Grosvenor Prints

  Cover: [Nicholas Largilliere & family.] N. de Largilliere Pinx. I.Beckett fe. I. Smith ex. [n.d., c.1686.] Mezzotint. 370 x 270mm (14½ x 10½"). Trimmed to plate, crease in top right corner. Largilliere's portrait of himself and his family in an ornamental garden with statuary including a female nude and a fountain of a cherub riding on a dophin. He stands, leaning against a pedestal, looking down on his wife, who is seated with two small children, to whom she feeds grapes and other fruit. Also depicted are a peacock and a King Charles Spaniel. CS: Beckett 60, state ii of ii. Ex: Collection of The Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd. [Ref: 65321 ]   £360.00      We are pleased to present our listing: Catalogue 144: The Birth of Mezzotint! In the mid-17th century, a groundbreaking new form of engraving was introduced in Europe. Dur...

  Christopher Lennox-Boyd who died in 2012 aged 71 stood in the great tradition of great eccentric English antiquarian scholars and formed the finest collection of British Mezzotints in private hands. Christopher Lennox-Boyd was a most unusual collector. Much more than either the excitement of the chase or the satisfaction of ownership, it is the acquisition of information and knowledge that motivated him. He undoubtedly possessed the best impression of many a famous print, but much dearer to him, was a battered proof or intermediate state which provided him with data, as he called it, which was previously unrecorded. He was like an untypical lepidopterist, one who does not have to pin down his specimens, each with its label, in display cases and glass topped drawers. The label itself is what ultimately mattered to Christopher, once catalogued his captures may fly where they will. Mezzotint engravings provide a perfect field for collecting. The standard reference work, by John Chal...