JOAN MIRO — Original Mourlot Hand-Pulled Stone Lithograph printed on wove paper, it is the back cover of ” XXe Siecle #4″, published in 1954; edition size about 5,000, probably a few hundred circulating around nowadays, or far less, as a result of many of them falling into a permanent collection of a library, university or museum. A very rare original print with lots of early primitivism and strong paint strokes. The double “X” signifies the “twentieth century” aspect of the famous high-grade French art “magazine” of the Golden Age of Art. Condition is Extra-Fine.
Bidding Range: $950 – $1500
SIDE-NOTES: This is hard to find, and expensive to buy, with no hope of “fast turnover”. It may take years to sell a print in a gallery. There are some XXe Siecle originals on eBay, and a lot of things that people THINK are XXe Siecle that are also there. Some prints are as low as $30 bucks or so, when the seller is unaware of the value of the print, and when the artist is not as well-collected, highly valued or among the “Big Name Artists” like Rembrandt, Renoir, Chagall, Miro, Picasso, and Matisse. It’s not a good idea to seek out bargains in the art market. You pay for what you get, and you get what you pay for.
MARC CHAGALL — M. 946 DLM 235/vol iv. Original Hand-Pulled Stone Lithograph with letters (letters intact but framed out). Signed in the plate, lower right. Produced by Mourlot, Paris, edition of about 5,000. COVER of Derriere le Miroir (back of the mirror), October 1979. A hard to find original multiple that is seldom found in this fine a condition.
Bidding Range — $1500 -$3000
MARC CHAGALL M.603 — “Artist at the Village” — Hand-Pulled Original Stone Lithograph with letters, from Derriere le Miroir Vol IX, Maeght, Paris, 1969, edition of 5,000 printed on Arches Rives BFK engraving stock. A very desirable original litho with all the elements that Chagall collectors love. The big bold in-the-plate signature in red ink tells any visitor that it’s a Chagall. This print is in fabulous mint condition.
Bidding Range — $1500 – $3,000
MARC CHAGALL M.410 — “The Artist’s Bouquet”, Original Hand-Pulled Stone Lithograph. Printed on Wove paper 11″x15″ in Paris by Mourlot in 1964, this appeared as the cover of Derriere le Miroir #147. Apart from a hand-signed edition of 75, this print was pulled on the same day in the same manner on the same paper with the same stone blocks as the hand-signed version but with trimmed margins and letters overprinted.
Bidding Range — $1500 – $2250
SIDE NOTES: This is a hard-to-find Chagall in this price range and the subject matter is very desirable to a Chagall collector. It looks in-frame exactly like the pencil-signed version, but is many thousands of dollars less expensive for the same exact artwork. You can find several examples on eBay including a pencil-signed full-margin example at only $11,000, definitely a wholesale price.
AFTER PAUL GAUGUIN — “Te Arii Vahine – Woman of Royal Blood” — Posthumous 1943 re-issue of a very popular Gauguin woodcut in a limited edition of 250. This edition is very well documented and accepted. Your impression is beautifully and powerfully printed on
“Japan” rice paper. This very attractive print is an affordable alternative to the collector’s choice, which would be strictly lifetime impressions, but this print is ideally priced for the art lover who wants a Gauguin woodcut on their wall.
Bidding Range — $950 – $1200
SIDE NOTES — The Gauguin is a great name to put into an auction. It’s just as well if it doesn’t trade, as you will have trouble finding more Gauguin woodcuts. They are very popular.
HENRI MATISSE — “Profile Portrait” from de Montherlant’s “Pasiphae” — Hand-Pulled Linoleum Block-Print. The alternate blocks were not included in the 1944 edition, but Matisse hoped to publish them later. They were finally printed in 1981, under the direction of Marguerite Duthuit, daughter of Henri Matisse, using the same ink and paper as the 1944 edition. Matisse died in 1954, and these unpublished block prints were printed posthumously in an edition of 100, of which this is 30/100, so-marked in pencil, lower left. There is an Imprimatur ESTATE STAMP “HM” Embossed into the lower right of the picture area, readily identifying the print as authentic.
Bidding Range — $1,500 – $3,000
SIDE-NOTES: This is a horrifically expensive volume filled with tons of fabulous woodcuts. The price today, at $70,000 on the average, makes the cost per print rather exorbitant for most art dealers. You will see the more popular images selling between $2,000 and $4,500 for the most important of them, the so-called “embraces”, which is actually thinly-veiled antique porn. The portraits sell anywhere between $1500 and $3,000 typically, depending on the mood of the market and the amount of competition between buyers.
