T Worlidge Fecit 1751
Etching, 125 x 100mm (5 x 4"). Fine impression; trimmed inside platemark.
Portrait supposedly representing Titus Oates, best known as an informer against Catholics, although quite different to other portraits of him. Oates was expelled from the navy for homosexual practices and the DNB notes that 'early writers were repelled as much by his homosexuality as by his personality'. Etched by Thomas Worlidge (1700-66), the 'English Rembrandt' and a pupil of Alessandro Maria Grimaldi, whose daughter Arabella he married. Lifetime impression.
State i/iv; W16; D176; Not in O'D or NPG under Oates
[Ref: 32745]  £220.00