A Winter Morning with Skating in Hyde Park
English school, oil on canvas, signed and dated indistinctly on back.
This painting was amongst the most famous works by Philippe Jacques De Loutherbourg (Belgian/British 1740 - 1812), and was the first of a number of depictions of popular amusements which the artist produced between 1776 and his brief withdrawal from public life around 1787. In response to the popularity that the pictured enjoyed, De Loutherbourg sent Winter, and later Summer to be used by Matthew Boulton as models for 'polygraphs' or mechanical paintings. The process was established in 1776 as a means of making available, at low cost, reproductions true to the original painting's colour. To make a polygraph, an aquatint plate was inked in several colours and transferred with pressure onto a prepared canvas; the copy was then touched up by hand and varnished. Boulton's mechanical paintings were only produced for four years because the expense of hand finishing made the process uneconomical.
Size: 36 ½ h x 50 ¾ w in (43 x 57 in)
J19243
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