CATHARINE OF BRAGANZA
William Faithorne
THE HON. MISS BINGHAM
Francesco Bartolozzi
Among the foreign talent Francesco Bartolozzi is preëminent as a stipple engraver in England. He is the foremost interpreter of the dainty compositions of Angelica Kauffmann and of Cipriani. Our illustration, “The Hon. Miss Bingham,” after Sir Joshua Reynolds, shows the Italian engraver at his best. The whole plate is a mass of minute dots which form the lines and the tones of the portrait. An adaptation, in a more minute grain, of the French crayon-manner, the English stipple lends itself admirably to the smooth blendings and soft modeling of the sweet allegorical plates, which Bartolozzi produced with indefatigable industry. Stipple prints quickly gained the favor not only of the British public, but also held sway for a while on the Continent. The process was eminently suited, and often used, for color-printing, or for slight suggestions of color introduced in the printing, to add to their charm.
The medium most particularly fostered in England is mezzotint engraving; originary from Germany, it found in the island kingdom a happy soil for its speedy growth. When Lely, Kneller, Gainsborough, Reynolds, and all that famous group of painters gave to the world their magnificent array of portraits, there existed no school of line engravers in England, no group of masterly engravers or etchers such as those of the Netherlands or of France. The field, therefore, was clear for mezzotint, and it seems as though no other process could have more adequately interpreted the achievements of the great portraitists. Their prevalent breadth of treatment, devoid of small, niggling detail, their numerous women’s portraits, with soft, rounded forms, subtle transitions of tone, sparkling accents of light and blending depths of shadow, were admirably suited to the “black art.” Hence the rise, during the eighteenth century, of a large school of mezzotint engravers, who attained great perfection in their chosen medium, progressing from prints of a sooty, black appearance to plates of clear, fine texture, like the portrait of Mrs. Carnac here reproduced, an engraving by John Raphael Smith. One is apt, quite naturally, to accord to engravings like this the credit due to the painter for his graceful composition. Quite aside, however, from matters of composition and beauty of subject, the mere charm of intense shadow and brilliant high light, with transitions of breath-like delicacy, rendered with the velvety richness peculiar to mezzotint, will readily explain the vogue and costliness of such prints. No half-tone reproduction, however good, can convey an idea of the texture of mezzotinting. An examination of good, early impressions of mezzotint portraits by such men as McArdell, Watson, Ward, Green, Reynolds, or other notables of the scraper, will prove their merits much more convincingly than words.
MRS. CARNAC