Silas Deane Esq.r Commissioner from Congress in France.
B.B.E.
Pub.d May 15th 1783 by R. Wilkinson No. 58 Cornhill London.
Stipple and etching pt printed in colour, platemark 140 x 105mm (5½ x 4"). Thread margins on 3 sides.
Silas Deane (1737-89), revolutionary politician and diplomat in America. Born in Connecticut, Deane graduated from Yale in 1758 and rose rapidly in Connecticut politics. He was an active member of congress and in 1776-8 was in France to solicit arms and supplies and seek support for an independent United States, a mission which had mixed results. He was regarded with suspicion by Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, and on a return trip to Europe in 1780, by which time Deane was disillusioned with the American cause, he called for the Americans to abandon the French and reach a reconciliation with Great Britian. From this point on most Americans regarded Deane as a traitor, and he never returned to the country, living in Ghent and London before dying on a ship en route to Canada in 1789. Mixed-media print after Pierre Eugène Du Simitière (1737-84), American painter of Swiss birth. Based in Philadelphia from 1770-84, Du Simitière arranged for 14 of his profile portraits to be sent to Paris for engraving in 1779, although pirated copies and the failure of many sets to return to him made the project unsuccessful.
[Ref: 43113] £250.00
Pub.d May 15th 1783 by R. Wilkinson No. 58 Cornhill London.
Stipple and etching pt printed in colour, platemark 140 x 105mm (5½ x 4"). Thread margins on 3 sides.
Silas Deane (1737-89), revolutionary politician and diplomat in America. Born in Connecticut, Deane graduated from Yale in 1758 and rose rapidly in Connecticut politics. He was an active member of congress and in 1776-8 was in France to solicit arms and supplies and seek support for an independent United States, a mission which had mixed results. He was regarded with suspicion by Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, and on a return trip to Europe in 1780, by which time Deane was disillusioned with the American cause, he called for the Americans to abandon the French and reach a reconciliation with Great Britian. From this point on most Americans regarded Deane as a traitor, and he never returned to the country, living in Ghent and London before dying on a ship en route to Canada in 1789. Mixed-media print after Pierre Eugène Du Simitière (1737-84), American painter of Swiss birth. Based in Philadelphia from 1770-84, Du Simitière arranged for 14 of his profile portraits to be sent to Paris for engraving in 1779, although pirated copies and the failure of many sets to return to him made the project unsuccessful.
[Ref: 43113] £250.00