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The Zocodover, Toledo. Original etching by William Strang (1859~1921). Numbered 70/83. Signed both in the plate and in pencil below the image. Note sure of the date, but late 19th, early 20th century. The etching depicts the Plaza de Zocodover, a square of the city of Toledo, in the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha, Spain. It was the nerve center of the city during most of its history, acting as its main square. But Zocodover was also a center for more mournful acts like the autos-da-fé of the Inquisition or the public execution of the prisoners. Measures 19.5 x 31.5 cm. Remnants of tissue hinges to rear. Penciled info, (including the artist's?). Unevenly cut along right and bottom edges. Crease to right-hand side and top corner, else fine. --- William Strang RA (1859 ? 1921) was a Scottish painter and printmaker, notable for illustrating the works of Bunyan, Coleridge and Kipling. Strang was born at Dumbarton, the son of Peter Strang, a builder, and was educated at the Dumbarton Academy. For fifteen months after leaving school he worked in the counting-house of a firm of shipbuilders, then in 1875, when he was sixteen, went to London. There he studied art under Alphonse Legros at the Slade School for six years. Strang had great success as an etcher and became assistant master in the etching class. He was one of the founding members of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, and his work was part of its first exhibition in 1881. Some of his early plates were published in The Portfolio and other art magazines. He worked in many techniques: etching, drypoint, mezzotint, sand-ground mezzotint, burin engraving, lithography and woodcut. Thomas Hardy, Sir Henry Newbolt, and other distinguished men also sat for Strang. Proofs from these plates have been much valued. Strang produced many paintings, portraits, nude figures in landscapes, and groups of peasant families, which were exhibited at the Royal Academy, The International Society, and several German exhibitions. He painted a decorative series of scenes from the story of Adam and Eve for the library of a Wolverhampton landowner named Hodson; they were exhibited at the Whitechapel exhibition in 1910. He made some drawings of the nude figure in silver point and red and black chalk. He also painted landscapes, mostly small in size. In later years he developed a style of drawing in red and black chalk, with the whites and high lights rubbed out, on paper stained with water colour. His method gives qualities of delicate modelling and refined form and gradations akin to the drawings of Hans Holbein the Younger. He drew portraits in this manner of many members of the Order of Merit for the royal library at Windsor Castle. In 1902 Strang retired from the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, as a protest against the inclusion in its exhibitions of etched or engraved reproductions of pictures. His work was subsequently seen principally in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, the Society of Twelve and the International Society, to which he was elected in 1905. Strang was also elected an associate engraver of the Royal Academy when that degree was revived in 1906. William Strang was master of the Art Workers Guild in 1907. Strang also ventured into literature, creating "Death and the Ploughman's Wife", an illustrated ballad in 1888 (published 1894 by Lawrence and Bullen). He also wrote short stories, but these were not published. Strang was a member of the Art Workers' Guild, being elected as Master in 1907. In 1918, he became President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers and in 1921 was elected an Engraver Member of the Royal Academy. He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London. Seller Inventory # 000987
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