minute particular
Six Illustrations by Stothard
In his thorough review of Shelley M. Bennett’s Thomas Stothard: The Mechanisms of Art Patronage in England circa 1800 (Blake 23 [1989]: 205-09) G. E. Bentley, Jr. invited readers to send in any addenda to his addenda to Bennett’s list of Stothard illustrations. An edition of The Tatler: with Illustrations and Notes contains what are probably the six illustrations for an “unknown author and title . . . For Rivington” in Bennett’s list under the year 1785 (67). The six plates, one in each of six volumes, are inscribed “Publish’d Decr. 1st 1785 by J Rivington & Son’s St. Pauls Church Yard London. for the Proprietor’s,” and were engraved by Heath, Collyer, and Cook. The place of each in the text is marked at the top of the plate. The book itself was published in London in 1786 by a long list of parties, beginning with “C. Bathhurst” and including both Rivington and Joseph Johnson along with 23 others. Robert N. Essick notes in a private letter that the subjects of these plates are described in A. C. Coxhead’s Thomas Stothard, R. A. (London: A. H. Bullen, [1906] 172-73); he suggests that Coxhead was working from extracted plates in the Balmanno Collection, British Museum.