L. Sen (after)
Charles Corbett (engraver)
Monsieur de Voltaire
London: Mid 18th Century
Mezzotint
15 x 11 inches
Sold, please inquire as to the availability of similar items.
Portrait of Voltaire
Mid 18th Century Mezzotint
Mid 18th Century Mezzotint
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Portrait of the famous French philosopher and author François Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778), one of the towering geniuses in literary and intellectual history in the Age of Enlightenment, happily writing at his desk.
By his early thirties, Voltaire was a leading dramatist and poet in France. Then he became involved in an exchange of insults with a nobleman named Rohan. The hostility between them grew until the Rohan family had him thrown into the Bastille. To the embarrassment of the French authorities, this became a cause celebre, so when Voltaire asked to be released to go into voluntary exile in England, they readily agreed. He stayed in England from 1726 to 1729, for the most part living a quiet life devoted to writing. Voltaire's enthusiasm for English liberties, as opposed to French censorship, made him popular in London beginning in the 1730s.