Hello I have 2 paintings, they appear to be oil painting on leather, mounted on a peace of brown wood with 4 breass bins.
On both of them there is a cirlce with the letters (SZL) or SL2.
Can you help me finding oout what does this mean and who drew those painting?
THey are both about ships I'm not sure if they are whaling ships.
Thanks,

Here's my usual C&P on this subject:


One of the best resources that I have found concerning Paris Etching Society is from Google answers, located HERE (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=39718).
The response from scriptor-ga is very insightful.

Basically PES was set up by Sidney Z. Lucas, hence the SZL mark. He owned a printshop in New York in the years 1940 to 1960 where He
produced a large number of prints after old etchings.
Generally, prints by Mr. Lucas seem not to reach very high prices.
At the end of the day they look nice, but that's about it.
Most of what is talked about them is from people "boiler rooming" the price on the supposed French history.

I hope this helps.