**Originally Listed At $300**

Artist Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (German, 1751-1829), Plate 28 from William Hamilton's (born Scotland 1730, died England 1803) "Peintures des Vases Antiques de la Collection de Son Excellence Mr. Le Chevalier Hamilton. . . . . Four volumes in French and Italian." Florence: Societa Calcographica, 1802. A hand colored engraving depicting a maiden being led by Eros (Cupid) to a seated male, inspired by imagery on an ancient vase, created by Johann Tischbein, a German artist whose friendship with J.W. von Goethe led him to pursue Neoclassicism. Sir William Hamilton was a British ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples during the period of Naples' "Golden Age" who was fascinated by the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, as well as an avid collector of classical antiquities, especially Greek vases. Set in a nice portfolio. Size: image measures 7.5" L x 10.25" W (19 cm x 26 cm); 17" L x 21.75" W (43.2 cm x 55.2 cm) in portfolio

After amassing and publishing fine illustrations of his first "Cabinet of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities," Sir William Hamilton sold the renowned collection to the British Museum, and began afresh to develop a second, similar collection. The first collection remains one of the Museum’s greatest treasures. Hamilton authored and published his "Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases" based on this second collection, between 1791 and 1795. This publication and Wedgwood’s works on ceramics influenced John Flaxman and Henry Fuseli as well as many other European artists. These engravings are illustrations from the first Florentine edition of "Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases". Part of this group of vases was lost during Hamilton’s hasty escape from Naples upon the invasion of the French in 1798; the remainder was eventually sold en masse to Englishman, Thomas Hope. Though Hope offered Hamilton less than he planned to receive, he promised to keep the vases together, for the study of artists and students of history, as Hamilton had always intended.

Provenance: private Denver, Colorado, USA collection

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#129417

Normal foxing in the margins. Image is quite strong.