MRS VOSS - BY JOHN SMITH AFTER SIR GODFREY KNELLER.

Fine late 17th century mezzotint of Mrs Voss and her daughter, The elegant sitter is depicted in contemplative mood leaning upon a rocky out crop with her daughter by her side. She faces left holding a garland of flowers and the ‘spud’ of a shepherdess.

Mrs. Voss was the proprietress of a coffee-shop in St. James’s market. She was also the mistress of Sir Godfrey Kneller and the mother of his daughter Catherine.

Catherine also known as Agnes was painted with her mother by Kneller before 1692. She later married a Mr. Huckle by whom she had son, Godfrey Huckle Kneller, ancestor of the present members of the Kneller family. Kneller left her his fortune with a request that her son should assume his name.

John Smith (1652 - 1743)

Smith was one of the most highly-regarded and successful of English engravers. Born in Northampton, he first made mezzotints in 1683. For the first nine years of his career he produced prints for five main publishers and the majority of his output was portraiture. In 1687 he began publishing his own prints. Following the death of fellow engraver, Isaac Beckett, in 1688 Smith began producing prints of paintings by Godfrey Kneller, the leading portraitist in England in the late seventeenth – early eighteenth century. Kneller supplied him with a range of portraits of the most important people in Britain at the time, of whom many became his private patrons. Smith’s exceptional ability at the mezzotint process meant that he elevated it to a medium to rival traditional engraved portraits.

Mezzotint:  1693

Sheet: 13.5” x 10” / 34cm x 25.5 cm                                           Framed: 23” x 17.5” / 58.5cm  x 44cm

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