Gallery of prints for sale

Saturday 23 April 2022

Benigno Bossi’s etchings, “Plate 6” & “Plate 9”, 1755


Benigno Bossi (1727–1792)

(left) “Plates 6” (aka “Head of a Boy, Profile Left”), 1755 (as dated in plate)

(right) “Plate 9” (aka “Head of a Boy Holding a Book”, c1755

Two etchings of the head of a youth facing left on laid paper from the series of forty-three numbered plates (including the title plate), “Raccolta di Teste” (Collection of Heads).

Size: (each sheet) 27 x 18.6 cm; (each plate) 9.4/9.6 x 7/7.5 cm.

“Plate 6” inscribed faintly in plate: (upper left) “Benigno Bossi f-.1755.”; (upper right) “6”.

“Plate 9” inscribed faintly in plate: (upper left) “Bossi In. f.”; (upper right) “9”.

The Harvard Art Museums offer a description of “Plate 6” in an earlier state before the plate was reduced in size and reworked: https://hvrd.art/o/275984.

The Rijksmuseum and The Harvard Art Museums offer descriptions of “Plate 9” in an earlier state when it was inscribed, “nō V”: http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.86262 & https://hvrd.art/o/275973.  

Interestingly, Benjamin Green (1739–1798)—purported to have been the first printmaker to make a soft-ground etching—copied Bossi’s “Plate 6” in the reverse direction as a soft-ground etching (see https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1861-1012-2390).

Condition: strong and well-printed impressions with generous margins and in an excellent condition with no tears, holes, folds, abrasions, losses, significant stains or foxing.

I am selling this pair of sensitive studies of a boy facing left, for the total cost of AU$428 for the pair (currently US$309.97/EU286.93/GBP241.51 at the time of posting this listing) including Express Mail (EMS) postage and handling to anywhere in the world, but not (of course) any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries.

If you are interested in purchasing this pair of small and very beautiful etchings, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

Note that I have three other etchings by Benigno Bossi that are still available: https://www.printsandprinciples.com/2021/01/benigno-bossis-etchings-portrait-of-man.html & https://www.printsandprinciples.com/2019/12/benigno-bossis-etching-allegory-of-time.html.