Two Vintage Pears Jigsaws - The British Lion by Gezah Vastagh 7
Large PEAR'S Annual print dated 1900, "THE BRITISH LION" measured 28 1/2" x 20 1/2" approx was created from an original by Vastagh Gezah. It was one of three plates contained it that annual, the others being Making Friends by Henry John Yeend King and Beware by JB Burgess.
Centre & Left: This 700pc jigsaw came from the collection of Dave Cooper in Oct 2019, a former owner of the British Jigsaw Library. It has 1repl, measures 28x19in and is currently housed in a former British Jigsaw Library box. The blank has been subdivided by wavy lines vertically and horizontally. The pieces are push fit and generally have few but longarms.
Right: This jigsaw was last sold by stgenix in Jan 2014. It is 600pc, measures 26x18in and is also push-fit, but the pieces have a more angular quality to the one on the left. Neither jigsaw is line-cut.
A vintage cardboard jigsaw of the image is also known, sold in Dec 2020.
For Young & Old 200pc Famous Reproductions no23 The British Lio 10x14in interlocking.
The site has a long biography of the Hungarian artist.
rehs.com/eng/default-19th20th-century-artist-bio-page/?fl...
Géza Vastagh was born into a family of artists and revolutionaries. His father, György Vastagh (1834-1922), was raised in the Hungarian city of Szeged, but moved to Vienna where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. Vastagh completed his studies and moved to Kolozsvár, Hungary, where he married, started a family and developed his own career as a painter. On October 4, 1866, Vastagh’s eldest son Géza was born in Kolozsvár. Like their father, the Vastagh sons’ childhood was marked by political upheaval, largely as a result of the 1848 revolution. The region of Transylvania was included in the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, a treaty that reunited the Kingdom of Hungary with the Hapsburg Empire centred on Vienna.
Both Géza and his brother György the younger received their first art education from their father but were sent to Munich in their mid-teens to study at the Academy of Fine Arts. Géza appears to have made his debut at the annual exhibition there in 1883, aged seventeen. Vastagh ventured to Paris in 1885, not yet twenty, where he exhibited some of his portraiture. He returned to Budapest, Hungary, where his father (who served as a court painter to Archduke Joseph Karl Ludwig) had established a studio in 1876. In 1889 he returned to Paris for the grand Exposition Universelle where he again exhibited his work.
The following year he began traveling to North Africa where he encountered an environment that was radically different from Europe, both culturally and physically. It was there that he started to paint lions, an image that would come to dominate his oeuvre for the rest of his life. He began with a trip to Tunisia and Algeria in 1890, but would eventually expand his scope to encompass large swaths of the Middle East. Simultaneously, he turned his attention to venues in Germany, exhibiting at the Annual Exhibition in Munich in 1890 and the International Art Exhibition in Berlin in 1891; both of these shows were similar to the annual Paris Salon in that they were the most prestigious exhibitions of the year, and generally contained a wide selection of current artistic production. Vastagh’s entries for both expositions were paintings of animals—lions, ducks, and chickens. The farmyard animals might best be described as Realist genre paintings, but the canvases of lions are anchored in the tradition of animal painters such as Rosa Bonheur.
Vastagh maintained a consistently high profile in both Berlin and Munich until the onset of World War I. He participated in the annual exhibitions regularly and sought out independent commissions as well. One particularly intriguing project was his work for the famous Berliner Tiergarten (the zoo), where he created depictions of many of the larger animals such as lions, tigers, and bears in the years around the turn of the century. The decade surrounding 1900 was especially productive for Vastagh who had a reputation in several areas—genre painting, portraiture and as an animalier. His work was popular in a variety of international art markets.
Two Vintage Pears Jigsaws - The British Lion by Gezah Vastagh 7
Large PEAR'S Annual print dated 1900, "THE BRITISH LION" measured 28 1/2" x 20 1/2" approx was created from an original by Vastagh Gezah. It was one of three plates contained it that annual, the others being Making Friends by Henry John Yeend King and Beware by JB Burgess.
Centre & Left: This 700pc jigsaw came from the collection of Dave Cooper in Oct 2019, a former owner of the British Jigsaw Library. It has 1repl, measures 28x19in and is currently housed in a former British Jigsaw Library box. The blank has been subdivided by wavy lines vertically and horizontally. The pieces are push fit and generally have few but longarms.
Right: This jigsaw was last sold by stgenix in Jan 2014. It is 600pc, measures 26x18in and is also push-fit, but the pieces have a more angular quality to the one on the left. Neither jigsaw is line-cut.
A vintage cardboard jigsaw of the image is also known, sold in Dec 2020.
For Young & Old 200pc Famous Reproductions no23 The British Lio 10x14in interlocking.
The site has a long biography of the Hungarian artist.
rehs.com/eng/default-19th20th-century-artist-bio-page/?fl...
Géza Vastagh was born into a family of artists and revolutionaries. His father, György Vastagh (1834-1922), was raised in the Hungarian city of Szeged, but moved to Vienna where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. Vastagh completed his studies and moved to Kolozsvár, Hungary, where he married, started a family and developed his own career as a painter. On October 4, 1866, Vastagh’s eldest son Géza was born in Kolozsvár. Like their father, the Vastagh sons’ childhood was marked by political upheaval, largely as a result of the 1848 revolution. The region of Transylvania was included in the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, a treaty that reunited the Kingdom of Hungary with the Hapsburg Empire centred on Vienna.
Both Géza and his brother György the younger received their first art education from their father but were sent to Munich in their mid-teens to study at the Academy of Fine Arts. Géza appears to have made his debut at the annual exhibition there in 1883, aged seventeen. Vastagh ventured to Paris in 1885, not yet twenty, where he exhibited some of his portraiture. He returned to Budapest, Hungary, where his father (who served as a court painter to Archduke Joseph Karl Ludwig) had established a studio in 1876. In 1889 he returned to Paris for the grand Exposition Universelle where he again exhibited his work.
The following year he began traveling to North Africa where he encountered an environment that was radically different from Europe, both culturally and physically. It was there that he started to paint lions, an image that would come to dominate his oeuvre for the rest of his life. He began with a trip to Tunisia and Algeria in 1890, but would eventually expand his scope to encompass large swaths of the Middle East. Simultaneously, he turned his attention to venues in Germany, exhibiting at the Annual Exhibition in Munich in 1890 and the International Art Exhibition in Berlin in 1891; both of these shows were similar to the annual Paris Salon in that they were the most prestigious exhibitions of the year, and generally contained a wide selection of current artistic production. Vastagh’s entries for both expositions were paintings of animals—lions, ducks, and chickens. The farmyard animals might best be described as Realist genre paintings, but the canvases of lions are anchored in the tradition of animal painters such as Rosa Bonheur.
Vastagh maintained a consistently high profile in both Berlin and Munich until the onset of World War I. He participated in the annual exhibitions regularly and sought out independent commissions as well. One particularly intriguing project was his work for the famous Berliner Tiergarten (the zoo), where he created depictions of many of the larger animals such as lions, tigers, and bears in the years around the turn of the century. The decade surrounding 1900 was especially productive for Vastagh who had a reputation in several areas—genre painting, portraiture and as an animalier. His work was popular in a variety of international art markets.