Jean Paul Marat French Revolution Aquatint Portrait Levachez 1798 Framed

An original French Revolution portrait of Marat, the portrait roundel engraved in aquatint by Levachez and the narrative vignette beneath designed and etched by Duplessi-Bertaux, dated in the plate l'An 6 de la Rép. (1797-98).

The lettering reads JEAN PAUL MARAT, DÉPUTÉ DE PARIS A LA CONVENTION NATIONALE, Assassiné le 14 Juillet 1793. The vignette shows Marat carried in triumph by the crowd after his acquittal by the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Jean-Paul Marat, physician and journalist of L'Ami du peuple, was among the most radical voices of the Revolution. He was stabbed in his bath by Charlotte Corday in July 1793 (the plate gives the 14th). The Marat and Corday plates of this series were issued for sale as a pair.

This plate comes from the celebrated series of revolutionary portraits issued with the Tableaux historiques de la Révolution française in Paris. Each plate follows the same format: a finely worked aquatint portrait by Charles-François-Gabriel Levachez in a circular medallion, above an etched vignette by Jean Duplessi-Bertaux showing a defining moment in the sitter's life, with the lettering beneath. The portraits were issued in instalments from the late 1790s and added to the Tableaux historiques in its 1802 edition; impressions are held by the Musée Carnavalet in Paris.

Framing and provenance: in an ebonised reeded frame with a paper-covered backing (no label visible); one of a group of matching frames, the others bearing the trade label of Samuel Jennings of London. The National Portrait Gallery's directory of British framemakers records Samuel Jennings, Carver, Gilder & Printseller at 16 Duke Street, Manchester Square, London from 1850 to 1885, so this print has been in an English collection since the Victorian period. Offered from a group of these portraits framed by Jennings.

Condition: age-toning and foxing to the paper consistent with age, and a torn paper backing; please see all photographs, which form part of the description. Frame with wear commensurate with age. Hanging wire to the reverse. Not examined out of the frame.

Size: 28 x 22.5 cm framed.

Carefully packed and posted. Please ask if you would like any further photographs or measurements.