Melchior Küsel – The Hunt (after Johann Wilhelm Baur) 1670-1682
etching, trimmed to plate, sheet 17.2 x 25.5 cm
Unframed – Price £60
From the series of Iconographia of 1670. From a French edition. This numbered 46 in bottom right of sheet indicating its placement within the series.
Inscriptions: ‘J.W.Baur inv’ to left of bottom margin; ‘Cum Privilegio Sac Cas. Maitis ‘ centre below image;’Melchior Küsell fecit 46’ to right of bottom margin. ‘P. mariette 1693’ written in pen and ink on reverse.
Condition: Nice impression in clean condition.
Melchior Küsel (1626-1684) was a highly talented printmaker and publisher who had been a pupil of Matthaus Merian in Frankfurt before establishing himself in Augsburg. He acquired J.W.Baur’s prints and drawings from the Baur family after Baur’s death. Küsel published hundreds of plates after Baur, either copies of his etchings or after his drawings. They fall into four series: the146 etchings entitled Iconographia (1670); the 42 plates of the Pastor Fido (1671); the 40 plates of Underschidliche Prospecten (1681;) and the 151 plates of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1681) which are copied from Baur’s plates of 1639/41. Of the last, a further issue was republished in 1682 in revised order and with text added to the byline, and omitted any reference to Baur on the title page or on the prints.
Melchior Küsel was part of an incredible print/publishing family. His wife was Maria Magdalena Merian, daughter of Matthäus Merian, the renowned Augsburg engraver and publisher. Her grandfather was Johann Theodor de Bry, the founder of the de Bry-Merian dynasty of engravers and publishers. Melchior’s brother Matthäus was an imperial court engraver. Melchior and Maria’s daughter Sibylla was to become a successful engraver also.