Two Favourite Chickens Going to Market

Method Mezzotint
Artist William Pether after William Redmore Bigg
Published London, Published Jany. 1. 1793, by J. Brydon, at his Looking Glass, & Print Warehouse, Charing Cross, and T. Foss, No.131, Strand.
Dimensions Image 483 x 615 mm, Sheet 515 x 625 mm
Notes Inscribed beneath image with title.

Two small girls, one holding a chicken and the other feeding a second, look on woefully as a young man and woman with donkeys, prepare to leave for market day. The young woman kneels beside a chicken coop and basket of eggs, her hand outstretched towards the girls and their favourite chickens.

William Pether (c.1738 - 1821) was an English mezzotint engraver and portrait painter. Born in Carlisle, Pether became a pupil of the painter and mezzotint engraver Thomas Frye, with whom he entered into partnership in 1761. A fellow of the Incorporated Society of Artists, he contributed to its exhibitions paintings, miniatures, and engravings from 1764 to 1777. He was also an occasional exhibitor with the Free Society and the Royal Academy. His many pupils included the painters and mezzotint engravers Henry Edridge, and Edward Dayes. His last plate published in London is dated 1793, and he exhibited at the Royal Academy for the last time in 1794.

William Redmore Bigg (1755 - 1828) was an English painter of portraits and genre scenes. Born in London, he enrolled in the Royal Academy schools in 1778 where he studied under Edward Penny R.A. His best-known genre pieces include Schoolboys giving Charity to a Blind Man, exhibited in 1778, and A Lady and her Children relieving a Distressed Cottager, exhibited the following year. Bigg also produced many small portraits in oil and pastel. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and the British Institution until his death. He was elected an RA in 1814.

John Brydon was a British frame maker and print publisher active between 1784 and 1806. Initially a distributor for the engraver Valentine Green, Brydon went bankrupt in 1801. Between 1793 and 1795 he collaborated with the British print publisher T. Foss.

Chaloner Smith undescribed

Condition: Trimmed to plate mark, not affecting image, repaired splits to edges of sheet, light creases to image and paper thinning.
Framing unmounted
Price £320.00
Stock ID 28984

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