ABSTRACT
In 1713, the Anglo-Irish impresario Owen McSwiny absconded from London to Europe, ultimately settling in Venice. He devised an ambitious scheme: a cycle of some twenty large-size allegorical paintings to commemorate English notables, mainly Whig-connected, of the preceding generation. Having sold them to aristocratic patrons, a few years later he announced a related venture: a collection of reproductive prints of the paintings, accompanied by auxiliary images, to be sold by subscription. McSwiny commissioned several Venetian and Bolognese artists to create the paintings, but had the prints, in a combination of engraving and etching techniques, produced in Paris, where the most skillful practitioners of the time were located. He claimed that the content of these privately owned works would thus become more widely known but was also by this means able to increase his financial profit. The technology involved in reproductive printmaking was not new, but in this case, its employment for a combination of commercial and political purposes is noteworthy. Although I examined three copies of the print series in person, online viewing enabled me to see several more, held in various collections. This digital investigation made possible the enlargement of multiple fine details otherwise easily overlooked but of iconographic significance. It also revealed remarkable variation in the title pages for the collection, facilitating creation of a hypothetical chronology for its production.
