Artwork Page for Specimens of Polyautography: Landscape with an Oak Tree

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Specimens of Polyautography: Landscape with an Oak Tree

1803

Thomas Hearne

(British, 1744–1817)
Culture
England, early 19th Century
Medium
lithograph
Credit Line
Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams Collection 1940.1124
Catalogue raisonné
Man 86
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

The first portfolio of artists’ lithographs was published in 1803, just five years after Alois Senefelder invented the medium in Munich in 1798. Entitled Specimens of Polyautography, the publication included twelve lithographs by British, French, German, and Swiss artists. Figures contemplating the landscape and atmospheric tree studies were dominant subjects among these early pen lithographs.
A vertically oriented lithograph depicts a gnarled oak tree leaning from the lower-left corner, its trunk and canopy deeply shaded with dense hatch marks. A large, jagged broken limb extends upward. In the lower-right background, a faint tower stands beside water with a small boat. Clusters of small flowers grow in the foreground, and the signature "Hearne 1805" is inscribed in the bottom right corner.

Specimens of Polyautography: Landscape with an Oak Tree

1803

Thomas Hearne

(British, 1744–1817)
England, early 19th Century

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