Info about water damaged sketch

Hi Everyone,

I'm posting this on behalf of my mother, she knows I'm a member of the site and she wanted me to post this picture.

My mother has had this sketch in her house for as long as I can remember. Apparently, a friend of the family was doing a restoration on a home in Boston, MA. many years ago and found this drawing inside one of the walls they were knocking down. It was given to my grandmother and we have had it ever since.

Clearly the drawing has water damage issues (probably from being inside of a wall for who knows how long), I have considered potentially getting the damage repaired.

I am wondering if anyone here would be able to provide any information about the artist or when this may have been done?

Thanks for your time!

 

Well, it's a print, not an original sketch. And those rusty-colored spots are called "foxing." They usually appear because of acidic conditions (paper made of wood pulp, backing of the piece with wood board, etc.) Is the water damage the grey showing in the top border above the large tree to the left of center? Are there other problems - like image loss?

These kind of damages can be repaired by a professional restoration specialist but can get pretty expensive. You might want to research the name of the piece - bottom center of the border? - to see if others are for sale or sold. That will let you gauge whether the cost of repair makes sense. It may also reveal what the artist's name is. Looks like Marak, Mayak, Matak?

 

Agree with all the above by bakersgma. I doubt there is much value to this since it is not an artist signed edition. I would enjoy it as is or search for an identical example to replace it with. The cost of restoration would likely exceed the value.

 

I was thinking it looked like a picture that came from a book.
I found this about Taber
http://www.onlinebiographies.info/ma/bristol/taber-c.htm

 

Found that this is an etching by Julius Marak called First Snow. There is one offered on ebay for $495.00. Seems ambitious to me. This is particularly true considering the damage shown in the listing.......

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Etching-Jul...er-in-Forest-Rare-Listed-Artist-/111683702982

 

I see the OP's version does not have the title and the ebay version does not seem to have Taber as publisher. There is the possibility that this is a reproduction of the etching and/or a book plate.

 

Foxing is not the same as acidification. Acidification causes overall toning and paper deterioration. Foxing is different. This is from a Wikipedia article and can explain it better than I can:

"The causes of foxing are not well understood. One theory is that foxing is caused by a fungal growth on the paper. Another theory is that foxing is caused by the effect on certain papers of the oxidation of iron, copper, or other substances in the pulp or rag from which the paper was made. It is possible that multiple factors are involved. High humidity may contribute to foxing"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxing

I always thought it was fungal/mildew but apparently new research has not confirmed this. I agree that what we are seeing here is foxing. The areas where there is image loss seem to be insect damage.

 

Thank you for that, Brad.

 

In case you haven't found any information yet about the artist, this is from Wikipedia. I'm not finding too much other information in English:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Mařák

 

Thanks for the info/advice everyone!