A Note upon Morland bngravings 



The delicate refinement of Blake's nature was at the opposite pole to the 

 outspoken coarseness of Morland. Imagine Morland, writing as Blake did, almost 

 at the time when he was working at the pair of engravings mentioned above — 

 " Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual than London 

 Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates ; her windows are not obstructed by 

 vapours ; voices of celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard." If only Morland 

 could have seen the country with Blake's eyes, and could have put some of Blake's 

 soul into his work, the world might never have known a greater painter. 



"The subjects of his pictures," wrote Dawe in 1806, " being adapted to common 

 comprehensions, the prints engraved from them had an unparalleled sale not only in 

 this country but abroad, particularly in France and Germany. Of those of Dancing 

 Dogs and Selling Guinea Pigs five hundred pairs were sold in a few weeks. One 

 foreign dealer often took as many as would have supplied all England. When the 

 four plates of The Deserter were published, a single dealer gave an order for nine 

 dozen sets." It is a striking' fact, this immediate acceptance of Morland on the 

 Continent, for the same was the case in later days with Constable, another example 

 of splendid isolation. Even French engravers tried their hands at his pictures of 

 "le sport," for in 1790 and 1791 La Chasse a la Becassint, La Chasse de la Becasse 

 La Chasse du Canard, and La Chasse du Lihre were all engraved by A. Suntach. 



It is noteworthy too that this great boom in mezzotint engravings should have 

 marked the turn of the nineteenth as well as of the twentieth century. Concerning 

 the foreign demand, C. Josi, the famous Dutch collector and dealer, writes in 1821 : 

 "The craze for English engravings during the last fifty years is extraordinary. 

 Everyone has developed a taste for them. I am, of course, aware that they have 

 reached an exaggerated value as mere objects of mercantile speculation, but this is 

 only natural. They are snapped up as soon as they are seen, bring a certain and 

 considerable profit, and few objects have ever met with so rapid and widely-extended 

 a demand.'' 



Josi himself had passed five years in London as the pupil of J. R. Smith. He 

 had no mean powers as an engraver, and in 1797 published The Peasant's Repast and 

 The Labourer's Luncheon, two excellent plates after Morland. When, however, he 

 returned to Holland, he found that no single plate, be it never so skilfully engraved, 

 could find a purchaser unless it bore an English title and imprint — " Rien n' 6tait 

 comparable aux estampes anglaises 1 Tel m^rite que pouvaient avoir d' autres, il 

 suffisait, pour leur disgrace, qu' elles ne portassent pas des titres et des inscriptions 

 en anglais, avec le nom du marchand 6diteur k Londres." He tells us moreover 

 that in consequence of this demand, quantities of colour prints after Morland and 

 others were deliberately forged in Holland and in France. It is curious how history 

 has repeated itself. A century later the craze for colour prints has returned, again 

 bringing forgeries in its train. As a famous collector said : " It was like manna in 

 the wilderness, a fall of snow in the night : within a few months from the time the 

 demand was established every shop-window had its Morlands, its J. R. Smiths, its 

 William Wards, brilliant in colour." Let the collector then beware of Morland 



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