Featured Help with antique drawing. Old master?

Hi. I was doing some research about this drawing but need help with finding out who the artist is. It is a pen and ink with a wash. It defiantly has some age to it, but not sure if it is 1700s or 1800s.

It was bought in the UK. It is very fine drawn in crosshatch technique with a lot of details, this is the reason why I believe it's worth researching. I removed it from the frame and looked under the mat, but no signature.

Can somebody please advice how I can find out who the artist is. Would also like to know if it could be by a British artist, because I have a feeling that it could be Italian orso.

Can somebody pinpoint subject age and origin by looking at the clothes or style?

Thank you

 

So do I.

 

Looks like a book illustration.

 

We'd check first for halftone dots...

 

What with fairy, would think Victorian, not earlier. (And if such, the term "old master" would not apply.) Likely an illustration of a folk tale or some such. Those appear to be lederhosen on the hunter; I'd look to Germany first.

Debora

 

The crossbow was making me think Switzerland, or an alpenist at any rate. She appears to be holding out a flower to him, so I even looked at a weird story by a Berthold Auerbach called 'Edelweiss' because the site where I found it mentioned said there was a mythology that the flower grows at such altitudes only the bravest & hardiest can find it. Thought she might be an oread, a mountain nymph; she may still turn out to be something that way, spirit of something.

 

Artist could be a contemporary of Arthur Rackham.

 

I would guess late 19th/early 20th C and would look to a Germanic source as well. To me it had a Wagnerian sensibility.

Are you certain it's a drawing? Have you tried a reverse image search?

 

I tried it with a cropped pic of just the 'fairy'. It was categorized by Google as an illustration. I was then presented with assorted images that looked nothing like it.

I considered the opera of William Tell, but nothing like this in the plot. He is sleeping, not fallen/dying. I just don't know any tale that fits this.

 

With his crossbow careful leaning on the rock I guessed he was sleeping. Maybe I’m taking it too literally and the crossbow is conspicuous to let us know who he is...hunter, soldier or whatever.

 

If we were familiar with the story, everything in the scene would be telling us who he is. Hunter seems more likely than soldier.

 

Hunter and the scent of the flower may have bewitched him into sleep.

Debora

 

it's in a $20 frame
it looks damaged..and bleached
the mat is leaching acid on the image
and if you take it out of the mat...it ...may...have some writing on it....or been cut down....
as Bronwen says.....likely a book plate......
i see limited if any value here.......
IMHO..

 

might be a fairytale about hunting an eagle as a test of manhood or coming of age.
doesn't touch me as Swiss.

 

Some elements, a hunter in the mountains, a supernatural being, ring of Per (not the later Peer) Gynt, but the supernatural beings in that one are mountain trolls.

 

I love it, don't know a thing about it, though.

 

I can't help keep thinking, She must be cold.

 

I'm thinking Austrian, but... not gotten anywhere.

Was looking at details for clues... does he have a flower hanging from his belt/stuck to his ass? Or is that something else?

 

If I'm looking at what you mean, maybe the bottom of some kind of pouch or leather flask on his belt?