39. Charles F. W. Mielatz
(1864-1919)
The Old Bridge

(click on image to print)
Mielatz, The Old Bridge

The Old Bridge

Etching and drypoint, 1888, 280 x 495 mm. Fine impression in black-brown, with varied plate tone, on simili-japon paper with full, large margins and signed in pencil. For those who know the later etchings of Mielatz of urban, particularly New York, scenes, this print will come as a surprise. Neither in style nor in subject matter is there much connection. This is a work in the prevalent American style of the Eighties, like those of the artists listed above. A very large number of artists espoused this style, some better, some worse, but one could say that this was the quintessential American drawing room picture of the time. Mielatz was no slouch at it, and exhibits here a rather rare (in this métier) sense of humor in that the remarque he placed in the lower margin is a life-size house fly, which might, by the casual observer, be thought suitable for swatting.