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CORBUTT, C. (pseudonym R. PURCELL) after P MERCIER
The Young Grenadier
London: Printed for Robert Sayer, No 53 Fleet Street, circa 1773. Mezzotint. In excellent condition apart for some slight paper discolouration in the margins. Missing paper in the bottom right corner has been skillfully mended. Image size: 11 1/4 x 8 7/8 inches. Plate mark: 12 3/4 x 8 7/8 inches. Sheet size: 13 5/8 x 9 11/16 inches.
An enchanting picture of a young boy in the costume of a soldier.
This charming print is a wonderful example of the typical fancy picture produced in a the droll format. The fancy picture refers to the tradition of English genre painting in which picturesque scenes of children or country life were attractively rendered. The mezzotint droll is typically a humorous or satirical print produced by English printsellers during the latter part of the eighteenth century. Drolls were always produced in mezzotint and almost always created in a 10 x 14 inch format. Whether a print is considered to be droll is based on its medium and format rather than its content. Fancy pictures, portraits, religious scenes, and satires all fall under the droll classification and were often seen advertised together in contemporary print catalogues. The creation of the droll format as a marketing piece represents the cunning with which engravers and printsellers responded to a growing market for attractive affordable prints. The droll format allowed for a print to be pleasing to the eye at the same time as being small enough to be conveniently handled. Drolls could fit easily into a print shop window or slip into a portfolio, and because of the choice of subjects, they could just as easily decorate the walls of a tavern as they could adorn a kitchen. Corbutt's mezzotint of The Young Grenadier is a perfect example of the fancy picture droll, with its sweet subject and attractive appearance it would have been pleasing to a wide range of eighteenth century print collectors.
Hart, A Catalogue of 18th-Century British Mezzotint Satires in North American Collections
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#8162 $800.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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