1930 Etching, with drypoint, in black on white laid watermarked paper
177 x 348 mm. Purchase: Colnaghi & Sons 1933
Third (or fourth?) and final state. This is one of a few of the final state prints that Webb inscribed 'IIIrd state'. Same state as PR739. See catalogue entries 19 to 21 in 'Joseph Webb, prints and working drawings', Gascoigne & Furst, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1989. The paper has been taken from an old book with the binding holes on the upper margin. A follower of the Theosophy Society, Webb has expressed his mystical beliefs in this mountainous landscape which mirrors a passage written by William Kingsland - ''the Occultist is one who is steadily climbing the mountain; making sure of his footing at each step, and adapting himself as he ascends to the changing conditions and rarefied atmosphere of the heights which he reaches and overpasses. When he finally reaches the topmost heights he has become an Adept, a Master of Wisdom, a Saviour of Mankind, a Buddha, a Christ'', from 'The Real H.P.Blavatsky, A Study in Theosophy, and a Memoir of a Great Soul', London, 1928. 'A Master's House' was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1930
Imaginative mountain landscape; foreground, on the left, a stumpy tree, vegetation overhanging rocks, a mountain pass and two figures conversing one of whom points with an outstretched left arm, on the right, fallen tree trunks, rock strata and a snake; middleground, two distant figures on a track, a river gorge, a rowing boat, a bridge over stepped waterfalls and a mountain road following a ridge; background, a grove of trees (out of scale), distant mountains and a track over a dramatic ridge leading to a pointed mountain peak. Background left in outline. Etched with varied line including cross hatching, stipple and some burnishing. Distant mountains are probably drypoint. Paper is bleached white in the sky. Paper has a watermark of a coat of arms consisting of a crown, the date 1814 and a shield depicting a drinking horn
