TELEMACHUS REDUCED TO SLAVERY IN EGYPT 1792 John Barlow Bernard Picart ENGRAVING

Original 1792 10 inch x 7 3/4 inch etching and engraving titled TELEMACHUS REDUCED TO SLAVERY IN EGYPT.

Landscape with Telemachus wrestling a lion; shepherds seeking refuge in a tree at left.

From ‘The Adventures of Telemachus’ an epic poem by the French Archbishop François Fénelon with alterations by the Rev. Mark Anthony Meilan.

Mark Anthony Meilan was a writer, born about 1743, who at one time a situation in the post-office, which he resigned in order to become an instructor in private families in English, bookkeeping, and shorthand, of languages, arts, and sciences. He took orders, and for some time served the curacy of St. John, Wapping. In 1809 he was assistant minister of St. Mary, Newington, Surrey, and was apparently alive in 1816.

Engraved by John Barlow (c. 1760 - 1810). Reproductive etcher, working in London.

After Bernard Picart (1673 - 1733). Engraver, son of Etienne who was sometimes called 'Picart le Romain' also an engraver. Picart specialised in book illustration, in which he was a major figure with a large output. He trained in Paris but worked in the Netherlands in from September 1696 to December 1698. He married in Paris in 1702 but after the death of wife he turned Huguenot, and left definitively for Holland in January 1710, taking his aged father with him. He moved to Amsterdam in 1711, remarrying the following year. His wife henceforth acted as his agent in sales, and was notorious for the high prices she charged and for getting proofs of all his book illustrations from their publishers.

Text below image: “His next assault I wait; & rushing in, / Around him, with strong grasp, my arms I fling; / And straining to stop up the valves of breath, / My youthful nerves prevail he writhes in death.”

’Published as the Act directs by M.A. Meilan, July 9th, 1792’

Image size 5 3/4 inch x 4 7/8 inch

The engraving is in very good condition with some foxing around the border. Reverse side blank.