Étienne Fessard, Monsieur Gaultere, 1750, Engraving

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An original antique engraved portrait of Monsieur Gaultere by Étienne Fessard, circa 1750. The sitter, the technique and the date … Read more An original antique engraved portrait of Monsieur Gaultere by Étienne Fessard, circa 1750. 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. The sheet is catalogued under the sitter's name as it was recorded when the sheet was examined by hand, and nothing further about the sitter is asserted here. Portraits of this kind were made for families, friends and admirers, and they are collected today for the quality of the likeness and the hand of the maker as much as for the name. The print is by the eighteenth century Paris engraver Étienne Fessard (1714 to 1777). Engraving was the principal medium of the printed portrait for three centuries. The image is cut into a metal plate, inked and printed under heavy pressure, and the engraver builds up the form of a face through the spacing and swelling of the lines, which is why a well engraved portrait rewards close looking. The technique of this sheet is recorded as engraving without distinguishing copper from steel, and it is described that way here rather than guessed at. 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; it is trimmed to the image without margins, with a small nick at the upper edge and light creasing at one corner. 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