HENRI MATISSE — “The Kiss” from Matisse’s “Pasiphae” — Hand-Pulled Original Linoleum Block Print — The alternate blocks were not included in the 1944 edition, but Matisse hoped to publish them later. They were finally printed in 1981, under the direction of Marguerite Duthuit, daughter of Henri Matisse, using the same ink and paper as the 1944 edition. Matisse died in 1954, and these unpublished block prints were printed posthumously in an edition of 100, of which this is 30/100, so-marked in pencil, lower left. There is an Imprimatur ESTATE STAMP “HM” Embossed into the lower right of the picture area, readily identifying the print as authentic.
PABLO PICASSO — “Ballet Dancers” from Grace et Mouvement, 1943. Original Copperplate engraving in the only state, printed by Grosclaude on a double sheet of heavy cream Japon Imperial Paper. the double sheet has been kept intact within the frame environment. Of the highest quality possible, this does not exist in any other available form. It is from a total of 14 original engravings illustrating the poems of Sappho. This impression is number 80/100 of an edition of 100. Provenance; Richard Press Collection 1981. An almost unobtainable rarity because they are unknown as originals, to collectors and dealers alike.
Bidding Range — $1,500 – $3,000
SIDE NOTES: I have seen these sell for only a few hundred dollars, from people who have no clue what they are or that they are defintely listed as originals.
REMBRANDT HARMENSZ VAN RIJN — B.286 “First Oriental Head”. From the Basan Rembrandt plates, This is one of 118 heavily reworked etchings from a posthumous publication of Pierre François Basan’s original “Receuil”. This edition was probably published by Henri Louis Basan in Paris around 1810, after the death of his father. It is very strongly and dramatically printed, and would make a fine inexpensive alternative to the more collectible lifetime impression.
Bidding Range — $650 – $950
SIDE NOTES — Lifetime impressions of this plate could run very high — it is a very desirable plate (plate means “picture”). This is a “relaxation” piece in the sense that it takes off some pressure, if introduced in the 9th slot in an auction sale.
REMBRANDT HARMENSZ VAN RIJN — B.283 — “Lieven Willemsz van Coppenol, Writing Master”; the Larger Plate, Ninth State of Eleven, ix/xi. Etching with drypoint and burin, c. 1658 (B. , W/B. 283 vi/vi; H. 300; B/B. 58-F). Certified Authentic Basan or Jean impression, provenance, world-renowned Rembrandt expert, Theodore Donson. Full-sized plate prints are hard to find, and this is an exceptional example, compared to what is on the collector market at this time.
Bidding Range — $1,500 – $3,000
SIDE NOTES — I am only including the bidding ranges to give some guidance, some indication of what to expect from a generous buying crowd that knows at least a little about fine art. Most folks need explanations, but the art auction crowd seems to know what they’re doing and has a good idea of values, and a very good sense of the authenticity of the pieces.
HENRI MATISSE — “Reverie” — Hand-Pulled Original Lithograph from VERVE Vol I Number I, December 1937, edition of 5,000. Very unobtainable in today’s Matisse-hungry market, this portrait of a young girl is a very popular subject among Matisse collectors. Not available in any other original format. Verve 1/1 is almost unobtainable, a great rarity.
Bidding Range — $1850 – $2850
Matisse girls drawn in pencil or pen and transcribed to the litho stone block for printing are RARE and very very desired by all Matisse collectors. Do not be too quick to let go of this print — you may not find another in GREAT condition, as are all my prints. I never sell a “good” or “fair” print, not ever.
Can you find these prints on eBay for less? Sure you can, from folks who will outright tell you they found it in a thrift shop or grampa’s art collection, and don’t know anything about them, figuring a print is a print is a print, but they’d be wrong. Prints vary from popular offset prints that number in the high millions all the way to prints that happen only once, called “monoprints”. Somewhere in between those two extremes, there are etchings, engravings, woodcuts, linoleum cuts, stone lithographs and more.
The more you know about the print trade, the better you will do, and the more secure you will be in the reality and rarity of the prints you’re dealing. There’s always someone selling whatever you have for less, but they might not have any cost in the item, or it might be outright fake. Your prints are the best quality from the most reputable dealers in the business, Theodore Donson, Pamela Hatay Stratton, Pia Gallo, Associated American Artists, Pasquale Ianetti and a list a mile long of respected art dealers around the world.
I fully back up everything I sell, as do the dealers I mentioned. There is no other way to do business than to absolutely guarantee everything forever, and I do.
Good luck with your auctions and “back room” sales! Remember that nobody EVER sells off the gallery walls. The best deals are cooked up in the stock room, with messy piles of paintings and prints jammed clear up to the ceiling. Don’t leave an inch of room to walk around easily in, and no, I’m not kidding.
