged to complete a number of increasingly demanding concours or competitions, the most prestigious of which was the Grand Prix de Rome, a rigorous annual examination (a first competition was in 1702, then 1720, then yearly) that provided the winner advanced study at the French Academy in Rome at the Villa Medici, where classical antiquities could be seen first hand. Although drawings of ancient classical ornament had been made for generations before the winners of the Grand Prix de Rome were sent to the Villa Medici, these young French students were the first to go about the work systematically. The drawings were limited to, and solidly based on, carefully studied remains. Further, their presentation in formal academic renderings offers more information than could possibly be supplied even by a large number of photographs. Each year, for the four or five years they were in Rome, the students, supported financially with pensions, (hence their name of pensionnaires) were required to produce two sets of drawings, or envois, of Rome's ancient and medieval monuments: the état actuel, which was an exacting representation of the extant state, documenting the site with the precision of an archaeologist, and the état restauré, a more imaginary and often idealized restoration including the rendering of shade and shadow, which was accompanied by a written description of the monument's antiquity and construction. The artists progress usually was from a study of architectural ornaments and fragments gradually moving towards study and design of whole architectural ruins or sites. The series of prints presented here are those of the artist's earlier years when they focused on the details of architectural ornament.

The drawings submitted for the annual Grand Prix de Rome were on themes chosen by the Academy. The subjects set are indeed grand in scale and often in reach: triumphal arches (1730, 1747, 1763), palaces (1752, 1772, 1791, 1804, 1806), city squares and markets (1733, 1792, 1801), town halls (1742, 1787, 1813), law courts (1782, 1821) museums (1779) and educational institutions including libraries (1775, 1786, 1789, 1800, 1807, 1811, 1814, 1815, 1820) - all schemes for the promotion of civilization as the ancients would have understood the term. Stylistically, the entries usually share common characteristics: a grand Roman manner, with columns and orders, vaults and polychromy; an insistent and regular geometry, usually the square or the circle but sometimes the triangle; a penchant for the hemicycle, the propylaea and the pyramid; and finally a desire to impress by symmetry and the contrast between plain and decorated surfaces. These drawings first were shown in Rome at the French Academy and then were forwarded to Paris to be shown to the members of the Academie des Beaux Arts, one of the constituent bodies of the Institut de France, which was responsible for the Rome Academy. They were also exhibited to the public in Paris. Hector D'Espouy (1854-1929) won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1884, and after four years as a student at the Villa Medici, followed by several years of travel in Italy and Greece, as well as commissions for murals, he returned to the school that educated him in 1895 as the Professor of Ornamental Design at the Ecole Des Beaux Arts. It was in this role for the next several years that he amassed a large collection of the work of the students in Rome and the prints here are the best examples of this work.

Appreciation of these drawings cannot be complete without some explanation of the technique of India Ink wash rendering. Extreme discipline is required to produce these finely studied works of art. Even the simplest drawings require painstaking care and preparation before any of the washes are applied. Great skill is required to do the neccesary linework. All of the information must be recorded before tone is even thought about. The drawing is then meticulously transferred in ink to the watercolor paper and the paper mounted on a board. The rendering itself requires infinite care and patience. Each tone is built up through many faint layers of wash so that the ink seems to be in the paper rather than on it. Each surface is graded so that the final effect of the drawing is that of an object in light and space, with a sense of atmosphere surrounding it.

PRINT DATE: This print was printed circa 1905; it is not a modern reproduction in any way.

PRINT SIZE: Overall print size is 12 inches by 16 1/2 inches including white borders.

PRINT CONDITION: Condition is excellent as shown in this detailed scan. Blank on reverse. Paper is quality woven rag stock.

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Please note: the terms used in our auctions for engraving, etching, heliogravure, lithograph, , plate, photogravure etc. are ALL prints on paper, and NOT blocks of steel or wood. A Heliogravure, also called a 'photo engraving', is a photo-mechanical reproduction process and describes a technique of etching copperplate engravings: after "Asphaltkorn" is dusted and than melted on the copperplate, a so-called chrome gelatin copy will be pressed on it. A chrome gelatine copy is a pigment paper that was exposed to a transparency of the original. After being processed in warm water the pigment paper can be removed. This way the gelatin relief sticks to the copperplate, which now is etched in an iron chlorine solution. In the places where the gelatin film is the thinnest, the places which were most intensively exposed in the step described precedently, the etching is the strongest; correspondingly in the places which were better protected by the gelatin the etching is less. This describes the process how the shades of the reprint are produced. The reproductive process of the Heliogravure makes a photo-like richness of shades, well run transitions and rich depths full of nuances possible. This is how the Heliogravure guarantees very real printing results that reproduce the character of the original. The reprint is made with a copper printing press. The warmed plate is colored by rubbing in the printing colors with a ball made of felt. Afterwards the surface is given a wipe with a "Musselin" tissue so that the color will only remain in the depressions. If it is a colored print the colors of the original will be applied to the plate in the process described above. Very rarely more than one colored plate is used. Finally the plate and a handmade paper is pulled through the printing press. The paper had been moistened for better flexibility and even absorption of the colors in the depressions of the plate. The whole process makes great demands on the printer and has to be repeated with every single reprint (so no mass production is possible !)

EXTREMELY RARE TO FIND IN THIS EXCELLENT CONDITION!