Hogarth, William (1697 London 1764). (Hymen and Cupid.) Admission ticket for the mask play “Alfred the Great” in Cliveden House – this in the background – 1748 before Prince and Princess of Wales on occasion of the latter’s birthday. Engraving in oval. 18.7 x 21.2 cm.
Served later as subscription proof for H’s “Sigismunda”. – Impression on strong paper from the plate retouched by the royal engraver James Heath (1757 London 1834) about 1822 (“Even these impressions have become relatively rare today though”, Art Gallery Esslingen 1970; and Meyers Konv.-Lex., 4th ed., VIII [1888], 625: “A fine edition”, esteemed also already by contemporary collectors of the rank of for instance an A. T. Stewart [Catalog of the Stewart Collection, New York 1887, 1221, “fine plates”]).
Offer no. 7,874 / EUR 25. (c. US$ 34.) + shipping
– – – The same in engraving by Thomas Cook (c. 1744 – London 1818). Inscribed: Hymen & Cupid. / Hogarth pinxt. / T. Cook sculp. / Published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, Aug. 1st. 1809. Subject size 14.1 x 16.8 cm.
Cook “made his mark as Hogarth engraver, too, whose complete work he has engraved in copy” (Thieme-Becker) and whose original format he maintained contrary to all later Hogarth editions in his first, earlier edition. For some sheets not published by Hogarth himself Cook became their first engraver, just as he also gained approval of a contemporary connoisseur as Maximilian Speck von Sternburg. Here present from Cook’s popular later, smaller Hogarth edition from 1806-09. – Trimmed within the wide white platemark whose outer edges are weakly brownspotted on two sides.
Offer no. 9,025 / EUR 33. (c. US$ 44.) + shipping
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