The Little Executioner
Medium
mezzotint
Dimensions
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Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland
Accession Number
1947.153
Tags
Latine and Hispanic Artistsmale
About this artwork
Prince Ruprecht of the Rhine—a nobleman who was the nephew of England’s King Charles I—was among the earliest practitioners of mezzotint, a printmaking technique first used in Germany in the 1600s. Prince Ruprecht is credited with bringing the technique to England around 1660, where he introduced it to John Evelyn, who was engaged in writing a book on the history of printmaking. Ruprecht created this image (after a painting thought to be by Jusepe de Ribera) to illustrate the mezzotint process i...