John Thornton Esqr [Mezzotint Print]

John Boydell; Valentine Green; Thomas Gainsborough

John Boydell, 1782

Original mezzotint engraved by  Valentine Green after Gainsborough's painting of Thornton.  62 x 38 cm. (25 x 15 1/4 inches) Generally in good condition. Top margin frayed. Small chip from left margin. <br>  Thornton is pictured sitting, directed, facing, and looking towards left.  He wears a short wig, plain dress, arms resting on chair, three-cornered hat in right hand, in the back ground to right two pillars and curtain, in distance to left a landscape.  <br> John Thornton (1720-1790) was a wealthy Yorkshire merchant who multiplied his fortune by trading with Russia.  He was known for this charitable giving. 

Refs: O'Donoghue IV, page 277; Whitman, Alfred, British Mezzotinters: Valentine Green, 1902, p. 118.  Chaloner Smith, John, British Mezzotinto portraits from the introduction of the art to the early part of the present century, 1883, p. 131.  Horne, Henry, An Illustrated Catalogue of Engraved Portraits and Fancy Subjects painted by Thomas Gainsborough, RA, Published between 1760 and 1820, and by George Romney, Published between 1770 and 1830 with the Variations of the State of the Plates, 1891, p. 66.