Queen Catherine, Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Campeius (Shakespeare, King Henry VIII, Act 3, Scene 1)

Shearjashub Spooner|Robert Thew|John & Josiah Boydell|Matthew William Peters|William Shakespeare

first published 1796; reissued 1852 · Stipple engraving · Drawings and Prints

Peter's work encapsulates a Catherine of Aragon's angry meeting with Cardinal Wolsey in King Henry VIII. It was conceived for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, launched in 1786 as a publishing-cum-exhibition scheme that included a new illustrated edition of the plays, sets of large and small engravings, and a gallery on London's Pall Mall. The latter opened in 1789 with thirty-four paintings and contained about one hundred and seventy works the time Boydell went bankrupt and auctioned the contents in 1805–his print sales plummeted when Napoleon blocaded European ports. This impression belongs to an American reissue of 1852 spearheaded by Shearjashub Spooner, a New York dental surgeon, writer and art scholar who acquired Boydell's heavily worn plates and had them reworked. Printed on thick cream colored paper, the New York edition added small numbers in the lower left margin, this being number 80.

Artist

Shearjashub Spooner|Robert Thew|John & Josiah Boydell|Matthew William Peters|William Shakespeare

Date

first published 1796; reissued 1852

Medium

Stipple engraving

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gertrude and Thomas Jefferson Mumford Collection, Gift of Dorothy Quick Mayer, 1942