'A Watergate in Venice' - by Joseph Pennell (1857-1926))
Etching. Signed in pencil
Plate Measures 29 by 20 cms
Good condition. Unmounted
Joseph Pennell was an American artist and author who spent most of his working life in Europe, portraying architectural subjects in etchings, pen-and-ink drawings, and lithographs and was one of the major book illustrators of the age. In 1884, he left his native Philadelphia for England, having received a long term commission from the American Century magazine to provide illustrations of London and Italy, together with the French and English Cathedrals. This commission firmly established Pennell as an Anglo-American artist and introduced both he and his wife, the writer Elizabeth Robins Pennell, to new connections such with writers H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James and George Bernard Shaw as well as painters John Singer Sargent, William Morris and James McNeill Whistler. Pennell taught at the Slade School of Art and also, for a time, was an official war artist sketching munitions sites in the North of England at the invitation of Prime Minister, Lloyd George. In a productive career as an artist, Joseph Pennell made over 1800 prints, many as illustrations for magazines and books of prominent authors. After the War, the Pennells returned to America where Joseph continued to work on various projects until his death in 1926.