STEEL ENGRAVING - “SIMON, LORD LOVAT” from the original painting by William Hogarth, engraved by J. Moore, published in the mid 1800’s.  This engraving is in good condition. The actual engraving measures 5 3/4” x 3 3/4”, and is matted to 11" x 14" for easy framing.  The following is a description from “The Complete Works of William Hogarth”.   I will include a copy of this with the engraving.                                   

           Lord Lovat was born in the year 1667; his father was the twenty-second person who had enjoyed the title of Lovat in lineal descent. His mother was dame Sybilla M’Leod, daughter of the chief of the M’Leods, so famous for its unalterable loyalty to its princes. This portrait of his lordship was drawn from life at St. Alban’s whither our artist went for the purpose of taking it. He is painted in the act of counting the rebel forces with his fingers, and the likeness is said to be most faithful one.

        Lord Lovat was one of the last chieftains that preserved the rude manners and barbarous authority of the early feudal ages. He resided in a house which would be esteemed but an indifferent one for a very plain private gentleman in England, as it had properly only four rooms on a floor, and those not large. Here, however, he kept a sort of court, and several public tables, and a numerous body of retainers always attending. His own constant residence, and the place where he always received his company, even at diner, was the very same room where he lodged; and his lady’s sole apartment was her bedroom; and the only provision for the lodging of the servants and retainers was a quantity of straw, which they spread every night on the floors of the lower rooms, where the inferior part of the family, consisting of a very great numbers of persons, took up their abode.

         From his own account (as published in his memoirs), Lord Lovat seems to have been a man devoid of any fixed principle, except that of self-interest; and on his conduct during the rebellion of 1745, Sir William Young has the following observations: -

         “Your lordships have already done national justice on some of the principal traitors who appeared in open arms against his majesty, by the ordinary courses of the law; but this noble lord, who in the whole course of his life has boasted of his superior cunning in wickedness, and his ability to commit frequent treasons with impunity, vainly imagined that he might possibly (a traitor in private, and rebel only in his heart), be sending his son and his followers to join the Pretender, and remaining at home himself, deceive his majesty’s faithful subjects; hoping he might be rewarded for his son’s faithful services, if successful, or his son alone be the sufferer for his offences, if the undertaking failed. Diabolical cunning! Atrocious impiety!”

         Lord Lovat was executed in 1745; he underwent the infliction of his sentence with fortitude. He was beheaded by the maiden (an implement of death appropriated to state criminals in North Britain), of which the guillotine (which was so destructively employed during the French revolution) is an improvement.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE

Antique prints, etchings, engravings, and lithographs are printing processes, which use steel, copper, stone or wood blocks or plates to produce a picture on paper.

Most antique prints and engravings, which are seen on the internet today, are bookplates.  Because they are pages from a book, there are multiple copies in existence.  This does not, however, mean that they are "reproductions" that have been printed recently.  Because they were, at some point, part of books, some have been preserved in excellent condition, while others show signs of age, as yellow spots or darkness on the edge of the page from being handled.

Engravings, lithographs, ect., are high quality pieces of art, as it took a highly trained artist many hours of work to produce one.  Although there may be multiple copies still in existence, the date of the item should be stated in the auction, thus giving the buyer an idea of its age.

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