[Etched by Thomas Dudley after Francis Barlow.]
[Amsterdam: Etiènne Roger, 1714.]
Proof etching. Sheet 200 x 165mm (8 x 6½"). Trimmed within plate, mounted on album paper.
Aesop as a slave on Samos, being beaten by his owner Xanthus for saying he had seen two crows, when only one was in sight. Plate 16 of thirty-one illustrations added to the second edition of Barlow's "Æsop's Fables, With His Life", to illustrate the translation of Planudes's Life of Aesop, which was unillustrated in the first edition of 1666. This example comes from an Amsterdam edition, 'Les Fables d'Esope', with the printing plate trimmed down. All of the plates were designed by Barlow: they were etched c.1678-9, only five by Barlow; the rest, including this one, by Thomas Dudley. Originally the plate extended down with a title verse (possibly written by Aphra Behn, who wrote new verses for the fables), but for this non-English edition the verse was trimmed off and new borders engraved. Little is known of Dudley: on one plate of this series he signed himself as a student of Wenceslaus Hollar; and in 1679 he went to Lisbon, where he is known to have made further prints, and he is not supposed to have returned to England thereafter. He etched some portraits but these prints after Barlow are his most important work.
BM: 1871,0812.249, described as a proof state.
[Ref: 48698]  £95.00