BIB_ID
450511
Accession number
MA 23869
Creator
Cipriani, Giovanni Battista, 1727-1785, printmaker.
Display Date
[England], 1760 [1780 impression?]
Description
1 print : engraving and etching ; plate mark: 270 x 180 mm; sheet: 300 x 212 mm
Notes
Title from item.
Lettered below the image with the title and "Drawn and Etched MDCCLX by I.B. Cipriani a Tuscan from a bust in plaster modelled from the life now in the possession of Thomas Hollis F.R. and A.SS.", followed by a quotation from Milton over fourteen lines: Cyriac this three yearsday these eyes to clear to outward view ... content though blind I had no other guide.
"This is one of the plates commissioned by Hollis and used in his edition of Toland's Life of Milton of 1761. The plates were also included as illustrations in Francis Blackburne's 'Memoirs of Thomas Hollis' (London, J. Nicholls, 1780)" (cf. curator's comments, British Museum online catalogue). However, Toland's 1761 publication does not appear to contain this portrait. It is possible that the prints were commissioned in 1760 by Hollis but never actually published until they appeared in Francis Blackburne's Memoirs of Thomas Hollis in 1780. According to Blackburne, this portrait of Milton comprised one of a group of prints which "were engraved at the expence of Mr. Hollis, and presented in setts to his friends." (Blackburne, op. cit.,vol. II p. 502).
Lettered below the image with the title and "Drawn and Etched MDCCLX by I.B. Cipriani a Tuscan from a bust in plaster modelled from the life now in the possession of Thomas Hollis F.R. and A.SS.", followed by a quotation from Milton over fourteen lines: Cyriac this three yearsday these eyes to clear to outward view ... content though blind I had no other guide.
"This is one of the plates commissioned by Hollis and used in his edition of Toland's Life of Milton of 1761. The plates were also included as illustrations in Francis Blackburne's 'Memoirs of Thomas Hollis' (London, J. Nicholls, 1780)" (cf. curator's comments, British Museum online catalogue). However, Toland's 1761 publication does not appear to contain this portrait. It is possible that the prints were commissioned in 1760 by Hollis but never actually published until they appeared in Francis Blackburne's Memoirs of Thomas Hollis in 1780. According to Blackburne, this portrait of Milton comprised one of a group of prints which "were engraved at the expence of Mr. Hollis, and presented in setts to his friends." (Blackburne, op. cit.,vol. II p. 502).
Summary
Portrait of Milton as a blind elderly man with shoulder-length hair, head and shoulders turned slightly to the right, head wearing a broad plain white square collar and a doublet with small buttons; oval, in a palm wreath.
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