Four Heads from the Raphael Cartoons at Hampton Court

William Hogarth after Sir James Thornhill

Four Heads from the Raphael Cartoons at Hampton Court

London, J. & J. Boydell  ca 1806

Etching with light mezzotint background

215 x 350mm

£200

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

A plate with an interesting publishing history. In the legend beneath the image, Mrs Jane Hogarth (Thornhill’s daughter), states that the copperplate was found among Hogarth’s possessions after his death, and that he may have engraved them for an intended but unexecuted project of his father-in-law’s. No prints were issued from this copperplate during Hogarth’s lifetime. From 1729 Thornhill had occupied himself with making studies of the Raphael Cartoons, intending to use them to illustrate a treatise on drawing. The four heads are copies from the work called Paul and the Blind Magician Elymas, before Sergius Paulus (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum). Paulson 264 II/II