Old English colour printsSalaman, Malcolm C. (Malcolm Charles)
History
Old English colour prints
Salaman, Malcolm C. (Malcolm Charles)
Color prints, English
Many of Morland’s pictures on the mezzotint plates seem to have
justified the colour-printer, but innumerable Morland prints were
coloured by hand entirely or in part, and it is said that J. R.
Smith employed his young pupil Joseph Mallord William Turner upon
this work. I doubt, however, if even Mr. Rawlinson could detect
Turner’s hand upon a Morland print, therefore we must be content to
distinguish the finest and rarest of the mezzotints actually printed
in colours. To those already named we may add _The Angling Party_
by Keating, and _The Angler’s Repast_ by William Ward, to whom we
are also indebted for _The Coquette at her Toilet_, _The Pledge of
Love_ (“Contemplating the Miniature”); _Contemplation_ (“Caroline of
Lichfield”), very rare, and exquisitely suggestive of the original
in Mr. Thomas Barratt’s wonderful Morland collection; _Cottagers_,
_Travellers_, _The Thatcher_, _First of September--Morning_, _First of
September--Evening_, _Inside of a Country Ale-house_, _The Public-House
Door_, _The Effects of Extravagance and Idleness_, _The Turnpike Gate_,
_The Sportsman’s Return_, and _The Farmer’s Stable_, Morland’s National
Gallery masterpiece; _The Return from Market_, a beautiful thing, and
_Feeding the Pigs_, by J. R. Smith; _Sunset: a View in Leicestershire_,
by James Ward; _Summer_ and _Winter_ by W. Barnard; _Morning, or the
Benevolent Sportsman_; _Evening, or the Sportsman’s Return_, by J.
Grozer, and _Selling Cherries_ and _Shelling Peas_, a very rare pair,
etched and mezzotinted by E. Bell. Then there is “The Deserter” set,
by Keating, _Enlisting a Recruit_, _Recruit deserted and detected
hiding in his wife’s room_, _The Deserter handcuffed and conveyed to a
court martial_, _The Deserter pardoned and restored to his family_; a
set of pictures studied with realism resulting from one of Morland’s
characteristic adventures, possible, perhaps, only in the eighteenth
century. _Snipe Shooting_, one of a set of four, by G. Catton, Jun.,
must not be forgotten; it is of particular interest as showing aquatint
in effective combination with stipple and etching. How important a
place Morland fills in the history of eighteenth-century prints,
one realises only when, looking over a collection like Mr. Thomas
Barratt’s at Hampstead, where the colour-prints are to be seen in their
multitude, one attempts to note down a few gems, and finds a long list
has quickly accumulated.
III.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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