Charles KNIGHT after Henry Bunbury

Gleaners

17¾ x 15½ inches

A pair of oval stipple plate engravings printed in sepia ink, engraved by Charles Knight after the drawings of Henry William Bunbury, published in London by W. Dickinson 1787.

In one plate a brace of strapping country girls gather up the harvest while a shepherd boy sits nearby, amusing them by playing on his horn. In the accompanying plate the girls are hard at work in the fields bundling up their sheaves. Charles Knight (1743-1826) was an engraver, based in London, who studied under Francesco Bartolozzi and perfected the technique of stipple engraving upon copper plates. He was one of the many artists who responded to the increased demand for attractive "boudoir prints" that were fast becoming fashionable as accessories for interior decoration during the reign of George III. Henry Bunbury (1750-1811) was one of the best loved and well-connected caricaturists of Georgian England. He was educated at Westminster School and then Cambridge so his social connections gave him access to a very lucrative market. Unlike his contemporaries, Thomas Rowlandson and James Gillray, Bunbury never attempted political or malicious satire so his caricatures were gentle and inoffensive in nature and did not cause the consternation or outrage of other artist's work.

£750