The Sunday round-up on ebay

                                                                           

 

If you thought it was only other people who had a problem with German or Austrian handwriting, here is a dealer from Bavaria who failed on E Consentius. I had completely forgotten that Gerrie Caspers had posted on Elisabeth Consentius last June (I can't get the link to work) and had to deciper and search all over again. But Summer was worth it, the drawback being there is no PayPal only bank transfer. There is some bidding because people will know who it is but how far it will go is another matter. It will be interesting to see. (Bear in mind that all these prints are up for auction on ebay in either Austria or Germany).

                                                                                       

This Franz von Zulow is less straightforward. In many ways I prefer this print to his more elaborate work. He patented a form of stencil cut some time before LH Jungnickel began using a similar technique but here he comes up with a woodcut where the colour was almost certainly applied by hand, which to my mind makes it alot less interesting. The print is also in rather poor condition but this will keep the price down so if you fancy a von Zulow, this is an opportunity. Unfortunately, other bidders are thinking much the same thing.

The fact that this woodcut by the philosopher-printmaker Emma Bormann isn't signed at all will also help to keep the price down. It depicts a view across the Bosphorus, probably showing the Semsi Pasa mosque on the Asian shore with Galata or Karakoy in the foreground. The Istanbulus are as fond of views as Bormann was, hence the tea-garden and the houses and flats growing ever higher. Funnily enough, Bormann doesn't always fetch the prices you might think.  I suspect this will look pretty good to the person who opens the package. More importantly, though, we must wait and see whether Klaus has anything to say about Bormann's astonishing use of colour.

Keeping the most intriguing to the last, we come to Walther Klemm's Junge Hunde - intriguing because this isn't the print we tend to see. I believe the woodcut with fewer colours that comes up quite often was professionaly printed in a larger edition. If my memory serves me correctly, Klemm and Thiemann were both working with a print publisher in Vienna around 1906/1907 but what you see here may well be a proof pulled by Klemm himself. This is where a signature does count. I like this alot more than the brown version (below). The bright colours are true to Klemm's work at the time. They can look crude but striking when you see them. I unexpectedly came face to face with Turkeys a few weeks ago and I will tell you now, it looked sensational. So, if I were spending money, I think I would spend it on this.