Mrs. Anne Killigrew
Engraver Isaac Beckett British
After Anne Killigrew British
Not on view
Mezzotint, a tonal method of printmaking, was invented in Germany in 1642 and introduced to Britain by Dutch engravers. Beckett was first great native-born Englishman to practice the technique, producing just over than a hundred prints between 1681 and his early death in 1688. Most of these are portraits, with this example based on a self-portrait by the female artist Anne Killigrew, who is shown with curled hair and wearing a flowered gown. An accomplished poet as well as a painter, Killigrew died of smallpox at the age of twenty-five.