Current Location: In storage
Titles
The Man of Accomodation
Portrait of William Howell Ewin
Maker(s)
Printmaker:
Dean, Anna Maria
Entities
Categories
Description
Etching with hand colouring on laid paper. A full-length male figure in profile facing right, walking forwards on his left foot, his hands clasped together in front of him. He wears a wig and tricorne hat with long coat, stockings and buckled shoes. The figure's hat, coat, stockings, shoes and part of the ground beneath his feet are coloured dark grey. The man's face, and to a lesser degree, his hands, are coloured pink. A partially erased inscription in scratched letters beneath the figure's feet is identifiable as the remains of a scratched letter inscription seen in an earlier proof. See P.14877-R. In graphite in the lower margin: 'Dr [E]win of Cambridge'. This is a proof before letters of a print known as _The Man of Accomodation [sic]_, which George states was etched by Anna Maria Dean after a drawing by 'Mr Porteus of Trin.[ity] Coll.[ege].' See George (BM Satires), 5187. An impression in the British Museum, 1931,0413.445, is located in volume II of Richard Bull's collection of prints by amateurs, and bears an erroneous inscription of 'Dr Ewing'. It is engraved with the title to the left of the image. Ewin was born in Cambridge and studied at St. John's College. He was publically disgraced in 1777 for lending money to William Bird, a scholar at Trinity College, at an exorbitant rate of interest which resulted in the young man being thrown into a debtor's prison. Ewin was later denounced by Lord Mansfield as ‘a corrupter of youth and an usurer’ (DNB, see Notes).
Legal notes
Unknown
Height 115mm (plate) x width 90mm (plate)
