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Description: | bound volume (dimensions 54 x 38 x 7 cms) inscr. on plate b.l. "ML in. et. fe." in a reserved area of white; inscr. on page t.r. hand-written in brown ink "65" CRE LAROON, Marcellus; (French; 1653-1702) 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 is one of five known mezzotints by Marcellus Laroon himself, a French painter active in England. Smith bought up and republished many mezzotint plates by his predecessors and contemporaries and, placing them in volumes such as this, gave a context to his own work. He made several mezzotints after work by Laroon himself (Glaha 16694, 16721, 16773), all of boorish or bawdy subjects for which there was considerable demand at the lower end of the print market. | 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: | GENRE : INTERIOR : PEASANT : OLD AGE : HAT : FEEDING : LAVATORY : HUNTER VOLUME : | 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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