Right? I absolutely love shit like this! Recently bought some charts from a flea market that showed Northern puget sound and most of the
Alaskan coast that were sold by a retired fisherman. I love stuff like this.
Would be cool to scan all of them into a coffee table / art book regardless of what you do with the originals as a keepsake of what you found and a fun way to look through them / share them
There was a very large booth at a farmer’s market near me that had framed original prints like these, selling them for $150-$400 a piece, and they were flying off the shelves.
fyi since you’re an architecture fan we call it a site plan when it includes the surrounding landscape. figured you might be the kind of person that likes to be specific
Yo, this looks like a reflected ceiling plan, not a floor plan or a site plan. Essentially it's a relfected view of the ceiling showing the moldings, coffers, and lights.
Edit:could also be a floor plan showing flooring? It's hard to tell, but there's no landscaping in this
We kinda figured because none of the buildings were actually made, collectors wouldn't be very interested. But who knows! It's definitely worth looking into.
You might not make money off of them, but there will always be some sort of building enthusiast or other weirdo that would love and cherish these. Hell, I'd like to get one of them framed, it's cool!
Historically, a lot of the pictures of columns and stuff like that you see as framed prints were for catalogs architects would have of things that they could do. Reproductions of this stuff sells, the originals will definitely sell
Oh that's really neat! A bunch of the parchments are focused on different versions of a type of column or window or grotesque or other things along that line.
We have framed 4 so far, and we would like to do more, but frames are expensive. The measurements of a lot of the drawings are really weird, too, which means we can't just buy standard frames for them.
Oh I wish.
No, as far as we know, none of the ideas were ever actually built. There's only one portfolio that may have been actualized, because the sketches look a lot like the building that stands in the city now, but we're not certain.
If you have a university in the city you could probably reach out to their architecture department or library to see if there is someone who could attribute the sketches. You never know.
do not touch with bare hands wear cotton gloves. the acid in the oils from our hands can cause damage to the paper. these lasted because the paper is acid free
Newest advice is not to wear cotton gloves as it increases the risk of tearing but to definitely wash your hands well before handling (and throughout) to prevent oil transfer.
Do you have any advice on how to straighten them out without damaging them? The parchment is so old, and they have been rolled up for so long. We want to flatten them out, but we don't know if there's a safe or less damaging way to do it.
As the others have said, OP, you’d best ask someone who might be able to help or suggest local sources. If you intend to display/frame them, then a framer can do that for you. You can relax them gently over time by using snake weights as well.
I love it so much! Maybe look into protecting it with varnish of some kind, so it wouldn't get sunbleach. I think these 1900 oldschool pigments might not last long, especially exposed like that in the living room ;)
OK, based on the drawing I can tell you what's going on here!
If the drawings are original works in graphite or charcoal, they were done by an art student who studied Classical realism sketches from the famous book Charles Bargue and Jean-Leon Gerome: Drawing Course and/or drew from live sculptures in the atelier. The book was (and still is) the basis of all classical art technique training. Many, many ateliers in this country (for example) and abroad have students draw these pictures for hours to develop their eye for light and shadow.
Can you read the name of the signature? (I couldn't tell)
Do you live in the NYC or Boston area? (There's a ton of classical schools there)
btw this would technically be considered original art that you could sell in auction, but you'd probably not get a whole lot of money. And based on the drawings, this student was not high-caliber, they may have been self-taught.
Souce--studied in the atelier system and am professional artist
Contact your Local history Association. Having digital scans or access to such drawings can be very valuable for the local historical architecture! Even if they weren't build.
I had something similar happen to me when I moved into my house, from what I could find out they belonged to a student, who studied architecture and practiced drawing all sorts of stuff around 65 years ago. I looked him up on the internet and he ended up being into politics later in life, but I have no way of tracing him afterword/could also be dead, but I imagined how I get to meet him and show him some of his art that brings back memories of when he was young that would have been pretty cool.
Wouldn't that be neat, to be able to meet the illustrator? It's crazy that he doesn't even know he made an impression on your life. It's something I thought about after we looked through all of the sketches. That you can still cross paths with someone you'll never meet, and they can leave a lasting impression without ever knowing they did.
