William Ward after George Morland

A Visit to the Boarding School [&] A Visit to the Child at Nurse

22 x 18 inches

A pair of colour printed mezzotint engravings by William Ward after the paintings by George Morland, published in London in 1789 and 1788 respectively.

These charming prints are typical of the domestic genre material that was so popular in Georgian England. While France was erupting into revolution, anarchy and civil war, England revelled in its stability and delighted in a rural and domestic idyll that found expression through contemporary art. George Morland excelled at portraying a tranquil and harmonious society where everybody knew their place in the social order and these prints depict two scenes from a life of gentility far removed from the harsh realities of continental warfare. William Ward was born in London in 1766. He married the sister of the famous English landscape painter, George Morland, after whom he engraved these plates. As such he spent most of his life surrounded by artists and engravers. He was apprenticed to John Raphael Smith and on completion of his time became the latter’s assistant. He engraved portraits, genre, decorative and sporting subjects after both his contemporaries and his own designs. He is, perhaps, best known for his engravings after the work of his brother-in-law, George Morland. He was appointed mezzotint engraver to the Duke of York in 1803 and later to the Prince of Wales.

£1600