Description
In Plate 101, the woman’s profile faces right emphasizing her strong facial features and modest kekryphalos (ancient Greek headpiece). A circular wreath surrounds her image and the print has a decorative border with repeating classical patterns and corner details.
In Plate 38, another woman’s profile faces left. Her face is black, the usual terra cotta and black color scheme having been inverted. She too wears a cap, although much more extravagant than that of Plate 101, with detailed embroidery, paired with dangling earrings and a pearl necklace. She is surrounded by a similar wreath to that of Plate 101, though it is white rather than black, and a similar decorative outer border. The original vase on which this engraving was based was acquired from Sir William Hamilton by the British Museum, where it remains today. According to the British Museum black-figured vase-paintings of people such as this example are rare on terra cotta antiquities from southern Italy. The museum further describes the original vase as follows:
Pottery: black-figured lekythos (oil-bottle). Design: black on red ground, with incised lines and yellow accessories. Pear-shaped body; neck and shoulder not marked off. At the back, palmette and tendrils. Colossal female head [facing] to left, with close embroidered cap, beaded in front, earrings and necklace; the features are incised. Production date: 340 BC-325 BC. Made in Paestum.
Born to an aristocratic Scottish family, Sir William Hamilton assembled one of the world’s finest collections of Greek and Roman antiquities, that he purchased while serving as British Envoy Extraordinaire to the two Sicilies from 1764-1800. Most of the antiquities he collected came from excavations in Southern Italy and Sicily. In 1766, he watched the excavation of the Trebbia Tomb, and commissioned accurate drawings of the vases found there. The glories of his Hamilton’s vase collections were recorded in color-plate folios, which served as souvenirs for the great libraries of Grand Tour travelers and patrons, and provided inspiration to decorative art designers in England, such as Josiah Wedgwood. Hamilton’s first collection of vases was illustrated in a series of etchings called Antiquites Etrusques, Greques et Romanes, published in Naples, 1766-67. His second collection of vases was partly lost at sea in transit to Britain; the remainder was bought by Thomas Hope, one of the leading exponents of neoclassical architecture in Britain in the early 19th century. Vases of the second collection were illustrated in a colorplate set published in Florence, 1801-08, the engravings by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein.
Full Title: Antiquites Etrusques, Greques et Romanes. Tirées du Cabinet de M. Hamilton, Enoye Extraordinaire de S.M. Britannique à la Cour de Naples. [Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities. Taken from the Cabinet of Mr. Hamilton, British Envoy Extraordinaire to the Court of Naples]
Condition: Generally very good with only light toning, wear, handling. Frames very good with light wear. Prints not examined out of frames.
References
Cohen, Henri and Seymour De Ricci. “Guide De L’Amateur De Livres A Gravures Du XVIII Siecle.” Paris: Rouquette, 1912. No. 474.
“Colour plate of woman’s head, from campanian black figured leykythos.” Royal Academy. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/colour-plate-of-womans-head-with-cap-from-a-campanian-hydria (22 July 2024).
“Colour plate of woman’s head with cap, from a campanian hydria.” Royal Academy. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/colour-plate-of-womans-head-with-cap-from-a-campanian-hydria (22 July 2024).
“Greco-Roman hairstyles.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_hairstyle (22 July 2024).
Huwiler, Madeleine and Schutze, Sebastian. “D’hancarville. The Complete Collection of Antiquities from the Cabinet of Sir William Hamilton.” Taschen America Llc,.: 2022.
“Lekythos.” The British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1772-0320-35 (22 July 2024).
“William Hamilton (diplomat).” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hamilton_(diplomat) (22 July 2024).