Columbus Breaking the Egg.

William Hogarth

Columbus Breaking the Egg.

London, J. & J. Boydell ca 1806

Copper engraving

165 x 195mm

£120

From the collection of George Morant, (1770 – 1846) of 95 Wimpole St, London. A very fine set on mostly uncut sheets kept loose in a folio. Carefully printed and in very good condition.

Morant was a collector and Founder of a business of paper hangers, carvers, gilders and picture frame makers.

The company had offices at 88 Old Bond St,  from 1814, and was appointed as ‘house decorator, carver, gilder & picture-frame-maker to His Majesty’. From 1832 he was appointed again by Her majesty Queen Victoria

An old fable, applied here to Columbus. As related by Girolamo Benzoni, after admiration for Columbus’s discoveries waned and success turned to envy, his enemies began to assert that anyone could of thought of his plan and carried it out. Columbus challenged his detractors to balance an egg upright on the table. All failed, so Columbus, smashing the base of the egg, thus managed to place it upright. The ‘Line of Beauty’ promoted in the Analysis, is here echoed in the eels on a platter on the table.