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Frontispiece from the Corinth Excavations Portfolio

Nora Jenkins Shear

Unframed size: Not available

$850.00

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About the work

In 1925, Dr. Theodore Leslie Shear, a professor of Classical Archaeology, and his wife Nora Jenkins Shear—herself also well-trained in archaeology in addition to being a highly-skilled artist—initiated a series of excavations of the Old City of Corinth, where the American School had already been laboring for more than 25 years. The Shears uncovered a theater and a villa which contained a magnificent series of remarkably well-preserved floor mosaics.

Meanwhile, Jane Norton Grew Morgan visited Corinth in 1924 and was fascinated by it, so she financed the excavation of the villa which the Shears had discovered. Later, Jane’s husband, J. Pierpont Morgan II, financed the production of a folio to document these magnificent discoveries, Corinth: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Volume V: The Roman Villa. This folio, written by Dr. Shear, contained a detailed discussion of the excavation. It contained 13 plates, most made from watercolors which Nora Shear had painted, showing some of the excavated buildings. The plates in the folio are magnificent in size and content, the size dictated by the participants’ desire to produce the head of Dionysus as a frontispiece in exact facsimile of the size of the mosaic itself.

Beautifully printed by Ganymede Graphic Institution (Ganymed Graphische Anstalt) of Berlin, which was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Bruno Deja, a printer, and the art historian Julius Meier-Graefe, director of Marees Gesellschaft, for which it printed much work. Among others, Ganymed printed the work of Käthe Kollwitz.

These works are likely chromolithographs, as they are color prints without signs of an intaglio process and were printed by Ganymed, which was a collotype printer.

At 90 years old, the ink in this work is slightly less vibrant than it probably was when printed, but its condition is far better than can be expected based on age.

These works are exceptionally scarce.

This etching is unframed. We happily provide framing services at sharply-discounted rates. Our fee for standard conservation matting and framing of this work is $300. Please contact us before purchasing if you would like to purchase this work framed.

Sheet Size: 25.25 in. (w) × 32 in. (h)
Window Size: 20.5 in. (w) × 23 in. (h)