| Method | Mezzotint |
| Artist | |
| Published | [Robert Sayer, c.1780] |
| Dimensions | Image 133 x 113 mm, Sheet 147 x 114 mm |
| Notes |
A girl sitting, directed to the left, facing and looking to the right; low cut bodice and pearls in hair; playing a guitar. Robert Sayer (1725-1794) was a major British publisher and seller of prints and maps. Based at the Golden Buck, Fleet Street (1748), Sayer became a liveryman of the Stationers' Company in 1753. In 1754 he married Dorothy Carlos (d.1774). In 1760 he moved from the Golden Buck to a premises in Fleet Street. At various times he took over the stock of Herman Moll, John Senex, John Rocque and Thomas Jefferys; and probably also took over the stock of Henry Overton II in the 1760s. By the mid-1760s he was becoming increasingly successful; setting up a manufactory for prints, maps and charts in Bolt Court near Fleet Street. In 1780, he married his second wife, Alice Longfield with whom he appears in a painting by Zoffany. Between 1774 and 1784 the business traded as Sayer & Bennett; the partnership ending when Bennett suffered a mental collapse. Thereafter, until Sayer's death in 1794, the company was named Sayer & Co. or Robert Sayer & Co., probably a reference to his assistants Robert Laurie and James Whittle. From 1794 until 1812 the business traded as Laurie & Whittle, Sayer having left the pair a twenty-one year lease on the shop and on the Bolt Court premises, as well as an option to acquire stock and equipment at £5,000, payable over three years. Sayer's son, James, never seems to have been involved in the business. Lennox-Boyd i/i Ex. Col.: Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd Condition: Trimmed just inside the plate, tipped to album page. |
| Framing | unmounted |
| Price | £150.00 |
| Stock ID | 34210 |