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After Philippe Mercier (1689-1760)

A self-portrait of Philip Mercier dated 1735

Mezzotint | 35.1 x 25.4 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 658761

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  • A mezzotint after a self-portrait of Philip Mercier, standing before an easel, facing three-quarters to the left. He holds a palette, brushes, and a maulstick. He wears an appliqué cap upon his shaven head, and a coat with tasselled fastenings. Behind him are curving bookshelves. 2nd state. Inscribed: Ipse pinxit / I. Faber fecit 1735. / Philippus Mercier / Scutarius Primarius Pictor et Bibliothecarius Serenissimi Walliæ Principis / Sold by I. Faber at the Golden Head in Bloomsbury Square.

    Philip Mercier was born in Berlin, the son of a Huguenot tapestry weaver, and trained as a painter under Antoine Pesne, court artist to Frederick I of Prussia. Frederick’s brother-in-law, the Elector of Hanover, was made King of England as George I in 1714; two years later Mercier travelled to London bearing his portrait of the king’s young grandson, Frederick. He settled in England as a painter and printmaker, and was largely responsible for making fashionable the ‘conversation piece’, the English equivalent of the fêtes galantes of Watteau and other French artists.

    When Frederick moved from Hanover to England as Prince of Wales in 1728, having attained his majority, Mercier was soon appointed his Principal Painter and Librarian. This mezzotint reproduces an unlocated self-portrait of Mercier, palette in hand and with bookshelves behind to allude to his two offices to the Prince; the inscription below, in elegant Latin, also gives those two offices (Scutarius, literally ‘shieldbearer’, is a Latinised form of ‘Esquire’). The print was issued in 1735, possibly in an attempt to bolster Mercier’s position, for he may have been feeling increasingly insecure: Frederick was sitting to other portraitists, there were rumours of a quarrel between prince and painter, and in 1736 Mercier left his service.

    Text adapted from Portrait of the Artist, London, 2016
  • Medium and techniques

    Mezzotint

    Measurements

    35.1 x 25.4 cm (sheet of paper)

  • Category
    Object type(s)
  • Alternative title(s)

    Philip Mercier, portrait painter


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