III - Some European Classics
 

This section of fourteen prints begins with three views of London architecture--John Bentley's 1893 etching of the sun drenched interior of Westminster Abbey, Muirhead Bone's "Picadilly Circus - 1915," and Ian Strang's etching of the grand facades of the city's "Harley Street" dated 1927. Bone's rendering of Picadilly Circus with its night sky of roving WW-I search lights is considered to be one of the greatest drypoints of the British Etching Revival.
 

Next comes John Taylor Arms' "Venetian Filigree," an exquisitely etched print of the city's palatial Ca' d'Oro. Below it is Albert Decaris' line engraving, "The Uffizi, Florence," once part of the Medici palace compound and now one of the world's finest art museums.
 

These are followed by Giovanni Battista Piranesi's 1749 rendering of the "Basilica of St. Mary Major" in Rome with the ancient fluted column in the left foreground, a relic from the Forum's Basilica of Constantine, moved here by Paul V in 1613 and crowned with a statue of the Virgin. Below this is the oldest print in the Georgetown collections, an anonymous hand-colored woodcut of German origin of a walled medieval cityscape circa 1500.
 

Next comes M. C. Escher's important wood engraving of 1935 entitled "Dream," also known as "Mantis Religiosa," which is reproduced on the cover of this guide. Below it is the rare lithograph by Ralph Fabri, "Flemish Castle." 

The section continues with three prints by Austria's Kasimir Family--the father Luigi's 1922 etching & aquatint of Vienna's "Opera House," his son Robert's color etching of the city's "Imperial Palace Gate," and the wife and mother Tanna's color etching of "Salzburg," a winter landscape in the snow.
 

The section ends with Irving Amen's colorful woodcut of 1955, "Piazza San Marco #4" which takes us back to Venice for another look, and Nelson Dawson's "Venetian Hay Boat," a humorous 1914 soft ground etching of two frantic oarsmen paddling their cargo across center stage past an American millionaire's yacht riding at anchor just off the picturesque Venetian waterfront.