Black & white rare prints revival

Black & white rare prints revival – where did they go?

My Antique Gallery of black and white rare prints is inspired by some amazing subjects captured in some very old antique books found in France dating 1893-1896 and 1888. I wish to share them as they are probably mostly extinct by now, or in some musty archive stashed away in a Museum, where it is difficult to access unless you happen to be in a capital city, or it takes far too long to spend a day just pondering over where exactly to look and find that special print that triggers…. I’m glad I have seen this one!!

1895 Les Carpes de Fontainebleau

Mostly they are by Artists who unfortunately we cannot read their signatures, are unknown, or now unheard of. The subjects are diverse, from the Romantic, Rustic, Child portraits, and detailed fashionable ladies of the times. Many of the paintings have detailed French captions underneath describing the image and the name of the person the event and the date.

Sometimes I wish they were in colour as they were originally painted, but the black and white prints have a certain clarity and are unique, as they may not be found exactly in this format anywhere but the source publication. The original books are with hard backed covers and the content pages are thin and discoloured. Also the reverse of the pages were also printed on, many with old printed music scores or text so they are difficult to scan as this may show through. By placing white paper underneath when scanning the images it makes a slight difference and they are now preserved on disc.

Romantic 1895 walking out

I know many people who prefer black and white lithographs and photographs over colour, so I hope this collection will prove to be popular.

1895 Artist H. Beamtot

When talking about drawings in black and white either pencil, pen and ink or even modern marker pens all have a strong impact. Very early fashion journals only had black and white images and some I have found are quite extraordinary. The best ones came in a large size slightly bigger than A 3.

Hot tip!! Search old antique books and publicity for a wealth of untapped images!