Mezzotint, circa 1660s. 212x162 mm; 8 1/4x6 1/2 inches, small margins. Second state (of 2). Crowned Strasburg Lily watermark. A very good, richly-inked impression of this extremely scarce, early mezzotint.
Prince Ruprecht (1619-1682) is credited with improving the nascent process of mezzotint engraving that had been developed by Ludwig von Siegen around 1654. This labor-intensive process, in which a prepared plate was burnished in order to bring out the subject (working from dark to light), was created and used, for much of the following century that it remained popular, to reproduce paintings--namely subjects by masters like Caravaggio, Ribera and others imbued with heavy chiaroscuro.
Prince Ruprecht was also a nephew of Charles I (reigned 1625-1649), and commanded the royalist forces during the English Civil War (1642-1648). He demonstrated the new technique of mezzotint to the Royal Society in London in 1661. Hollstein 192.
