downman john painter (2 Ergebnisse)

Sitter, artist and engraver all have entries in the Oxford DNB. No copy in the National Portrait Gallery. In good condition, lightly aged, on good paper with small embossment of castle. Dimensions of paper, 14.25 x 22.5cm. Dimensions of print, 12.5 x 17.75cm. Oval portrait, 10 cm wide and 13 cm high. Without date or place, but produced as the frontispiece to Stockdale's 1809 memoirs. A half-length portrait of Stockdale, his face turned to the left, with white cravat and powdered hair, loosely wrapped in a coat. From the papers of the agriculturist and colonial civil servant Sir Frank Stockdale (1883-1949), whose Oxford DNB entry does not mention any relation to Perceval Stockdale.

Original copper engraving (44 x 60 cm, overall sheet 54 x 66 cm). Light foxing to outer edges of margins, 16cm tear along plate mark, not affecting plate. From "A Collection of Prints. Illustrating the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare." published by Boydell, London, 1803. In 1789, the publisher John Boydell opened the Shakespeare Gallery, an exhibition space in London's Pall Mall showcasing paintings that exclusively represented scenes from Shakespeare's plays. The Gallery was a bid to revive 'history painting' (the practice of depicting scenes from the Bible, mythology or the classics) in contemporary British art, a genre thought to be of great public benefit because of its morally instructive messages. What better unifying theme for such a project than the works of Shakespeare, which had become so popular and so integral to British identity by the mid-18th century? The Gallery opened in May 1789 with 34 canvases by 18 British artists. By the next year there were 55 paintings and in 1796 the total was 84, along with dozens of 'Small Pictures'. Once the exhibition was mounted, reproductive engravings of the paintings produced by an in-house team of 46 printmakers were available to purchase, either as a large portfolio of 90 prints or as a luxurious illustrated edition of the plays. (The British Library).