Devil reclining on a bed of flames

Gerard van der Gucht (or Vandergucht), the English engraver and art dealer (1696/7-1776), was the son of the Anglo-Flemish engraver Michael van der Gucht. Taught to engrave by his father, he studied drawing under Louis Chéron and at the Great Queen Street Academy in London. He is credited with being the first English-born engraver to successfully imitate the French style of blending etching with engraving in order to combine the advantages of free drawing with engraved detail and tonal gradation. Van der Gucht worked for various printsellers and booksellers until his father's death in 1725, when he took over his business. For the next twenty-five years, he was a leading engraver and publisher of history prints, antiquities and decorative subjects, before concentrating on art dealing from 1760.

This engraving, which is not in the British Museum collection of prints and drawings, requires further research. It may relate to Van der Gucht's illustrations to Daniel Defoe, <em>A system of magick; or, a history of the black art. Being an historical account of mankind's most early dealing with the Devil; and how the acquaintance on both sides first begun </em>(London, 1728).

See:  National Portrait Gallery, 'Gerard van der Gucht', https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp10800/gerard-vandergucht

Dr Mark Stocker        Curator, Hsitorical International Art      April 2019