This stipple engraving of Cornelia, Mother of Gracchi is by Francesco Bartolozzi after Angelica Kauffman, dated 1788. Bartolozzi was born in 1727 and trained in his native Florence before moving to Venice. There, he spent six years working for the engraver and printseller Josef Wagner before setting up his own workshop. Bartolozzi moved to Rome in 1762, where he quickly gained a reputation as a masterful engraver. In 1763 a set of Bartolozzi’s etchings after Old Master drawings was published, raising his profile across Europe. The same year he met Richard Dalton, King George III’s librarian, who had been sent to Italy to seek out suitable acquisitions for the King’s collections. Dalton persuaded Bartolozzi to travel to England in 1764 with the promise of an appointment as engraver to the King. He made prints of many of the Old Master drawings in the Royal Collection, including works by Guercino, Holbein and Michelangelo. Between 1765 and 1768 Bartolozzi exhibited with the Society of Artists, before seceding to the newly-established Royal Academy in 1768. The new Academy’s laws specifically excluded engravers from membership, but Bartolozzi was held in sufficiently high regard to be considered above this rule and was made an Academician in the category of Painter. Bartolozzi worked closely with his fellow Royal Academicians, particularly his lifelong friend and compatriot, the architect Giovanni Battista Cipriani. Bartolozzi is best known as the leading exponent of the “stipple” technique he developed in the 1770s, which created images through delicate networks of dots rather than lines (as in etching or line-engraving). Bartolozzi enhanced the decorative effect of his work by favouring a range of red, orange and brown inks, rather than the more common black. Size:

The print is in excellent condition but please inspect the image carefully as it is very accurate.