Smith benjamin engraver (2 Ergebnisse)

No Binding. Zustand: Good. Size: Frame 49.5 x 59 cm, print inside mount 29.5 x 39 cm Condition: The print is a good impression, but there is a repaired tear and some creasing top left, and a scratch on the dog which has been touched in - the price reflects these faults and the print still displays well. The frame and mount are new. Hogarth completed his famous self portrait in 1745 when he was already an established and famous painter and engraver. He also engraved his own version in 1749, but later re-used the engraved plate to produce a print satirising the poet and satirist Charles Churchill. It fell to the engraver Benjamin Smith to engrave this copy of the original painting in 1795 for the publishers J and J Boydell, who used it as a frontispiece in collections of Hogarth's original works published by them. The oval canvas containing Hogarths portrait appears propped up on volumes of Shakespeare, Swift and Milton, authors who inspired Hogarths commitment to drama, satire and epic poetry. On his palette is the Line of Beauty and Grace, which underpinned Hogarths theories on art. Hogarths pug dog, Trump, serves as an emblem of the artists own pugnacious character. This portrait acted as a statement of the artists professional ambition.…

Original copper engraving (c. 44 x 60 cm, overall sheet c. 55 x 68.5 cm). 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).…