Author: Ellen G. D’Oench

Publisher/Date: Yale University Press (1999, 1st)

Format/Condition: NEW hardcover with dust jacket in fine condition. 320 pages, index, notes, profusely illustrated in b/w.

Description: In this full-length study of the remarkable career of British printmaker John Raphael Smith, Ellen D’Oench investigates how Smith conducted his engraving and publishing business and what his prints, drawings, and paintings reveal about the culture and morality of the society that viewed them. The author includes a chronological catalogue raisonne with newly discovered works, an inventory of his firm’s publications, and a catalogue of prints reproduced from his own original work.

Along with full biographical information on Smith and his activities as artist and publisher, D’Oench pays close attention to the contemporary art market, its operation, and the placement of Smith’s products within it. She details Smith’s fascination with female genre subjects and his use of printed images to both exploit and critique his culture’s manners and morals.

Historians of paintings and prints, social and cultural historians, and scholars of women’s history will all find in this book an array of delightful illustrations and interesting material.