A Philosopher Shewing an Experiment on the Air Pump
1769
Medium
Mezzotint with traces of engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image/plate: 44.8 × 58.5 cm (17 11/16 × 23 1/16 in.); Sheet: 45.7 × 59 cm (18 × 23 1/4 in.)
Classification
mezzotint
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
220487
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The consummate mezzotint engraver Valentine Green created this iconic image a year after the Enlightenment-era painter Joseph Wright of Derby completed the original painting (National Gallery, London). Green’s limpid moonlit effects and riveting velvet-black ink aptly render this nocturnal scientific demonstration as a matter of life or death: the bird in the glass sphere begins to suffocate as air is pumped out of the chamber, leaving the breathless viewers uncertain of its ultimate fate.
About the Artist
Valentine Green · 1739–1813
**Valentine Green (1739–1813)** was a leading British mezzotint engraver and print publisher whose work helped elevate the medium’s status in 18th-century Britain. Born on 3 October 1739 in Salford Priors near Evesham, Warwickshire, he initially trained for the law but abandoned it after two years in a solicitor’s office. He then studied line engraving under Robert Hancock in Worcester before movi...