Richard J. Wolfe
Stencil Marbling Sheet of a Horse with Groom, c. 1985
Signed by Wolfe in the lower right margin.
2553
Single sheet, with visible image size measuring 13 1/2 by 11 7/16 inches (not examined out of frame). Glazed, matted, and framed. Using stencils and multiple rounds of marbling different...
Single sheet, with visible image size measuring 13 1/2 by 11 7/16 inches (not examined out of frame). Glazed, matted, and framed. Using stencils and multiple rounds of marbling different patterns, Wolfe here has created an image of a horse and (presumably) its groom against a watercolor wash background, and surrounded by two marbled frames, each bordered in gilt. This forming of an image from composite marbled patterns within a sheet with other marbled patters represents a technically complex variant on the traditional Ebru process often seen in Turkish marbling, which found what many consider its finest expression in the work of Christopher Weimann. According to Sid Berger, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for his kind assistance with this description, Wolfe mostly presented his own efforts in this technique as gifts for friends, which may partly explain their relative scarcity on the market. This is a lovely example, in a frame covered in complimentary colored marbled paper, presumably also by Wolfe.


