Gilbert Charles Stuart (born Stewart) (December 3, 1755 — July 9, 1828) was an American painter from Rhode Island.

Gilbert Stuart is widely considered to be one of America’s foremost portraitists. His best known work, the unfinished portrait of George Washington that is sometimes referred to as The Athenaeum, was begun in 1796 and left incomplete at the time of Stuart’s death in 1828. The image of George Washington featured in the painting has appeared on the United States one-dollar bill for over one century.

Throughout his career, Gilbert Stuart produced portraits of over 1,000 people, including the first six Presidents of the United States. King George of England and various Statesman, Artists and members of high Society

His work can be found today at art museums across the United States and the United Kingdom, most notably the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Here we have the “Portrait of Richard Earlom Esq” engraved by Thomas Lupton, London published in London in 1800. Image 5.5 by 5.5 inches with margins on 18 Century wove paper. The sheet has a light foxing in the other margins.

It was a typical practice that engravers produced Engraved Mezzotints after the oils executed by the Leading Portrait painters of the period , Often the artist massed large sums of money from the sales of the Engravings of there works first executed in oil and also provided to make the artists famous , often best known by there engraved images.

Richard Earlom (1742—1822), English mezzotint engraver, was born and died in London. His natural faculty for art appears to have been first called into exercise by admiration for the lord mayor’s state coach, just decorated by Giovanni Battista Cipriani. He tried to copy the paintings, and was sent to study under Cipriani. He displayed great skill as a draughtsman, and at the same time acquired without assistance the art of engraving in mezzotint.
In 1765, Earlom was employed by Alderman Boydell, then one of the most liberal promoters of the fine arts, to make a series of drawings from the pictures at Houghton Hall; and these he afterwards engraved in mezzotint. His most perfect works as engraver are perhaps the fruit and flower pieces after the Dutch artists Van Os and Jan van Huysum. Among his historical and figure subjects are Agrippina, after West; Love in Bondage, after Guido Reni; the Royal Academy, the Embassy of Hyderbeck to meet Lord Cornwallis, and a Tiger Hunt, the last three after Zoffany; and Lord Heathfield, after Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Earlom also executed a series of 200 facsimiles of the drawings and sketches of Claude Lorraine, which was published in 3 vols. folio, under the title of Liber veritatis (1777—1819).

Thomas Goff Lupton was among one of the leading Mezzotint Engraver of his day . He was responsible for engraving many fine Mezzotints Engravings in his career and later engraved several of the Finest works of J. W. M. Turner R. A. “Liber Studiorum” works.

Art (paintings, prints, frames)