William Hamilton's Greek Vases
William Hamilton's Greek Vases
Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803) was ambassador of Great Britain to the Kingdom of Naples, just when the city of Naples experienced its "Golden Age". Hamilton was a highly educated gentleman and fascinated with the excavations in Pompei and Herculaneum and other places in the South of Italy, a heavily Greek-influenced region. Hamilton became an avid collector of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities. His main interest was on antique vases. His first collection he sold (and partially donated) to the British Museum in London. After that he started collecting again and published, in four volumes, engravings of his new collection. The title was "Collection of Engravings from ancient vases mostly of pure Greek Workmanship discovered in sepulchers in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies"
The engravings were executed by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751-1829), who also signed as publisher of the impressive work. The publishing happened in Naples between 1791 to 1795.
Most of our engravings from this collection are hand-colored in typical terra-cotta and black. A former owner has added decorative bordures in classical style. The bordures were mounted along the plate marks of the engravings, thus giving them an additional decorative impression. Some engravings are on the full folio page. Others were trimmed to a more practical size for framing.
Some of our engravings are uncolored. They show the original line engraving style as they were originally published.
Image with border: 27.3 x 43.7 cm ( 10.7 x 17.2 ")
