Description
View of Pisa by Probst, original engraving hand watercolored.
This view of Pisa is part of a series of perspective views that Frederick Probst made of many cities. You can find several of these in our collection. Interesting are the title reproduced as on parchment paper and the great refinement of the stroke at the service of a sense of perspective of undoubted value. Also noteworthy is the precision of the legend placed on the lower margin of these works, which refers to numbers that indicate the main monuments of the city depicted.
Made with the copper engraving technique, it consists of several sheets mounted on “detachable canvas” in order to improve conservation, facilitate readability and facilitate transport. There were various difficulties that the engravers of past centuries encountered in preparing the matrices with the engraving method. The execution times were very long and the work performed was not susceptible to corrections. Furthermore, the number of copies that could be made was limited, since the plates of wood first and then copper, subjected to repeated crushing of the press, tended to deteriorate rapidly.
The support on which the image is transferred is made from 100% pure cotton paper found at an ancient paper mill, which was already in operation when this work first saw the light. In order to recreate that charm that the works of the past know how to instill, the sheets manually and individually undergo an aging process based on strictly vegetable substances. This is followed by anchoring the paper on canvas, also in pure raw cotton, which undergoes, like the paper support, a skilful work of aging. The watercolor coloring gives the subject a polychrome vision of undoubted scenic effect. All this in order to create a product that, both for the materials used and for the technique used, recovers the beauty and historical-cultural value of the original.
