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Banditti with prisoners
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John Hamilton Mortimer ARA (1740 - 1779)
Banditti with prisoners
Museum number: P23
On display: Dressing Room
All spaces are in No. 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields unless identified as in No. 12, Soane's first house.
For tours https://www.soane.org/your-visit
Curatorial note
One of a pair of etchings of banditti by Mortimer which hang on the north wall of Soane's Dressing Room on the ground floor, in identical frames.
The robbers are departing from their cave, presumably to carry out a raid. Two bandits in helmets carrying long spears are either side of a central figure in an elaborate turban that appears to be be combined with a fez who is carrying a spiked club. The man on his proper left is directing him, pointing towards a caravan ascending a mountain road in the distance. On the right a curly-haired man, bare-headed, bends forward to tie up his sandal. On the left, a group of other men, presumably fellow bandits, one wearing a turban and looking back, set out towards a forest and the mountain beyond.
Etched in reverse by Robert Blyth, 1780. Soane's pair of etchings have had the inscription and plate marks trimmed off to enable them to be close-framed to resemble original drawings.
The inscription on the untrimmed etching (see example in the British Museum no. 1865,0610.1038) reads: Drawn by J. Mortimer 1775 / Etch'd by R. Blyth and Banditti going out/ From an Original Drawing of J. Mortimer, in the Collection of Richard Payne Knight Esq.r / London, Publish'd as the Act directs Nov.r 9th 1780, by R. Blyth No. 27, Great Castle Street, Cavendish Square.
The original drawing for this print is in the British Museum (Museum no. Oo,5.13), dated to 1775.
The robbers are departing from their cave, presumably to carry out a raid. Two bandits in helmets carrying long spears are either side of a central figure in an elaborate turban that appears to be be combined with a fez who is carrying a spiked club. The man on his proper left is directing him, pointing towards a caravan ascending a mountain road in the distance. On the right a curly-haired man, bare-headed, bends forward to tie up his sandal. On the left, a group of other men, presumably fellow bandits, one wearing a turban and looking back, set out towards a forest and the mountain beyond.
Etched in reverse by Robert Blyth, 1780. Soane's pair of etchings have had the inscription and plate marks trimmed off to enable them to be close-framed to resemble original drawings.
The inscription on the untrimmed etching (see example in the British Museum no. 1865,0610.1038) reads: Drawn by J. Mortimer 1775 / Etch'd by R. Blyth and Banditti going out/ From an Original Drawing of J. Mortimer, in the Collection of Richard Payne Knight Esq.r / London, Publish'd as the Act directs Nov.r 9th 1780, by R. Blyth No. 27, Great Castle Street, Cavendish Square.
The original drawing for this print is in the British Museum (Museum no. Oo,5.13), dated to 1775.
Literature
For a detailed account of Mortimer's life and work see John Sunderland, John Hamilton Mortimer, 1740-1779, The Volume of the Walpole Society, 1986 (vol. 52)
Associated items
P20, pair
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