Francesco Bartolozzi after Sir Joshua Reynolds

The Countess of Harrington and her Children

16 x 20.5 inches

This quintessential Georgian family portrait shows Jane Stanhope, Countess of Harrington, with her children: Charles, Viscount Petersham and Lincoln Edwin Robert Stanhope. The Stanhopes were a distinguished military family and the young Viscount pictured here went on to become a Major General in the army.

Francesco Bartolozzi was born in Florence in 1728 and died in Lisbon in 1815. He began his working life by reproducing the works of Italian painters but came to England in 1764 where he was commissioned to reproduce Guercino's drawings in the Royal Collection. After this he turned his hand to stipple engraving, the medium for which he is best remembered. He set up a studio in London from which he produced a vast number of engravings that became known as 'Furniture Prints'. It is thought that Bartolozzi produced in excess of two thousand different prints but he is perhaps best remembered for his renderings of classical, allegorical and mythological subjects after his fellow Italian artists, Angelica Kauffman and Giovanni Cipriani. His portraits are no less accomplished and are perhaps more desirable for their scarcity.