Thomas Holloway, The Portrait and Physiognomy, 1810, Print

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An original antique print, The Portrait and Physiognomy, a physiognomical study by Thomas Holloway, 1810. The sitter, the technique and … Read more An original antique print, The Portrait and Physiognomy, a physiognomical study by Thomas Holloway, 1810. The sitter, the technique and the date given here are those recorded when the sheet was examined by hand; a date given as circa is an estimate from the style and manner of the printing. Prints of this kind were issued in their own day for a wide public of collectors, readers and admirers, and where no name is attached they are collected for the quality of the drawing, the character of the face and the hand of the maker. The print is by the English engraver Thomas Holloway (1748 to 1827), best known for the plates of the English edition of Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy. The printing technique of this sheet has not been recorded more precisely than as a print, and this listing does not guess at it. Portrait prints of every kind, engraved, etched, lithographed and photomechanical, were produced in great numbers for books, periodicals and portfolios, and a buyer choosing among them is choosing first for the sitter and for the quality of the likeness. This sheet came to the gallery in a group of eighty five portrait prints kept together as lot BG-14343. Because eleven of them carry the imprint of William Mackenzie of Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and New York, the group was first taken for a single Victorian biographical series. Identification sheet by sheet has shown that it is something more interesting: a gathering of portraits from across Europe and across two and a half centuries, in engraving, etching and lithography. Each sheet is therefore described on its own evidence and not on the group's. Portrait prints have been collected in their own right since the eighteenth century, when James Granger's Biographical History of England of 1769 set off a fashion for illustrating books with portraits of the people named in them, and they are still collected today for the sitter, for the maker and for the face itself. A single portrait frames well in a narrow moulding with a generous mat, and a group of them hung together, whether by period, by profession or simply by the strength of the faces, makes one of the most satisfying walls there is for a study, a library, a landing or a dining room. The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning, scattered foxing in the margins and a small stain at one corner; both portraits are clean and strong. This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed. See less