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SMITH, After John of Chichester (1717-1764)
[Rural landscape with Castle] The Original Picture from which this Print was taken, in the year 1760, obtained the Second Premium granted by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, in London
London: John Boydell, 24 January 1763. Copper engraving, coloured by hand, by William Woollett. (Expertly repaired tears to margins and plate mark, old creasing). Image size (including text): 17 x 22 3/4 inches. Sheet size: 20 1/2 x 26 1/4 inches.
A fine image of an idealized sylvan landscape: a work by 'the first English engraver whose works were admired and purchased on the continent' (DNB).
William Woollett (1735-1785) 'son of Philip Woollett, a flax-dresser at Maidstone, was born there on 15 Aug. 1735. Shortly after that date his father, having won a share in a lottery prize, took the Turk's Head inn at Maidstone, and there young Woollett gave the first indication of his artistic talent by scratching the sign of the house on a pewter pot. He was, in consequence, sent to London, where he became a pupil of John Tinney, and also studied drawing in the St. Martin's Lane Academy... Boydell... commissioned him to engrave the Niobe of Richard Wilson. This established his reputation as the ablest landscape engraver who had yet appeared in England.. So far Wollett had confined his practice almost exclusively to landscape work, but on the appearance in 1771 of West's Death of General Wolfe, he undertook to engrave it, sharing the venture with Boydell and William Wynne Ryland. The plate, which is his most celebrated work, was published in January 1776, and achieved extraordinary popularity both in England and abroad. On a proof of it being shown to the king shortly before its publication, the title of Historical Engraver to His Majesty was conferred upon Woollett... Some of his topographical drawings were engraved by Mason, Canot, and Elliott. In 1766 Woollett became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, of which he was also secretary for several years. He resided for some time in Green Street, Leicester Square, and later in Charlotte Street, Rathbone Place, where he died...on 23 May 1785...
Woollett stands in the front rank of the professors of his art, and he was the first English engraver whose works were admired and purchased on the continent. In his landscapes he succeeded, by a skilful combination of the graver and needle, in rendering the effects of distance, light, and atmosphere in a way not previously attempted, and his figure subjects are executed with remarkable vigour and purity of line.' (DNB).
John Smith, the younger brother of the painter George Smith, 'was his pupil, and painted landscapes of a similar character; the two frequently worked on the same canvas. John exhibited with the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1760 and with the Free Society from 1761 to 1764. In 1760, again in 1761, he was awarded the second premium of the Society of Arts, and in 1762, when his brother George was not a candidate, the first; his premium landscape of 1760 was engraved by Woollett. He died at Chichester on 29 July 1764.' (DNB).
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#5745 $1,500.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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