STEEL ENGRAVING - “GROUP OF HEADS,” INTENDED TO DISPLAY THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT CHARACTER AND CARICATURE from the original engraving by William Hogarth, published in the mid 1800’s.  This engraving is in very good condition. The actual engraving measures 5 1/4” x 4 3/4”, and is matted to 11" x 14" for easy framing.  The following is a description from “The Complete Works of William Hogarth”.   I will include a copy of this with the engraving.                          

        Fielding, in his preface to Joseph Andrews, remarks, - “What caricature is in painting, burlesque is in writing, and in the same manner the comic writer and painter correlate to each other. But here I shall observe, that as in the former the painter seems to have the advantage; so it is in the latter infinitely on the side of the writer; for the monstrous is much easier to paint than describe; and the ridiculous to describe than paint. And though, perhaps, this latter species doth not in either science so strongly affect and agitate the muscles as the other, yet it will be owned, I believe, that a more rational and useful pleasure arises to us from it.

        “He who should call the ingenious Hogarth a burlesque painter, would, in my opinion, do him very little honour; for sure it is much easier, much less the subject of admiration, to paint a man with a nose, or any other feature, of a monstrous size, or to expose him in some absurd or monstrous attitude, than to express the affections of men on canvas. It hath been thought a vast commendation of a painter to say, his figures seem to breathe; but surely it is a much greater and nobler applause, that they appear to think.”

       This is Fielding’s opinion, and the fiat of such a writer ought to have great weight, for his characters, and Hogarth’s pictures, are drawn from the same source.

------“In Lairesse,” says Lavater, “still more in Poussin, and most of all in Raphael, we find simplicity, greatness or conception, tranquility, superiority, sublimity the most exalted! Raphael can never be enough studied, although he only exercised his mind on the rarest forms, the grandest traits of countenance.

        “In Hogarth, alas! How little of the noble! How little of beauteous expression is to be found in this, I had almost said, false prophet of beauty: but what an immense treasure of features; of meanness in excess, vulgarity the most disgusting, humour the most irresistible, and vice the most unmanly.”

         In this rhapsody three is some truth; but the philosopher of Zurich should have recollected, that Hogarth could not be expected to attain what he never attempted. Sublimity exalted, simplicity angelic, and the ideal grandeur of superior beings, he left to those who delineated subjects which demanded such characters; and contended himself with representing Nature - not as it ought to be, but as he found it. “That he had little reverence for the dreams of those who portrayed imaginary beings,” says Mr. Ireland, “I have had occasion to remark; but that he respected their waking thoughts, is evinced in this print; where the heads of three figures, from Raphael’s Cartoons, are introduced under the article “character,” in opposition to the fantastic caricatures of Cavalier Chezze, Annibal Caracci, and Leonardo da Vinci; the last of whom I am very sorry to see so classed; for to his anatomical knowledge the late Dr. Hunter gave the strongest testimony, by declaring his intention to publish a volume illustrated by the designs of the artist, an anatomical studies.

        “I have often seen three engravings from the same picture, by an Italian, an English, and an French artist, which, with a tolerable correctness of outline, have, in their general character, a dissimilarity that is astonishing. Each engraving gives his national air. The three heads from Raphael, at the bottom of this print, are etched by Hogarth, and sufficiently marked to determine the master from whence they are copied; but their grandeur, elevation, and simplicity is totally evaporated.

       “With angels, apostles, and saints, he was not happy. In the group placed above them he has been more successful. Hogarth was less of a mannerist than almost any other artist; for though there are above a hundred profiles, I discover no copy from another painter - no repetition of his own works; they are all delineated from nature; and the most careless observer must discover many resemblances: to the physiognomist they are an inexhaustible study.”

       The print was given as a subscription ticket to the six plates of “Marriage-a-la Mode.”

IMPORTANT TO NOTE

Antique prints, etchings, engravings, and lithographs are printing processes, which use steel, copper, stone or wood blocks or plates to produce a picture on paper.

Most antique prints and engravings, which are seen on the internet today, are bookplates.  Because they are pages from a book, there are multiple copies in existence.  This does not, however, mean that they are "reproductions" that have been printed recently.  Because they were, at some point, part of books, some have been preserved in excellent condition, while others show signs of age, as yellow spots or darkness on the edge of the page from being handled.

Engravings, lithographs, ect., are high quality pieces of art, as it took a highly trained artist many hours of work to produce one.  Although there may be multiple copies still in existence, the date of the item should be stated in the auction, thus giving the buyer an idea of its age.

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