Estampes

1766 · Best.-Nr. 26551 — Naples 1766-1776. A single aquatint plate drawn and engraved after the original pieces in the Hamilton collection. An aquatint in terracotta on a black background with highlighting in light rose showing a man leading three children they are all wearing laurels and bearing leaves for sacrifice. As they approach the altar two objects hover above one of which is likely a basin or kylix the other resembles a stylized head of a horned animal. Printed on a single folio sheet measuring approximately 20" x 14" the image approximately 5.5" X 7.5". Now presented in cream mounting boards 22" x18" behind clear mylar. A very fine plate in an excellent state of preservation. A BEAUTIFUL AND IMPRESSIVE PLATE FROM A MASTERPIECE OF CLASSIC ART RENDERINGS AND PUBLICATION. Hamilton served as British envoy to the court of Naples where he began collecting Greek vases and other antiquities immediately upon arriving at his post. In 1766–67 he published a volume of engravings of his collection entitled A Collection of Etruscan Greek and Roman antiquities from the cabinet of the Honble. Wm. Hamilton. A further three volumes were produced in 1769–76. Josiah Wedgwood the potter and porcelain maker drew great inspiration from the reproductions presented in Hamilton's volumes. While widely recognized for their beauty the reproductions from Hamilton's vases have become evidence of the irreconcilable problem of neoclassicism in the Romantic period. Significant changes in the way the vases were engraved over a span of thirty or forty years demonstrate how an immutable collection of objects is subject to radical shifts in representation in response to the social and artistic styles of the time. hardcover