Object Number 1963.0639

Object Name

Print (Mezzotint)

Title

The Reverend M\r George Whitefield, A.M./ Chaplain to the COUNTESS of Huntingdon.

Category

Prints and Maps

Credit Line/Donor

Bequest of Henry Francis du Pont

Creator (Role)

John Greenwood (Mezzotinter)
1727-1792
Greenwood was the son and grandson of prosperous Boston shipwrights. He was apprenticed to the engraver and japanner Thomas Johnston for three years, and then began his career as a portrait painter. In 1752, he sailed for Surinam and did not return to America. He painted more than one hundred portraits, and in his later years (after 1773) was a dealer in art objects in London, where he died.

Nathaniel Hone I (Painter)
1717/1718-1784

Robert Sayer (Publisher)
1725-02//1794
Sayer became active as a printseller as early as the late 1740s. He built up his stock of copper plates by taking over others’ inventories, first Philip Overton, then James McArdell when he died in 1765. He worked in partnership with John Bennett from around 1774 to 1785, then operated alone again through 1793. When he died in February 1794, the firm (along with Sayer’s stock of plates) were taken over by another London print firm, Laurie & Whittle.

Place of Origin

London, London, England, United Kingdom, Europe

Date

1769-1775

Mark or Signature or Inscription or Label

1. Inscription; Lower left beneath image; Hone · pinx\t
2. Inscription; Lower right beneath image; Grenwoode.feci[t]
3. Inscription; Bottom left; London, Printed for Rob.\t Sayer N.\o53 Fleet Street.

Subjects

Clergy; Portrait

Materials

Ink; Paper (laid)

Techniques

Mezzotint, Engraving

Dimensions (inches)

14.5 (H) , 10.5 (W) , 12.4 (Image H) , 9.9 (Image W)

Dimensions (centimeters)

36.8 (H) , 26.6 (W) , 12.4 (Image H) , 9.9 (Image W)

Measurement Notes

Measurements by sight, in frame. H at left. W at bottom. Plate H: 13.9 in. (35.2 cm). Plate W: 9.9 in. (25.2 cm). Chain intervals: 2.6-2.7 cm; 9 laid lines per cm.

Publisher Summary

Sayer, Robert

Place of Publication

No. 53 Fleet Street, London, England, United Kingdom, Europe

State

IV

Watermark

Fleur de lis over a shield with two diagonal bars and, below, a head in profile, being a variation of the Strasburg bend, a type used in the late 17th and 18th centuries

Edition Notes

Previously catalogued as either the third or fourth state.

Object Description

Text available soon.

Bibliography and Bibliographic Notes

[Book] Fowble, E. McSherry. 1987 Two Centuries of Prints in America, 1680-1880 : A Selective Catalogue of the Winterthur Museum Collection.
• Published: no. 56, pp. 108-09.
[Book] Smith, John Chaloner. 1884 British Mezzotinto Portraits; Being a Descriptive Catalogue of These Engravings from the Introduction of the Art to the early part of the present century. 2. 461-940.
• Listed as no. 6, p. 601.