Description:
Framed mezzotint on laid paper titled "The Honorable Edward Boscawen, Admiral of the Blue Squadron of His Majesty's Fleet, And One of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty." and "Cape Breton taken 1738" and "Five French Ships of the Line taken about 1759" and "Sold by J. Mc Ardell." British Admiral Edward Boscawen (1711-1761) distinguished himself in naval engagements against the French off of Cape Breton and in the Carribean during the 1740s and 1750s. This image of Boscawen, shown standing whole-length, turned slightly to right on seashore, eyes to front, holding hat in his right hand and wearing naval uniform with a ship on choppy sea in the background, is based on a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) and first printed by James McArdell (1729-1765) in 1758. Born in Dublin, McArdell, a prolific and esteemed engraver, moved to London in 1746 with his master, the engraver John Brooks. By 1750, he had established himself as a mezzotint engraver, where he became the center of a circle of other Dublin engravers who had followed him there, including Richard Houston, Charles Spooner and Richard Purcell. McArdell produced some 200 mezzotints after other artists, mainly portraits which include prints after Anthony van Dyck, Peter Lely, Joshua Reynolds, Allan Ramsay, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, William Hogarth and others. This print may have been owned first by Mrs. Elizabeth Pitkin Porter (1719-1798), the widow of Colonel Moses Porter, of Hadley, Massachusetts. Such prints were talking points and necessary to furnishing refined parlors, but householders had to know where to find them. In 1797, Abigail Lyman of Northampton, Massachusetts, wrote to her husband on a business trip in Boston: "I see by the last paper [Columbian Centinel (Boston)] that Bowen has publish’d some Shakespear prints for sale. I would recommend it to you to purchase two for each of our front rooms." When Esther Williams (1726-1800), the widow of Doctor Thomas Williams (1718-1775) of Deerfield died in 1800, a dozen prints and maps already covered her parlor walls. The appraisers apparently listed them in the order in which they were hung: "Engraving of Gen’l Wolfe, William Pitt, Gen’l Blakeney, Adm’l Hawke, Battle of Culloden, Map of Europe, Map of New England, Map of the British Colonies in America, Chart of the British and French Colonies in America, Cut of the King of Prussia, and Siege of Quebec."
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+89.004 |
