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