SPANISH WAR INDEPENDENCE MAID OF SARAGOSSA Zaragoza ~ 1857 Art Print Engraving

Description: THE MAID OF SARAGOSSA Artist: J. Bell ____________ Engraver: W. Roffe Note: the title in the table above is printed below the engraving CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE 19th CENTURY ANTIQUE PRINTS LIKE THIS ONE!! PRINT DATE: This lithograph was printed in 1857; it is not a modern reproduction in any way. PRINT SIZE: Overall print size is 7 1/2 inches by 10 1/2 inches including white borders, actual scene is 4 inches by 9 1/2 inches. PRINT CONDITION: Condition is excellent. Bright and clean. Blank on reverse. Paper is quality woven rag stock paper. SHIPPING: Buyer to pay shipping, domestic orders receives priority mail, international orders receive regular air mail unless otherwise asked for. We take a variety of payment options, more payment details will be in our email after auction close. We pack properly to protect your item! FROM THE ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: Our "sculpture" engraving this mouth also, as did that of the last, carries the thoughts from the poetry of fiction, and the classical graces of allegorical composition, to the stern realities of life. The former personified a heroine, whose story, though that of a queen, is almost lost in the bygone pages of history: this month we have the sculptor's embodiment of one whose deeds are recorded in the annals of our own times: there are many now living, doubtless, who have seen the " Maid of Saragossa,"- a woman of humble origin, but the theme of poet's song, and the admiration of heroes,-walking quietly and sedately, though decorated with military honors, the reward of valor, along the streets of the city she had bravely assisted in defending against the enemies of her country: such a personage is worthy of the sculptor's marble. In November, 1808, during the invasion of Spain by the French, a large army of the latter under Marshals Moncey and Napier, marched to recommence the siege of Saragossa which had been raised in the summer of that year, owing to the heroic opposition of the inhabitants, under the leadership of the gallant Palafox, who, when the French general summoned him to surrender with the laconic demand, -" Capitulation," replied with an answer almost as brief,-"War to the knife." The Spaniards in the second siege were also commanded by Palafox, and it was at this time that the "Maid of Saragossa "-a name she has always since been known by-distinguished herself by her endurance and intrepidity, "manning" the batteries, and voluntarily undertaking all the duties that a veteran soldier would have been subject to: this too throughout a siege distinguished in the Peninsular war for the obstinacy with which the city was assailed, and the horrors and sufferings that surrounded the besieged. "Long after the walls of Zaragora fell," says General Napier, whose orthography we retain," the city itself resisted. The stern contest was continued from street to street, and from house to house. In vault and cellar, on balcony and in chamber, the deadly warfare was waged without any intermission. By the slow and sure process of the mine the assailants worked their terrific path, and daily explosions told loudly on their onward way. Meantime the bombardment was fierce and constant, and the fighting incessant. Every house was a post; the crash of falling buildings was continual. While the struggle was yet fierce and alive, came pestilence into those vaults and cellars where the aged, and the women and the children, lay sheltered from the storm of Shells. They sickened in vast .numbers, and died where they lay. Thus fell Zaragoxa, after a resistance of sixty-one days!" It capitulated in February, 1809. Byron, alluding to the part which the women, and especially the "Maid" of Saragossa took in this memorable siege, says, in his "Childe Harolde"- "Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale, Oil.' had you known her in her softer hour- Marked her dark eye that mocks the coal-black veil- Heard her light, lively tones in lady's bower- Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power, Her fairy form, with more than female grace,- Scarce would yon deem that Saragossa's tower Beheld her smile in danger's Gore'on face, Thin the closed ranks, and lead in glory's fearful chase." Wilkic has immortalized the conduct of the Spanish maiden in one of his best historical pictures, which, as many of our readers doubtless know, is engraved. Mr. Bell has limited his subject to a single figure, which was exhibited at the Academy in 1853.' The heroine is supposed to be standing on the ramparts; a cannon-ball has just killed a priest (the ecclesiastics shared nobly in the defense of the place), from whose dying hand she has snatched a crucifix, which she holds up to incite the people to further resistance: in her other hand is a lighted fuse, with which she is about to fire a cannon. At the base of the figure is the answer of Palafox, in Spanish. We ought not to look for the "graces" of sculpture in a work of this character; what it should have it possesses-spirit, energy, firmness in expression and attitude; qualities, which, combined as they are here with picturesqueness of drapery, render the whole a composition of much interest, both artistically and historically. BIOGRAPHY OF ARTIST: John Bell (b Hepton, Suffolk, 1811 or 1812; d London, 14 March 1895) was an English sculptor. He enrolled at the Royal Academy in 1829 and attracted attention there with The Eagleslayer (1837), of which versions were made in bronze, marble (c. 1844; Wentworth Woodhouse, S. Yorks) and iron (1851; London, Bethnal Green Mus. Childhood). The latter, cast by the Coalbrookdale Company, was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851, placed under a canopy with the slain eagle at the top. Prestigious commissions followed, including statuary for the Houses of Parliament: Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland (marble, 1848) and Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (marble, 1854). Bell's best-known public sculptures are the Guards' Crimean War memorial (bronze, 1860; London, Waterloo Place) and America, part of the Albert Memorial (marble, 1864-9; London, Kensington Gdns). Both show his stylistic and iconographic compromise between Neo-classical tradition and meticulous contemporary realism. Bell's works on imagined subjects, many of which were reproduced in Parian porcelain by W. T. Copeland and by Henry Cole's Art-Manufactures, include Babes in the Wood (marble, 1842; London, V&A); Andromeda (bronze, c. 1851; Osborne House, Isle of Wight, Royal Col.); and The Octoroon (marble, 1868; Blackburn, Town Hall), the eroticism of which was influenced by Hiram Powers. Bell was more innovative as an industrial designer than as an artist. His creations include fish-knives, a table supported by cast-iron deerhounds (1845) for the Coalbrookdale Company, a matchbox shaped like a crusader's tomb (1848) and a cast-iron Cerberus doorstop (1849). He was a prolific correspondent and also published some essays, including 'Colour on Statues and Paintings' (1861), 'The Principle of Entasis as Applied to the Obelisk' (1862) and 'The Lost Venus of Knidos' (1894). Please note: the terms used in our auctions for engraving, etching, lithograph, plate, photogravure etc. are ALL prints on paper, and NOT blocks of steel or wood or any other material. "ENGRAVINGS", the term commonly used for these paper prints, were the most common method in the 1700s and 1800s for illustrating old books, and these paper prints or "engravings" were created by the intaglio process of etching the negative of the image into a block of steel, copper, wood etc, and then when inked and pressed onto paper, a print image was created. These prints or engravings were usually inserted into books, although many were also printed and issued as loose stand alone lithographs. They often had a tissue guard or onion skin frontis to protect them from transferring their ink to the opposite page and were usually on much thicker quality woven rag stock paper than the regular prints. So this auction is for an antique paper print(s), probably from an old book, of very high quality and usually on very thick rag stock paper. A RARE FIND! AND GREAT DECORATION FOR YOUR OFFICE OR HOME WALL.

Price: 7.99 USD

Location: New Providence, New Jersey

End Time: 2025-01-14T20:57:09.000Z

Shipping Cost: 7.95 USD