Since I started collecting art pieces, I have acquired several portraits of fairly well known people. Granted the pieces tend to be fairly old but it is amazing what one can do scratching marks on a copper plate.

The Right Hon. William Pitt
etching by William Bromley 1808

A fine engraving by WILLIAM BROMLEY (1769-1842) of WILLIAM PITT THE YOUNGER (1759-1806). It was published by Robert Bowyer in June of 1808. Pitt is known as Britain’s youngest Prime Minister.  He is best known for leading Britain in the great wars against France and Napoleon. #WilliamPitt was an outstanding administrator who worked for efficiency and reform, bringing in a new generation of outstanding administrators.  One of Pitt’s most important accomplishments was the revitalisation of the nation’s finances after the American War of Independence.  Pitt helped the Government manage the mounting national debt, and made changes to the tax system in order to improve its efficiency.  There were other not so successful  plans such as his failure to secure parliamentary reform, emancipation, or the abolition of the slave trade (this occured a year after Pitt’s death)

Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire
mezzotint by Valentine Green

From a copper engraving to a mezzotint by Valentine Green. We see #Georgina,DuchessofDevonshre posing on the patio most likely at Chatsworth House.  The Duchess of Devonshire was of renowned beauty and into her social circle she gathered a great many literary and political figures.

And since I wish for my readers to focus on the art in todays chapter and not the information which I post about them, I will finish with  another mezzotint but this time by William Dickinson.

Joseph Banks
mezzotint by William Dickinson

Born into a life of privilege, #JosephBanks did not settle down to a life of elegant excess, having ‘married well’.  His passion was for knowledge.  His first research endeavour was to Newfoundland and Labrador from where he returned with many collected specimens, including some 340 plants.  Joseph Banks’ next expedition was one of the great missions of discovery in history, as he joined then Lieutenant James Cook on his first journey to the South Pacific. The primary mission was to record the transit of Venus across the sun. It was the secondary mission of the expedition that held Banks’s interest; to record all manner of plant and animal life encountered.

Three famous personages wonderfully portrayed by artists of sublime skill.