A Fruit Market, from The Houghton Gallery
Richard Earlom (after Frans Snyders (Flemish, 1579-1657); intermediary drawing by Joseph Farington (British, 1747-1821); published by…)
1775
- Medium
- Mezzotint with engraving in black ink on ivory wove paper
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Image: 35.9 × 57.2 cm (14 3/16 × 22 9/16 in.); Plate: 41.5 × 57.6 cm (16 3/8 × 22 11/16 in.); Sheet: 50 × 67.2 cm (19 11/16 × 26 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- England
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Thomas B. Marston and Henry N. Tuttle
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
John Boydell embarked on a monumental publication documenting the art collection of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain’s first prime minister. Boydell contracted 45 engravers to create 162 prints, of which Richard Earlom’s are considered the most notable.
Motivated by nationalistic pride, Boydell sought to broadcast British patronage and connoisseurship of art to an international audience, as well as to encourage Parliament to purchase the collection for the nation from Walpole’s grandson. His efforts were not entirely successful; Catherine the Great, the empress of Russia, eventually acquired the entirety of Walpole’s holdings. Regarded as one of the finest groupings of Old Master European paintings, these works—including A Fruit Market (1618/21) by Frans Snyders, reproduced in this mezzotint by Earlom—can be seen at the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
