Street in Fontarabia - from "In the Shadow of the Pyrenees"

 

James David Smillie

  1833 - 1909 (biography)

1883  

etching 

5-3/l6 x 3-5/l6" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

not stated 

pencil dated and inscribed "JDS imp" in lower margin; monogram signature and "Mch 83" in plate, lower left; "No. 22" etched in lower right; more inscrip. (see notes) 

Witthoft 25 

cream laid tissue 

published 

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 

BC032 

$500.00 

Smillie was commissioned to make this etching for the book In the Shadow of the Pyrenees by Reverand Marvin R. Vincent, a Presbyterian minister and professor pf exegesis and criticism at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. This was to illustrate his description of the Basque town of Hondarribia (here spelled Fontarabia, and alternatively spelled Fuenterrabia in the native Spanish), which read in part that its medieval appearance was likened to "the decor of the Barber of Seville" (Vincent p. 68f; Withoff p. 114).

The notes written by Smillue along the bottom edge of the sheet read: "Street in Fontarabia" / from a photograph. / Pub. by Chas. Scribners Sons / as an ill. in "Under the Pyrenees" by Rev. Marvin Vincent". The image is of a Basque resident in the style of the time, carrying a walking stick and looking up at the apartments surrounding him. In the background is the Parish Church of Santa Maria de la Asucion. This impression was printed by the artist.