I’ll be doing demos of all the skills you’ll need for selling art prints, including the selling, mounting and presentation of prints.
You are NEVER STUCK with anything from me. If it fails to sell, return it and I’ll ship you another one just like it. That’s a joke from Groucho, and I found it irresistible. Fact is, you can trade these around dollar for dollar for anything else in my collection that you might like to try selling. Of course, you pay the postage for exchanges, but we will start trading JUST PAPER, so they can be shipped in a plain flat envelope, then hopefully I can show you how to do your very own framing — I promise, it’s a cinch, and takes very little time and energy, and is quite productive. You can get the mat cutter online or at any art store — it’s a Logan 40″ Artist’s Model, at about $180 as I recall. You’ll need some extra blades and some LINEN mounting tape for your most precious prints. Never use the dry-to-wet mucilage type of mounting hinges. The ones you want are instant-stick, hopefully heat-reversible.
Once you mount a print, it’s damaged forever, so a very high-priced print needs to be traded like rare coins and currency, with the greatest respect for age and condition.
I’ve posted these items so you can construct a catalog from the descriptions. Don’t alter the information — it’s legal documentation, in very specific languaging of the print, book, doll, miniature figuruine, action model, comic book and numismatic markets. If you can master one, you can master them all.
I’ve made a “lineup” of these prints, in the order in which I would sell them at public auction, allowing for the audience to warm up as we go, returning to pieces unsold at the end of the auction, to allow folks a second chance at them. This is where I make most of my sales, at the end of the auction.
Some folks will come up to you AFTER the auction and offer you prices lower than those that were bid on the floor and phone. It’s up to you, but I don’t like to encourage people to do this, so I tell them they can have the piece at the lowest side of the bidding range, or tell them to come back to the next auction — the unsold pieces will surely be in there somewhere, unless the audience is the same — and this time, how about making a bid?
Don’t think of shoveling prints out the door, but of helping people build truly interesting and affordable but VERY impressive collections that make it appear that they spent millions on their wall art.
Don’t forget that it’s impossible without a microscope to determine the state of a Rembrandt once it’s in a frame, except in a general way where the states are obvious. In most of the prints you will ever see, the state is hard to see without strong light and high magnification.
Print Dealing is NOT about money, it’s about art, so forget all the selling points for collectors who want a fast flip with a big fat profit — that won’t happen in today’s art market, but you can make a LOT of money by selling genuine collector’s prints, if you know the right collectors, because we have the BEST of the best. If you have an interested party in the $30,000 – $80,000 range, we can talk.
I have paintings, antiques, jewelry and ancient artifacts certified in the $35,000 – $150,000 range, and several NY auction house records to back those prices up. If you have ANY COLLECTIBLES around the house, look at them carefully, study them with a new eye, see if anything strikes a chord. We can raise ALL the money we need for the Ashram Project just by selling our art and antique unwanted junk items, things that you’ve been paying storage on for decades can now be GONE!!!
You can use the information above to create your own show or auction catalog, and of course to produce YOUR VERY OWN BRANDED Certificates of Authenticity. Don’t worry, it’s actually my guarantee. What I guarantee is that everything I sell is exactly as described, no ifs, ands or buts.
After an auction closes, all sales are final. If that were not the case, sales could still be reopened, and that causes repercussions in the accounting department. Reversing an auction sale deprives the underbidders and causes untold problems. People HAVE to be told again and again that all auction sales are final and not to bid unless they mean it.
In charity auctions, I encourage people to give more than what a piece is worth, pointing out that they haven’t donated anything until they get above the price obtainable at an ordinary eBay auction, which in all cases of the above prints is a price of $1,500 on the low range, and for the more important prints, well above that number.
Remember that YOU are capable of finding out the market on these prints by researching it, and keep in mind that ignorant sellers are out there, and in some cases, if you tell me which prints you’re interested in obtaining off of eBay or another selling site, after investigating their copy or impression, I might advise you to take a chance, or I might say it’s not a good deal. I do this as a friend, not professionally. If you want professional opinion, you have to pay for it, and I have several experts you can contact for that level of sophisticated art appraisal. I am a dealer, not an appraiser, so all my price information is from that standpoint.
Insurance appraisals will ALWAYS be higher than tax appraisals. Duh, I wonder why, don’t you? Speaking of insurance, you can add on lots of extras, such as fancy framing, and you should consider taking back any item at full value toward an upgrade item — I have made a LOT of upgrade sales by offering this and as a matter of fact, I do the same with just about anything I offer for sale or trade.
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See You At The Top!!!
gorby