Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Late Eighteenth-Century Portrait Prints

Anonymous German printmaker after Anton Graff
Portrait of Apollonia Helena Potocka
ca. 1775
hand-colored lithograph
British Museum

Lavinia, Countess Spencer after Richard Cosway
Portrait of Lavinia, Countess Spencer reading
ca. 1785-1800
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Lavinia,  Countess Spencer (1762-1831) – Eldest daughter of 1st Earl of Lucan. Wife of George John, 2nd Earl Spencer.  Amateur artist.  

Richard Brookshaw after Allan Ramsay
George the III, King of Great Britain
ca. 1773-79
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Richard Marshall after Allan Ramsay
George-the-III-King-of-Great-Britain
ca. 1760-70
hand-colored mezzotint
British Museum

Anonymous French printmaker after Claude-Louis Desrais
 L'Ami du peuple - Marat
ca. 1790-95
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Jean Paul Marat (1743-1793) – Revolutionary politician, physician, journalist and agitator.  Born Boudry, Switzerland.  Editor of L'Ami du Peuple (created September 1789).  Murdered by Charlotte Corday (13 July 1793) and celebrated as a martyr of the French Revolution.  At first buried in the garden of the Club des Cordeliers, his remains were transferred into the Pantheon (21 September 1794) in great pomp, before being moved to the cemetery of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont (8 February 1795). 

Anonymous French printmaker after Joseph Boze
 Louis Seize, Roi des Franceais
1792
hand-colored etching
British Museum

"This is an altered version of a plate engraved at an earlier date as a conventional portrait (ca. 1785).  The added Phrygian cap and the last line of the lettered inscription, also a later addition, pointedly allude to the events that occurred on 20 June 1792, when Louis XVI was forced to wear the cap following the invasion of the Tuileries palace.  The title has been altered from Roi de France et de Navarre to Roi des Franceais, reflecting the decision of the Assemblée Nationale on 19 October 1789 to change the King's title."

Paul-André Basset (publisher)
Voltaire
(at writing-table between laurel trees)
ca. 1793
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Alexander Beugo (publisher)
Portrait of Charles Cranmer
(Royal Academy porter and model)
ca. 1770-80
hand-colored etching
British Museum

James Gillray
Mendoza
(portrait of boxer Daniel Mendoza)
1788
etching and aquatint
British Museum

James Gillray
A Dash up St James's Street
(Capt. Francis Cunynghame in Light Horse uniform, Coldstream Guards)
1797
hand-colored etching
British Museum

John Thornthwaite after James Roberts
Mr. Mattocks in the Character of Achilles
1777
hand-colored etching and engraving (from Bell's British Theatre)
British Museum

Anonymous English printmaker
Mrs Siddons
ca. 1790
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Anonymous English printmaker
Mrs Elizabeth Brownrigg
(midwife hanged for murder of her apprentice)
1767
hand-colored etching
British Museum

Anonymous English printmaker
Baron Frédéric Trenck in prison
ca. 1753-60
hand-colored woodcut
British Museum

Baron Frédéric Trenck (1726-1794) – Officer in Prussian army.  1745, imprisoned by Frederick II of Prussia but escaped a year later.  1753 recaptured and imprisoned for ten years in Magdeburg.  1787, wrote an autobiography which was widely translated and brought his story to public attention.  1794, in Paris as an observer of the French Revolution on behalf of the Austrian government, guillotined. 

– descriptive and biographical notes from the British Museum