DOI issue:
Quarterly notes - Vol. xii, No. 1. February, 1925
DOI article:Riches, R. A.: Old English legal portraits
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51531#0122
referred to earlier, and The Earl of Camden, Lord
Chancellor in 1766, after Gainsborough.
W. Holl, the elder and the first of the famous family
of Holl, of whom Frank Holl, R.A., the eminent portrait
painter, was the last, engraved Lord Kenyon, after George
Romney’s painting. It is a charming print engraved
in pure stipple, revealing an unusual strength of tone,
from an admirable composition with all Romney’s
grace of arrangement and charm of expression. The
print in this particular style of engraving is technically
perfect. Sir Charles Holmes has described the method
as “laborious in execution as well as weak in effect,"
and no doubt generally this may be so, but Holl’s
engraving of Lord Kenyon is infinitely more pleasing
than the earlier line engraving by J. Fittler, after J.
Opie, R.A., published in 1789, the year after Lord
Kenyon was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the King’s
Bench ; a print without any apparent merit whatever.
Stephen Lushington, a judge of the Admiralty Court
in 1838, was also engraved by Holl in the stipple manner
after the painting by A. Wivell.
Charles Turner, A.R.A., is rightly regarded as one.
of the great masters of mezzotint ; his Lord Newton,
a judge of the Court of Session, Scotland, in 1806,
after Sir Henry Raeburn, would be almost sufficient
in itself t® raise him to the highest pinnacle of fame,
as it is one of the strongest and most characteristic of
all the engraved portraits after that great Scotsman.
Raeburn’s facile brush work seems to have inspired an
equally facile scraper. Turner’s interpretation is mas-
terly indeed, and it is impossible to mistake the painter
of the original picture, the slashing and vigorous brush-
work is replaced by masterly scraping of the roughened
82
Chancellor in 1766, after Gainsborough.
W. Holl, the elder and the first of the famous family
of Holl, of whom Frank Holl, R.A., the eminent portrait
painter, was the last, engraved Lord Kenyon, after George
Romney’s painting. It is a charming print engraved
in pure stipple, revealing an unusual strength of tone,
from an admirable composition with all Romney’s
grace of arrangement and charm of expression. The
print in this particular style of engraving is technically
perfect. Sir Charles Holmes has described the method
as “laborious in execution as well as weak in effect,"
and no doubt generally this may be so, but Holl’s
engraving of Lord Kenyon is infinitely more pleasing
than the earlier line engraving by J. Fittler, after J.
Opie, R.A., published in 1789, the year after Lord
Kenyon was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the King’s
Bench ; a print without any apparent merit whatever.
Stephen Lushington, a judge of the Admiralty Court
in 1838, was also engraved by Holl in the stipple manner
after the painting by A. Wivell.
Charles Turner, A.R.A., is rightly regarded as one.
of the great masters of mezzotint ; his Lord Newton,
a judge of the Court of Session, Scotland, in 1806,
after Sir Henry Raeburn, would be almost sufficient
in itself t® raise him to the highest pinnacle of fame,
as it is one of the strongest and most characteristic of
all the engraved portraits after that great Scotsman.
Raeburn’s facile brush work seems to have inspired an
equally facile scraper. Turner’s interpretation is mas-
terly indeed, and it is impossible to mistake the painter
of the original picture, the slashing and vigorous brush-
work is replaced by masterly scraping of the roughened
82