383 - Jacques Callot - Les Misères de la guerre - 14

Jacques Callot - Les Misères de la guerre - 14 Description: A good second state with the number bottom left corner, but before the change of the publishers address. Signed: Israel ex. Cum Privil Reg. Les misères et les malheurs de la guerre -The Miseries and Misfortunes of War - Public execution of a man on a high platform condemned to the wheel, with a fortified city in the background. The 14th plate of the world known series (18 plates) , the masterpiece of Jacques Callot. With the words of Lieure: 'one of the most beautiful works of callot of those known, admired and sought after worldwide. And this work will always be in fashion because it is universal, experienced in all times and in all countries.' Dimensions: 8,20 x 18,70 cm Condition: A good, well-detailed impression on dense laid paper, with the full plate mark and margins. Tipped at the upper center to a support sheet. In excellent condition, with no folds, tears, or stains Literature: Lieure 1927 1352. II / III --- Meaume 1860 577 II . Les Grandes Misères de la guerre or The Miseries and Misfortunes of War are a series of 18 etchings by French artist Jacques Callot (1592–1635), titled in full Les Misères et les Malheurs de la Guerre. Despite the grand theme of the series, the images are in fact only about 83 mm × 180 mm each, and are called the "large" Miseries to distinguish them from an even smaller earlier set on the same subject.The series, published in 1633, is Callot's best-known work and has been called the first "anti-war statement" in European art. . Les Grandes Misères depict the destruction unleashed on civilians during the Thirty Years' War; no specific campaign is depicted, but the set inevitably recalls the actions of the army that Cardinal Richelieu sent in 1633 to occupy Callot's native Lorraine before annexing it to France. Callot was living in the capital, Nancy, at the time, though the prints were published, like most of his work, in Paris, with the necessary royal licence. The plates still exist, in a museum in Nancy, as do seven drawings of whole compositions, and many tiny studies for figures, with a large group in the Hermitage Museum. Medium: Etching Date: 1633