| Method | Mezzotint |
| Artist | Charles Corbutt [Richard Purcell] after Thomas Worlidge |
| Published | Printed for Robt. Sayer No. 53 Fleet Street. [c.1765] |
| Dimensions | Image 135 x 113 mm, Plate 152 x 113 mm, Sheet 160 x 120 mm |
| Notes |
Portrait of Mrs Brooke or "Brooks", who was the wife of the engraver James Brooke. She left him to become an actress in Edinburgh and Norwich. Corbutt was a pseudonym used by the Irish engraver Richard Purcell when plagarising the work of others, usually for the publisher Robert Sayer. Thomas Worlidge (1700-1766) was a British portrait painter and etcher. Born in Peterborough, he was a pupil of Alessandro Maria Grimaldi, whose daughter Arabella he married. He was also a pupil of Boitard. He had premises in London at 'the little Piazza, the Corner of James Street, Covent Garden', 'the great Piazza, Covent Garden', and Great Queen Street. He later taught his nephew William Grimaldi. Robert Sayer (1725-1794) was a major British publisher and seller of prints and maps. Based at the Golden Buck, Fleet Street (1748), Sayer became a liveryman of the Stationers' Company in 1753. In 1754 he married Dorothy Carlos (d.1774). In 1760 he moved from the Golden Buck to a premises in Fleet Street. At various times he took over the stock of Herman Moll, John Senex, John Rocque and Thomas Jefferys; and probably also took over the stock of Henry Overton II in the 1760s. By the mid-1760s he was becoming increasingly successful; setting up a manufactory for prints, maps and charts in Bolt Court near Fleet Street. In 1780, he married his second wife, Alice Longfield with whom he appears in a painting by Zoffany. Between 1774 and 1784 the business traded as Sayer & Bennett; the partnership ending when Bennett suffered a mental collapse. Thereafter, until Sayer's death in 1794, the company was named Sayer & Co. or Robert Sayer & Co., probably a reference to his assistants Robert Laurie and James Whittle. From 1794 until 1812 the business traded as Laurie & Whittle, Sayer having left the pair a twenty-one year lease on the shop and on the Bolt Court premises, as well as an option to acquire stock and equipment at £5,000, payable over three years. Sayer's son, James, never seems to have been involved in the business. Chaloner Smith 9a (a&c), Lennox-Boyd i/i, O'Donoghue Ex. Col.: Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd Condition: Trimmed and tipped to album page. |
| Framing | unmounted |
| Price | £175.00 |
| Stock ID | 21265 |