18th Century Visiting Card

• Visiting card of D. Isabel de Menezes,
• wife of Portuguese ambassador to London
• F. Vieira Portoensis invt.
• F. Bartolozzi R.A. Engraver to his Majesty Etatis 71 an. 1798
• 136 x 80mm (4¼ x 2¾in)

Francesco Bartolozzi (1725 – 1815) was an Italian engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London.

“The name of Bartolozzi can hardly be mentioned by the connoisseur and the print collector without a little thrill of emotion. To possess a few of his famous stipple engravings makes any man's study a place of pride and pleasure, and the possessor himself a person to be envied by his friends.

He gave the English public their cupids and their nymphs, and they loved him for them, but his cupids and nymphs were drawn with perfect and delicate skill ; and he gave them something more ; he reproduced for them many of the great works of the Italian masters, so that they had before them the true ideals of beauty.”

From Connoisseur Extra Number 1907. A Biographical Essay
by J.T.Herbert Baily.