Edward Athawes, Esq.r.from a Picture painted by Memory.
R.P. pinx. S. Smith fecit [William Dickinson].
[William Dickinson. n.d., c.1780.]
Rare mezzotint. Sheet size: 355 x 250mm (14 x 9¾"). Trimmed to plate.
Probably a portrait of Virginia tobacco trade merchant and financier Edward Athawes (d.1767), sitting three-quarter to left, with a tricorn in his lap. His right arm is curled around his cane. Edward Athawes was a prominent London merchant in the tobacco trade, which financed American plantations, (owners including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington) with sizeable loans from London. When tobacco prices dropped precipitously in the 1750s, many plantations struggled to remain financially solvent. Jefferson, on the verge of losing his own farm, aggressively espoused various conspiracy theories. Though never verified, Jefferson accused London merchants of unfairly depressing tobacco prices and forcing Virginia farmers to take on unsustainable debt loads. Chaloner Smith quotes Bromley's description of a second state with Dickinson's name added. This suggests that Dickinson engraved this when still working for Carington Bowles. He also describes another Edward Athawes, clerk for the Cordwainer's Company, who died in 1796; neither the dress nor the need for 'memory' suits that attribution,
CS: Dickinson 2. Ex: Collection of The Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd.
[Ref: 64868] £260.00
[William Dickinson. n.d., c.1780.]
Rare mezzotint. Sheet size: 355 x 250mm (14 x 9¾"). Trimmed to plate.
Probably a portrait of Virginia tobacco trade merchant and financier Edward Athawes (d.1767), sitting three-quarter to left, with a tricorn in his lap. His right arm is curled around his cane. Edward Athawes was a prominent London merchant in the tobacco trade, which financed American plantations, (owners including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington) with sizeable loans from London. When tobacco prices dropped precipitously in the 1750s, many plantations struggled to remain financially solvent. Jefferson, on the verge of losing his own farm, aggressively espoused various conspiracy theories. Though never verified, Jefferson accused London merchants of unfairly depressing tobacco prices and forcing Virginia farmers to take on unsustainable debt loads. Chaloner Smith quotes Bromley's description of a second state with Dickinson's name added. This suggests that Dickinson engraved this when still working for Carington Bowles. He also describes another Edward Athawes, clerk for the Cordwainer's Company, who died in 1796; neither the dress nor the need for 'memory' suits that attribution,
CS: Dickinson 2. Ex: Collection of The Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd.
[Ref: 64868] £260.00