After Charles Brown

Charles Brown and his brother William were significant English gem engravers who exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1770 and 1830. Their most important patron was Catherine the Great of Russia, but he also counted George Prince of Wales (later George IV) as one of his patrons. See the intaglio sold in these rooms on 10 December 2015, lot 433. The brothers worked first in Gloucester Street and then in Pall Mall from 1776. There is a trade-card for the brothers at 4 Pall Mall from 1781 in the British Museum (inv. no. D,2.2249). Brown exhibited the subject of Hercules a number of times at the Royal Academy but the present intaglio does not appear to have been one of them.

The original engraved carnelian intaglio is in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (inv. no. И-3950). The present impression could have been made either by Charles Brown himself or by James Tassie, who produced a cabinet of impressions for Catherine II of Russia.