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Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
GEORGE STUBBS (AFTER) A Tigress.
Mezzotint, 1800. 492x585 mm; 19 1/4x23 1/2 inches. Third state (of 3). With narrow margins three sides, the left and right margins partially made up, trimmed on the plate mark lower margin, with the text preserved. Engraved by Robert Laurie, London. Published by Laurie and Whittle, London. A brilliant, richly-inked impression of this extremely scarce print, with velvety, strong contrasts and no sign of wear, consistent with the earliest impressions of this subject.
Stubbs (1724-1806) painted at least three versions of this tiger. The famous Bengal tigress was presented to George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough, for his personal menagerie at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, by Lord Clive, Governor of Bengal, when, in March 1762, he was made Baron Clive of Plassey. Archives, in the form of bills from the butcher, show the cat consumed more than twenty pounds of meat every few days, at a cost of three shillings per delivery, with an occasional head thrown in for fourpence.
This mezzotint was based on an earlier one, engraved by John Dixon (1740-1801), exhibited at the Society of Artists, London, in 1769 as A Tyger, and subsequently at the Society of Arts, London, in April 1773 as A Tygress after G. Stubbs. Dixon's plate was destroyed in a fire towards the end of the 18th century and, in 1800, Robert Laurie (1755-1836) made a replacement engraving. Lennox-Boyd 139.
