(MASSACHUSETTS) Peter Pelham artist and engraver Portrait of

Sale 2646 - Lot 206

Price Realized: $ 3,000

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000

(MASSACHUSETTS.) Peter Pelham, artist and engraver. Portrait of Cotton Mather, the first mezzotint produced in New England. Mezzotint engraving, 14 x 9 3/4 inches, on laid paper with partial watermark on right edge, captioned "Cottonus Matherus . . . Ecclesiae Bostonum Nov-Anglorum"; trimmed nearly to image, edges worn with several short tears and 3 short tape repairs, toning, faint dampstaining in upper left corner, several small holes including one in image area. [Boston, June 1728]

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Peter Pelham arrived in Massachusetts in 1727 as the first mezzotint engraver in the British American colonies. His first project was an oil portrait of the leading religious figure in the colonies, the Rev. Cotton Mather of Boston's Second Church, who had played an important role in the Salem witchcraft trials. Mather died in February 1728, and Pelham's mezzotint engraving was completed in June 1728. The original painting is held by the American Antiquarian Society. Russell, English Mezzotint Portraits, page II:234 (possible first state with faintly lettered caption); Shadwell, American Printmaking 17; J.C. Smith, British Mezzotinto Portraits, III:Pelham 26; Stauffer, American Engravers 2469.