Lot 851: Arthur Pond, British 1701-1758 and Charles

Arthur Pond, British 1701-1758 and Charles Knapton, British 1698-1778- "Pond And Knapton's Imitations of Drawings" Album of Engravings and Chiaroscuros, after Annibale Carracci, Rembrandt, Guercino and others, 52x35cm Note: In 1735 and 1736 the artist and printseller Arthur Pond and publisher Charles Knapton began to reproduce seventy prints in chiaroscuro of old-master drawings in the most important of British collections. The selection of drawings representing fashionable taste among British collectors in the 1730's and significantly indicates the ownership of each drawing in accompanying engraved captions. Collectors include Jonathan Richardson, Arthur Pond, Richard Houlditch, Hugh Howard, Dr. Richard Mead, Lord James Cavendish, Thomas Hammer, and one each from Robert Dingley, John Guise, Capt. John Campbell, Sir Hans Sloane and others. The drawings chosen are predominantly Italian in the taste of the Grand Tour, by such artists as Guercino, Agosto and Annibale Carracci, Parmigiano, Panini, G. J. Grimaldi and Bolognese, Raphael, Mantegna and others. No title and list of the drawings was included by Pond and Knapton in 1735-1736 and very few complete sets issued by them have remained together. There is strong evidence in Pond's journals and accounts that the prints were mostly sold in singles or distributed to other print dealers in England.