Isaac and Ede Antique Prints
Fairburn SeasonsFairburn Seasons
Fairburn SeasonsFairburn Seasons

John Fairburn

The Four Seasons

12 x 16 inches

A scarce set of four mezzotint engravings depicting the four seasons, with captions taken from Thompson's Seasons, published by John Fairburn in London June 1st 1796.

These charming plates depict scenes relevant to the four seasons and based upon the poems by the Scottish poet James Thompson (1700-1748).

Spring depicts a family promenading in the country gathering wild flowers and uncovering a bird's nest. Summer shows a harvest scene with a labourer resting by a haystack, a cup of ale in his hand and a maiden raking the corn at his feet. In Autumn a father pulls apples from the tree and his son eagerly collects them in his hat while the mother sits by with a basket of fruit in her lap. Winter shows a skating scene with all the young men on the ice and the ladies warming their hands in their muffs.

Prints such as these that depict the seasons or the months of the year were hugely popular in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and remain so to this day. It is increasingly hard to find complete sets in such good condition as these.

£2600
Set of 4
Framed
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