William Pitt, Steel Engraving after Reynolds by Ludwig Hoffmann, circa 1850
€ 165
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
circa 1850
Mapmaker / artist
Reynolds (painter), Lud. Hoffmann (engraver)
Publisher
Inst. Bibl. (Bibliographisches Institut), for Meyer's Conversations-Lexicon
Technique
Steel engraving
Coloring
Uncolored
Sheet size
24 × 16 cm (9.4 × 6.3 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-14343-6
What the condition grades mean
Excellent
Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good
Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good
Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair
Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Condition
Good condition for its age. Light toning and spotting; faint stain in the left margin below the image; pencil numbers in the lower right margin; uneven edges. The image is clean. Please review the images for further condition details.
About this sheet
This steel engraved portrait is lettered "W. Pitt" in a decorative cartouche below the image and shows a young man in the dress of the 1790s, his powdered hair swept back, a white stock at his throat and a high collared double breasted coat. The costume and youthful likeness are those of William Pitt the Younger (1759 to 1806), who became Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1783 at the age of twenty four, the youngest ever to hold the office, and who led the country through most of the long war with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
The portrait is set within an engraved frame of fine vertical lines with a rosette at each corner. Below the frame the plate is lettered "Reynolds pinx." on the left and "Lud. Hoffmann sc." on the right, crediting the painting to Reynolds and the engraving to Ludwig Hoffmann. Above the frame, at upper left, it is lettered "Mr Conv. Lex. No 154", and beneath the cartouche "Inst. Bibl. excudit".
Those last two lines identify the plate as one of the portraits issued by the Bibliographisches Institut, the German publishing house founded by Joseph Meyer, for its great Conversations-Lexicon, the encyclopedia that appeared in parts in the 1840s and early 1850s. Meyer illustrated it with hundreds of steel engraved portraits of statesmen, writers and scientists from every country, engraved by a team of German specialists, and these plates are admired today for the fineness of their work.
Steel was the ideal medium for such a project: a hardened steel plate could yield thousands of impressions without wear while holding lines fine enough to model a face in soft gradations of tone. Here the dark ground throws the pale face forward, and the texture of the coat and the crisp linen of the stock are rendered with great care.
A portrait of Pitt makes a natural choice for a study, library or office, and it hangs well alongside other statesmen of the age of Napoleon.
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.
