print
- Museum number
- 1875,0508.1711-1912
- Title
- Series: Engravings from the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds
- Description
-
A series of 202 small mezzotints after the paintings of Reynolds, made by a large number of modern engravers in the early 1860s to the commission of Henry Graves & Co, after the paintings by Reynolds; the impressions are all proofs on India paper. The prints are bound into three volumes as follows:
I Portraits (66 plates, reg.nos.1711 to 1778)
II Portraits (69 plates, reg.nos.1779 to 1847)
III Portraits and fancy subjects (65 plates, reg.nos.1848 to 1912)
All three volumes contain a printed list of the plates, and the titlepages are dated 1865
Mezzotints over etched foundations on chine collé
- Production date
- 1865
- Dimensions
-
Height: 230 millimetres
-
Width: 175 millimetres (or very similar (platemark))
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The series was presented as loose impressions, and subsequently bound in the British Museum into 3 large volumes (sheet size c.485 x 340mm). The size and format of the plates deliberately echoes that of the earlier series with the same title of engravings after Reynolds made in the 1820s by S.W.Reynolds (for which see 1875,0508.810 to 1122), and the link is made more apparent by the fact that that the BM set of the earlier series was purchased from Henry Graves & Sons at the same time as they gave their own later series. But as yet no documentation has been found to explain the link between the two series.
In 1915 the BM acquired a second set of the Henry Graves & Co plates (see 1915,0508.316 to 584). This was formed of four volumes; the first three were duplicates of the 1875 group; the fourth was a continuation, and for this reason was bound and placed as part of the the series given in 1875.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1875
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1875,0508.1711-1912
