George Morland 



forgeries, and steer clear also of faded impressions from worn-out plates, furbished 

 up with dabs of colour by indifferent craftsmen. 



The success of the Morland engravings was doubtless due to the fact that their 

 publishers took the tide of popular taste at the flood. It was also owing to the 

 nature of the subjects, coming to the jaded Londoner sweet and fresh as the scent 

 of new-mown hay. A reaction had set in that is bound to repeat itself in the 

 immediate future. People were growing tired of endless engraved portraits. They 

 were surfeited with a succession, sweet but insipid, of fair ladies after Lely and 

 Hoppner and Reynolds. Ward and Smith were the first to recognise the 

 possibilities of Morland's work, and to encourage him in painting subject pictures at 

 a time when portraits were putting money in his purse. Ward became Morland's 

 brother-in-law in 1786, and it was he who brought the artist to the notice of John 

 Raphael Smith, under whom he had served his apprenticeship. It was a fortunate 

 day for all of them. Smith's long experience as publisher and engraver enabled him 

 to gauge the full value of Morland's work. He at once gave him commissions for 

 pictures which he engraved himself, and was so immediately successful in the sale 

 of his own and other prints that he celebrated his good fortune at " a very elegant 

 entertainment" at Hammersmith, where Morland met William Collins, one of his 

 future biographers. Thirty-six pictures in all were bought by Smith, at prices 

 ranging from five to fifty pounds, and were exhibited as the " Morland Gallery." 

 The cost of the engravings varied from five to thirty shillings an impression, and for 

 the owner of a coloured copy there is always the pleasant possibility that he 

 possesses the early work of Turner, who, in his teens, was employed by Smith to 

 give the finishing touches by hand to his colour-prints. 



The first great year for engravings after Morland was 1788. Though The 

 ^ng^^er's /?e/>aj< had been engraved by Ward in 1780, it did not achieve fame till 

 it was re-issued in 1789. Children Nutting, engraved by E. Dayes in 1783, and 

 Domestic Happiness and The Coquette at her Toilet, by W. Ward in 1787, are both 

 well-known prints. The year 1788, however, saw no fewer than eleven engravers 

 busy on Morland's work, and thirty-two plates were published, among them Delia 

 in Town and Delia in the Country, by J. R. Smith, Children Playing at Soldiers, by 

 G. Keating, and Variety and Constancy, by W. Ward. Variety is said to be a 

 portrait of Mrs. Morland, Constancy of Mrs. Ward. These two plates, which are 

 in stipple, were issued before letters, and also in colours with the full imprint. 

 They were re-engraved with the signature " Bartolotti," and in this state are to be 

 avoided. To 1789 belongs the famous Letitia series, by J. R. Smith, which became 

 so popular that the six plates were re-issued in 1811 at seven-and-sixpence each. 

 The plates, however, were worn, and in repairing them the costumes were brought 

 up to date, and other disastrous alterations were made. To 1789 and 1790 belong 

 Selling Guinea Pigs and Dancing Dogs, by T. Gaugain. A certain number of the 

 impressions in colour bear the somewhat rare acknowledgement " Printed in colour 

 by T. Gaugain." At Gaugain's sale in 1793 the plates of these two engravings, 

 together with over two-hundred-and-fifty proofs and prints, thirty-two being in 



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