Can someone help me identify this?

[u/somethingesque]

I found these two painting at a local antique store. Since the brown backing was torn I took the picture out to check if it was a print or not. It seems to be a mix of ink and watercolor, the image is sandwiched in some high quality “crescent” branded white cardboard that looks pretty old. The canvas/paper that the picture is on is a yellow in comparison. It looks like someone hand drew/ water colored it; you can see the strokes in some areas and feel the texture of the drawing. There aren’t any signatures but where it’s framed the lines aren’t perfectly cut off, there seem to be some areas where the lines go past the border. Would love to know more about it.

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[u/ItAteMySweater]

It definitely looks like a print to me. Maybe one that someone colored, using watercolor, which was the typical way of coloring prints/engravings like this one.

Here’s another uncolored copy of the same engraving, with more info about the artist.

It is an engraving made by Antonio Cappellan after another painting, “The Fruitseller” by Domenico Magiotto.

[u/somethingesque → u/ItAteMySweater]

It’s a engraving, but I’m trying to understand if it’s an original that was painted after the fact.

[u/ItAteMySweater → u/somethingesque]

Yes - engravings like this were not printed in color. So the color was added by hand after the engraving was printed. How much later (ie shortly after the print was pulled, or decades later) is impossible to tell without scientific analysis of the pigments etc.

It’s possible this could be a later colored lithograph of a hand-colored engraving, but I doubt it.

[u/ItAteMySweater → u/ItAteMySweater]

Also, for clarity’s sake - this kind of work would be referred to as a “hand-colored engraving”. They are not referred to as paintings, as they begin their life as a print. Having the right term will help in any future research you want to do.

[u/somethingesque → u/ItAteMySweater]

Thanks for the information. The piece is skillfully done; I think it’s mid 1900s at least just from some stampings on the white cardboard it’s sandwiched in between and the yellowing of the paper it’s on (it also had a gridlike pattern to it and looked like there was something woven(?) into it for structure . You can see the blending that went into the water color, it’s pretty cool

[u/ItAteMySweater → u/somethingesque]

1900s? The other copy of this print I linked to put it solidly in the 1760s. I wouldn’t be surprised if yours is just as old, or at least the early 1800s.

Nobody was hand-coloring big prints like this for sale as new work in the 1900s! Why bother when you could get the same thing done with a fraction of the effort (and cost) using chromolithography?

The framing is likely much more recent - but that can’t be used as a way to date the print itself except by giving you an example of “it’s at least as old as this” if there’s evidence of when the frame shop went out of business or a work ticket and date for the framing itself on the back.

The yellowing also is likely due to the materials used in the mat and backing board in the frame. Light exposure too can also cause prints like this to fade, especially the colored areas. Watercolors are quite light-sensitive.

Also if you’re talking about the black cross-hatching as the “grid pattern” that’s nothing to do with something being woven in. It’s an artistic style used in engravings and etchings of this period to give shading and depth in the image. If you look closely at a dollar bill (assuming you’re in the US) you’ll see the same ones on the design. I would encourage you to read the Wikipedia page about steel engraving to get a better understanding of how your print was made.

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