Henry Birche after George Stubbs and Amos Green Mezzotint engraving published by Benjamin Beale Evans, Poultry London March 25 1790. "Game Keepers." Dedicated to the Right Honorable Lord Viscount Torrington. A good rich impression on wove paper on wooden stretcher presented in original gilt gesso frame. 65.5 by 43.5 cms image. 76 by 53.5 cms overall framed. Slight time toning as to be expected otherwise in remarkably good condition.
This exceptionally rare Mezzotint is based on a painting by George Stubbs, titled ‘Lord Torrington’s Steward and Gamekeeper with their Dogs at Southill Bedfordshire’. Commissioned by George Byng, fourth Viscount Torrington (1740-1812) in 1767 as one of three portraits of Torrington’s outdoor servants. The gamekeeper in Stubbs painted version and the central figure in this print is Joseph Mann, who worked as a huntsman and then gamekeeper for three successive Lord Torringtons from 1733 to 1777. By 1790, the original painting and its companion work ‘Labourers’ were in the collection of Andrew Harrison, who commissioned painter Amos Green to replace the background view, showing Torrington’s Southill estate, with generalised rustic scenery. Landscape painter and diarist Joseph Farington commented that the alterations were ‘very unworthy’ of Stubbs’s painting.