Miss Hoare (mezzotint portrait)
London: Printed for Robert Sayer No. 53 in Fleet Street, circa 1770. Mezzotint engraving measuring 13.75 x 10 inches, on a sheet measuring 15 x 11 inches. Laid paper evenly toned.
Eighteenth-century mezzotint of English painter William Hoare’s portrait of his young daughter Mary (1744-1820) poring over a volume of prints. Following her father, “the celebrated Miss Hoare of Bath” grew into an artist, exhibiting pastels and drawings from a young age, and becoming an active patron of music and theater after her marriage in 1765. The engraver of this portrait was the prolific John Faber, Jr., who learned mezzotint portraiture under his own father: “It proves the talent and the industry of this artist that his style of engraving improved up to his death (which took place on 2nd May, 1756); his prints, always clear and careful, becoming more bold and finished in manner towards the end of his career.” Second state, without the original price and place of sale (“The Golden Head near the Church Bloomsbury Square”) in the caption. Publisher Robert Sayer’s Fleet Street address was not numbered until the mid-1760s; from 1774, his imprints read “Sayer & Bennet,” dating this print around 1770. See John Chaloner Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, 191 (ii of ii). A compelling image of a young girl’s artistic education.
Price: $500.00