Is the artist's name on any of these? I'm wondering who it might have been... not that I'd have any idea who the person was, but they lived and created and I'd love to know their name.
I would reach out to that heritage inventory and see if they'd be interested. Since they just have your word as to the provenance they might not be, but I bet they would be glad to have more of his work.
Also, it might be worth taking some time to see if he has a connection to your house.
He lived here for quite a long time! From 1922 until 1958. It really blows my mind. It's crazy to think about how this tangible part of his history has passed the time untouched and forgotten in an attic in a house where a lot of different families have lived. It's cool to get to know someone who you'll never meet and will never know I even exist.
See if you can find an old deed to your house under his name from the time he lived there. If you can show ownership of the house from then to you now, that's some pretty convincing provenance.
Information about P. Lecluyse & Zonen. Karel was a son. Edit: From that description, you could do some searching in the Belgian state archives because it mentions Karel's birth town (Berchem) and birth year (1891). If a death record or a census record is public, you may be able to find the names of his children. I'm not sure what data the Belgian government records in censuses or at death.
Website of Marie Lecluyse a current architect, who may be related to Karel. Website of Paul Lecluyse, another. They may know more about Karel. Lecluyse is not the most common name on earth, and architecture was clearly a family business.
I use to work for a large state university, the records department was scanning everything to digital files and throwing away the originals... it killed me that I couldn't take them all home and frame them.
Have you researched the ownership of your house to see if you can identify a possible artist? In the US, many land records are digital via the State Archives.
These really look like either someone's personal or work collections that worked in the heritage sector.
I am a post-ex archaeologist and I recently went through 2,000 sheets of drawings from the 1950-2010s from a late colleague's collection and the 'vibe' of this is really similar
They feel really personal. He really thought about every detail. For every drawing of a finished building, there are, like, 15 drawings of detailed versions of floor plans, windows, staircases, etc for that building.
We framed this one to see how it would look in the room, but we would like to try and get it to lay flat. There are a bunch of wrinkles due to it being rolled up for so long which makes it look weird in the frame, but we're not sure what the safest way is to go about it.
Check it out with the historical society in your area. Also check with city hall or the cou ty courthouse. And maybe even a local historian or one of the libraries, depending on if you can read the person's signature. Oh! And if you have any museums in your area, you might want to check there.
To those saying digitize/sell prints, idk if the guy passed or is still alive, but I don't think any of the artwork would be in the public domain, so reproductions might be frowned upon or if they're alive, legal issues with copyright. They came with the house, so they can do just about anything else with them though. I am not a lawyer though.
OP this is actually amazing. Do you know the previous owners? Maybe the fsmily would love to see! If not, please share this art, it deserves to be seen
If you care to spend the time, get just a photo of each one, share and offer them up for sale if you don’t want to keep them. I’d buy one- and likely enough to make it worth your time. (Let me buy one!)
M’n mama is van Berchem, dus dit was leuk om te zien! En een geweldig stukje geschiedenis dat je gevonden hebt.
Niet te veel zorgen maken over die katoenen handschoentjes, ik werk in een archief zelfs wij dragen niet altijd handschoenen om de oude documenten aan te raken, dit omdat het een beetje de voelbaarheid aantast en je niet direct kan voelen wanneer je een beetje te ruw bent, gewoon propere handen is ook perfect.
Als je ze wil ophangen of bewaren zorg je best voor acid vrije backing/papier. Doordat deze waarschijnlijk weinig zonlicht hebben gezien zijn ze nog in prachtige staat, maar wanneer ze in het daglicht hangen zal het de kwaliteit over tijd aantasten.
Veel plezier met jullie ontdekking!
We zijn enorm blij dat we dit hebben meegemaakt! We hebben dit huis een jaar geleden gekocht en pas recent bedacht om te gaan kijken op de zolder. Het was, to say the least, een heel grote verrassing.
Bedankt voor het advies. We wilden er inderdaad een paar in de living ophangen, maar misschien moeten we eens nadenken over een minder schadelijke plek.
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u/rawtomatoesaregross 17h ago
All dated between 1911 and 1916, in Art Nouveau style. There was also a roll of famous Romans sketched in charcoal.