Engraving of Painting The State of Final Retribution by James Barry [11 of 17 Prints]

Artist James Barry (1741 - 1806)

Datec. 1791

MediumEngraving on paper

DimensionsPlate size: 74.2 x 50 cm

ClassificationsPrint

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Donated by Eugene L. Clarke, 1963.

Object number1185.11

DescriptionEleventh print of seventeen in 'A series of etchings by James Barry Esq. From his Original and Justly Celebrated Paintings in the Great Room of the Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.'

Although the prints have been bound with the title 'A Series of Etchings ...' They are in fact engravings (intaglio prints).

A description of the print is transcribed below. This description is taken from the bound version of Barry's etchings and printed a few pages before the actual print. This is the fourth print of the enlarged views.

'Five of the Prints which follow, are taken from the Painting of Elysium, and are on an enlarged scale, with certain additions of personages which Mr. Barry thought proper to make; such as Isabella of Spain, the illustrious Princess, by whose magnanimity Columbus was enabled to make the discovery of the New World: the person of Calvart Baron of Baltimore, whose code of laws, for the government of the new colony of Maryland, gave occasion to Penn, some years after, to introduce his much admired system of legislation into Pennsylvania,-Moses Mendelsohn,-Sir Joshua Reynolds, &c.
The last Print exhibits the group of the Diagorides, on an enlarged scale, from the Painting of the Olympic Games.'

The actual description of the personages in the print is given in the description of the Painting of 'Elysium and Tartarus or the State of Final Retribution' see the description entry for 1185.08. The following is an extract from the description entry for 1185.08: '...on the rocks which separate Elysium from the infernal regions, are placed the angelic guards (see Milton, Book IV. verse 549); and in the most advanced part an arch-angel, weighing attentively the virtues and vices of mankind, whose raised hand and expressive countenance denote great concern at the preponderancy of evil: behind this figure is another angel, explaining to Pascal and Bishop Butler, the analogy between nature and revealed religion. The figure behind Pascal and Butler, with his arms stretched out, and advancing with so much energy, is that ornament of our later ages, the graceful, the sublime Bossuet Bishop of Meaux; the uniting tendency of the paper he holds in his hand, resting on the shoulder of Origen, would well comport with those pacific views of the amiable Grotius, for healing those discordant evils which are sapping the foundation of Christianity amongst the nations of Europe, where, in other respects, it would be, and even is, so happily and so well established. (See page 61 of Mr. Barry's printed letter to Society of Arts, &c. dated Feb. 1793). Behind Francis the First and Lord Arundel are Hugo Grotius, Father Paul, and Pope Adrian.'

There is no inscription below the image.

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