THE LIFE OF BUCKINGHAM

Artist: A. L. Egg ____________ Engraver: W. Greatbach

Note: the title in the table above is printed below the engraving

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PRINT DATE: This lithograph was printed in 1865; it is not a modern reproduction in any way.

PRINT SIZE: Overall print size is 7 1/2 inches by 10 1/2 inches including white borders, actual scene is 7 inches by 9 1/2 inches.

PRINT CONDITION: Condition is excellent. Bright and clean. Blank on reverse. Paper is quality woven rag stock paper.

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FROM THE ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: Considering the restraint under which England lived during the government of Cromwell and the Puritans, it is scarcely a matter of surprise that a violent reaction should have taken place as soon as the controlling power was removed. From a kind of morbid sensitiveness upon points of morality, and from something closely approaching to a rigid and sometimes, it may be alleged, a pharisaical observance of religious duties, a large portion of the people rushed into the opposite extreme by indulging in every kind of folly and excess. A generation had sprung up to whom pleasure, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, was a novelty, and because it was 80, and because it was sweet to the taste men indulged in it to the full. The monarch who ascended the throne set the example, and he surrounded himself with courtiers, most of them only too ready to uphold him and participate in his vices. Among these aiders and abettors of royal extravagance and depravity, not one more signally distinguished himself than George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, second son of the Duke whom John Felton stabbed in a house of Portsmouth. Both noblemen were great favorites of Charles II., and though history is not too complimentary to the morality of either father or son, the two men are not to be compared, for the conduct, or rather misconduct, of the latter, has always given to his name an unenviable notoriety in the annals of licentiousness. It has been truly said, that ''in his habits Buckingham was utterly profligate."

This is the man represented here in. one of his midnight orgies; his companions are the "merry monarch" Charles; the Earl of Rochester, almost Buckingham's equal in with and quite his equal in profligacy; three or four other men of the same stamp; with some of those personages of the opposite sex whose beauty the pencil of Sir Peter Leiy has left on record, but of whose virtue the moralist is impelled to silence; the Duchess of Portsmouth, Lady Gastlemaine, Mrs. Waters, Miss Davies, the actress, and poor "Nelly Gwyn," perhaps. One of the company stands on a chair to propose Buckingham's health, who seems to be the host of the evening, and one of the fair but frail ladies is placing a flower in his long flowing hair: the King, decorated with the star of the Order of the Garter, stands by his side, smiling on his favorite while he honors the toast. Repulsive as the subject is, the picture is exceedingly clever in treatment and delineation of character; but it may well be asked, whether an artist could not find a more worthy theme for illustration than a group of male and female bacchanals in the height of their saturnalia, though they are clad in costly raiment and have a King in their midst. One lesson, however, it teaches; and that is a lesson of thankfulness that we live in times when the bright example of moral rectitude is reflected from the palace of the monarch into the cottage of the peasant.

The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1855. By its side, included in the same outer frame, was another, illustrating the death of this favorite of royalty, of which an engraving appears further on.

 

BIOGRAPHY OF ARTIST: Augustus Leopold Egg (1816-1863) was an English painter, was born on the 2nd of May 1816 in London, where his father carried on business as a gun-maker. He had some schooling at Bexley, and was not at first intended for the artistic profession; but, developing a faculty in this line, he entered in 1834 the drawing class of Mr Sass, and in 1836 the school of the Royal Academy. His first exhibited picture appeared in 1837 at the Suffolk Street gallery. In 1838 he began exhibiting in the Academy, his subject being a " Spanish Girl "; altogether he sent twenty-seven works to this institution. In 1848 he became an associate and in 1860 a full member of the Academy: he had considerable means, apart from his profession. In 1857 he took a leading part in selecting and arranging the modern paintings in the Art-Treasures Exhibition in Manchester. His constitution being naturally frail, he went in 1853, with Dickens and Wilkie Collins, to Italy for a short trip, and in 1863 he visited Algeria. Here he benefited so far as his chronic lung-disease was concerned; but exposure to a cold wind while out riding brought on an attack of asthma, from which he died on the 26th of March I863 at Algiers, near which city his remains were buried. Egg was a gifted and well-trained painter of genre, chiefly in the way of historical anecdote, or of compositions from the poets and novelists. Among his principal pictures may be named: 1843, the "Introduction of Sir Piercie Shaf ton and Halbert Giendinning" (from Scott's Monastery); 1846, "Buckingham Rebuffed "; 1848, "Queen Elizabeth discovers she is no longer young "; 1850, " Peter the Great sees Catharine for the first time "; 1854, " Charles I. raising the Standard at Nottingham" (a study); 1855, the "Life and Death of Buckingham "; 1857 and 1858, two subjects from Thackeray's Esmond; 1858, " Past and Present, a triple picture of a faithless wife"; 1859, the "Night before Naseby "; i86o, his last exhibited work, the Dinner Scene from The Taming of the Shrew. The Tate Gallery contains one of his earlier pictures, Patricio entertaining two Ladies, from the Diable boiteux; it was painted in 1844. Egg was rather below the middle height, with dark hair and a handsome well-formed face; the head of Peter the, Great (in the picture of Peter and Catharine, which may be regarded as his best work, along with the Life and Death of Buckingham) was studied, but of course considerably modified, from his own countenance. He was manly, kind-hearted, pleasant, and very genial and serviceable among brother-artists; social and companionable, but holding mainly aloof from fashionable circles. As an actor he had uncommon talent. He appeared among Dickens's company of amateurs in 1852 in Lord Lytton's comedy Not so Bad as we Seem, and afterwards in Wilkie Collins's Frozen Deep, playing the humorous part of Job Want.

Please note: the terms used in our auctions for engraving, etching, lithograph, plate, photogravure etc. are ALL prints on paper, and NOT blocks of steel or wood or any other material. "ENGRAVINGS", the term commonly used for these paper prints, were the most common method in the 1700s and 1800s for illustrating old books, and these paper prints or "engravings" were created by the intaglio process of etching the negative of the image into a block of steel, copper, wood etc, and then when inked and pressed onto paper, a print image was created. These prints or engravings were usually inserted into books, although many were also printed and issued as loose stand alone lithographs. They often had a tissue guard or onion skin frontis to protect them from transferring their ink to the opposite page and were usually on much thicker quality woven rag stock paper than the regular prints. So this auction is for an antique paper print(s), probably from an old book, of very high quality and usually on very thick rag stock paper.

A RARE FIND! AND GREAT DECORATION FOR YOUR OFFICE OR HOME WALL.