| Method | Mezzotint |
| Artist | |
| Published | Published according to Act of Parliament. January. 2. 1767. London, Printed for Robert Sayer, at No 53 in Fleet Street, and Carington Bowles, at No 69 in St.Pauls Church Yard. |
| Dimensions | Image 315 x 249 mm, Plate 354 x 250 mm |
| Notes |
A fashionably dressed young woman, shown three-quarters length standing to right, lifting a flower to smell it, resting her left arm on a grass ledge, with her gauzy apron looped under the elbow; a tree behind to right, haymakers and a thatched house in the background to left. Robert Sayer (1725 - 1794) was a major publisher and seller of prints and maps. He first advertised prints for sale from the Golden Buck, Fleet Street, in December 1748. The premises had been that of Philip Overton (d.1745) whose widow Mary had married Sayer's brother James in January 1747; this probably marks the date at which Robert took over the Overton business at the same address. James Sayer paid Land Tax on the shop until 1751, presumably to help his brother to establish his business. In 1753 Sayer became a liveryman of the Stationers' Company. On 16 July 1754 he married Dorothy Carlos (d.1774); who, according to the Daily Advertiser, 19 July 1754, was "an agreeable young lady with a handsome fortune". 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. On 8 February 1780, he married his second wife, Alice Longfield with whom he appears in a painting by Zoffany. His son by his first marriage, James, also appears in the painting. 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 who would have taken over management when Sayer's health started to fail in 1792. From 1794 until Laurie's retirement in 1812 the business traded as Laurie & Whittle, Sayer having left the pair a 21-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. Carington Bowles (1724 - 1793) was a British print publisher active in London. He was the son of the publisher John Bowles (1701 - 1779) to whom he was apprenticed in 1741, and with whom he was in partnership as John Bowles & Son, at the Black Horse, Cornhill, London, from c.1752 to c.1762. He left in order to take over the business of his uncle, Thomas Bowles II in St Paul's Churchyard. When Carington died in 1793 the business passed to his son Henry Carington Bowles. Chaloner Smith undescribed, Chaloner Smith 1761, Russell undescribed, Lennox-Boyd i/i Ex. Col.: Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd. |
| Framing | unmounted |
| Price | £450.00 |
| Stock ID | 17092 |