Size: 25 x 33 cm.  Trimmed to image.

Condition:  Very good condition, slight wear including small loss to surface near Lady Dashwood's right elbow.

This fine engraving is from the golden period of English Mezzotint engraving, and is by Charles Howard Hodges after a painting by the great Sir Joshua Reynolds. The engraving was published in 1785 and this impression is on a heavy 18th century laid paper and will have been printed at or about that date.

Lady Mary Helen Dashwood was born in 1763 and died in 1796. She was the wife of Sir Henry Watkin Dashwood, 3rd Baronet of Kirtlington Park in Oxfordshire, Landowner and MP. The child in her arms is Henry George Mayne Dashwood, and neither he nor his mother have merited a Wikipedia entry.

Mezzotint (involving the use of a roller to create tones on a copper plate rather than lines) was a particularly effective way of reproducing the painterly style of artists such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, and this is a fine example.