Each etching
measures 46 x 58 cms. The Shakespeare Characters (1775-6)
were Mortimer's own etchings after his original drawings. My impressions
appear to be original impressions and not reprints. I attach details to
help you understand the great (and to my mind unsurpassed) powers of this
artist (1740- 1779), active as a portraitist, caricaturist and draftsman
of the bizarre and uncanny. There is no other British artist of this period
who relishes the intervals, complexities and structures of gussets and
seams in clothes - no one else who can make a fold as sinister and redolent
of meaning. The contortions of laces and fixings contain entire mythologies.
I once owned the Palser reprint of much of Mortimer's work (1816) - the
Banditti, Monsters, a terrifying Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - in
which there was a discernible diminution of quality of line brought about
by the reprinting process. Here Mortimer is at his best.
KENWOOD EXHIBITION
in the public domain, SHAKESPERIAN HEADS
in the public domain, DRAWINGS AND PRINTS |
BANDITTI
miscellaneous references for Carole
etching,
Reposo 1779
etching, Bandit taking
up his Post 1788
etching,
FROM 11 etchings dedicated to Reynolds, the frontispiece 1778 |