Current Location: In storage
Titles
The Rat-Catcher
Maker(s)
Printmaker:
Smith, John
Publisher:
Smith, John
Printmaker:
Visscher, Cornelis de
(After)
Entities
Categories
Description
Head and shoulders of an old, bearded man wearing a tattered and patched coat and a fur hat. Head turned slightly towards the left. A small rat sits on his cloak at the far right, looking out at the viewer. After Cornelis Visscher's large plate, The Rat-Catcher (1655; Hollstein, 50) in which the figure is three-quarter length and standing with his boy and dog in a courtyard.
Notes
History note: VanSittart gave 1,485 engravings to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1879 and this mezzotint was probably included within this group. The number written in pen and ink on the verso presumably relates to Vansittart's own cataloguing system and the number written in graphite to some kind of count by curators at the time of the acquisition.
Legal notes
Given by Augustus Arthur VanSittart, ?1879
Acquisition and important dates
Method of acquisition: Given
(1879)
by
VanSittart, Augustus Arthur
Dating
18th Century#
Circa
1683
-
Circa
1729
Note
Mezzotint. Small plate (140mm x 112mm). Scratched onto the plate in the narrow margin at lower right: 'I S Ex'. Good-sized margins. Hollstein records that Abraham Blooteling made a copy in reverse of the head and shoulders only (Hollstein 50, copy d; Cf. BM: 1843,0513.557). However, this plate is likely to have been Smith's own copy in reverse after Visscher which is mentioned in Hollstein: 'Furthermore eighteenth and nineteenth-century copies by: H.W. Couwenberg, Richard Houston, F. Mecheux, the count of Meluen, J. Smith, D. Sluyter, George Vertue and D. Vrydag.' Cf. NPG D11807. Inscribed in pen and ink on the verso: '2647' and in graphite: 'Vansittart Collection'; '523(3)'; '112'.
School or Style
British
Techniques used in production
Mezzotint
Identification numbers
Accession number: P.15079-R
Primary reference Number: 240109
Wessely (Smith): undescribed
Chaloner Smith: undescribed
Hollstein (Dutch/Flemish): 50 (Cornelis Visscher)
Stable URI
Audit data
Created: Thursday 9 January 2020
Updated: Wednesday 11 January 2023
Last processed: Thursday 7 December 2023
Associated departments & institutions
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Paintings, Drawings and Prints
