A PORTRAIT OF SIR ANTHONY SHIRLEY, BRITISH TRAVELLER AND ADVENTURER
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE ENGLISH BIBLIOPHILE
Joseph Brown (engraver, 1809 - 1887), London, England, circa 1846

Etching on paper, a portrait of Sir Anthony Shirley, British ambassador to Persia, the bust facing rightward but looking directly at the viewer, wearing a large striped turban, embroidered coat and overcoat with animals and vegetal motifs, set within an oval frame on a rectangle with double rules, production details lettered below the portrait in the two bottom corners 'G. P. Harding F.S. A. del.' and 'Joseph Brown, sculp.' continuing further down 'Sir Anthony Shirley / Ambassador from the Schah of Persia / From a miniature by P. Oliver, formerly in the Strawberry Hill Collection / now in the possession of William Blamire Esqre. / Published August 1st 1846 by G. P. Harding, Hercules Buildings, Lambeth', the bottom right corner of the plate impressed with the letter 'H', mounted on a white cardboard frame, the plate 29cm x 20.4cm, the page 35.2cm x 26.5cm, the mount 42cm x 30cm.

Provenance: Purchased in a London book fair in the 1990s.

This engraving, produced by the British engraver and printmaker Joseph Brown (active 1833 - 1886), was designed after a watercolour miniature of Sir Anthony Shirley attributed to Peter Oliver, once part of Horace Walpole's collection. Peter Oliver (1594 - 1648) was an English miniaturist painter, renowned for his high-quality miniature-sized copies of full-sized portraits and paintings. His portrait of Robert Shirley, the younger brother of Anthony Shirley, was also copied as an engraving, a print of which we offer in this sale as lot 441. Both portraits by Oliver were once housed in the collection of Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill in Twickenham. Walpole, the son of Britain's first Prime Minister, was a historian and avid art collector, particularly of miniatures. When he died in 1797, it is thought he owned over 130 miniatures and accounts of his collection were published in Anecdotes of Painting, a publication that helped to establish miniature painting as a serious art form. After death, his estate and belongings passed to his family, who auctioned much of it, including the two portraits of the Shirley brothers. In the auction catalogue, the portraits were attributed in error to Peter Oliver's father, Isaac Oliver, an attribution that has since been rectified. Another similar version of this etching is housed in the British Museum collection (acc. no. 1920,1211.1214).