Johann Christian Thomas Winck

Protected by Pallas Athena enthroned upon a cloud, the personification of painting is sat at the easel in the centre of the picture as she paints Fortuna standing on a pedestal opposite her. A putto with fragments of sculpture in the left foreground and two other putti, one with a pair of compasses and the other with the base of a column, represent sculpture and architecture. Other allegorical figures symbolise music, astronomy and the rhetorical arts. One of the artist’s own pictorial inventions is the woman resembling a fury who is sat to the left beneath the easel. The wonderfully lively composition of this print, which is on offer here in an extremely rare, reddishbrown impression, is typical of the South German Rococo period. A superb, finely gradated impression with even thread margins around the platemark. Minor soiling, small stains in the white margin as well as at the top right and next to the vase, traces of previous mounting on the verso, otherwise in excellent condition.