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Description: | bound volume (dimensions 54 x 38 x 7 cms) inscr. on plate b.c. "Mars. and Venus."; inscr. on plate b.l. "J. Smith ex"; inscr. on page t.r. hand-written in brown ink "47" CRE SMITH, John; (English; 1652-1743) PUB SMITH, John; (English; 1652-1743) Part of William Hunter's original bequest, this is one of three volumes which together contain 488 mezzotints, almost all made or published by John Smith. About two thirds are portraits of eminent late Stuart, early Hanoverian persons. The remaining third are subject prints after a wide range of artists and subjects, from mythological and religious scenes after old Italian and Dutch and Flemish masters such as Titian and Rubens to fancy subjects after contemporary French and English painters.
Instrumental in raising the standard of mezzotint portraits, Smith was the first British printmaker to gain a European reputation, and examples of his work were essential for any serious first half of the 18th century European print collection. Hunter's set of volumes is a rare surviving example of a comprehensive collection of mezzotints compiled in the 1730s.
This print was made by Smith's teacher Beckett, one of the earliest English mezzotinters and many of whose plates Smith bought and republished after his death. 32 of them appear in these three volumes, providing a context for Smith's own mezzotints. In Roman mythology, Venus, goddess of love and Mars, god of war, are an allegory of the triumph of love over war. Venus's son Cupid is often present, playing with Mars's weapons. | License: | http://www.hmag.gla.ac.uk/spirit/rights/ | Publisher: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Rights holder: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Subjects: | GREEK MYTHOLOGY : MARS : VENUS : FEMININITY : MASCULINITY : LOVERS : BREAST : CUPID : BED : LOVE : AMOR : OVID : METAMORPHOSES : ARES : APHRODITE : HUNTER VOLUME : REPRODUCTIVE : | Source: | Hunterian Museum | Creator: | Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow | Identifier: | http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/... | Language: | en-GB | Go to resource |
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