Phyllis Johnson, a prostitute with her name and price. Etching by a follower of Wenceslaus Hollar, 180- (?).

Date:
[between 1800 and 1809?]
Reference:
27941i
Part of:
Portraits of celebrated courtezans: from the original copper plates engraved by W. Hollar in the reign of Charles the second.
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view Phyllis Johnson, a prostitute with her name and price. Etching by a follower of Wenceslaus Hollar, 180- (?).

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Phyllis Johnson, a prostitute with her name and price. Etching by a follower of Wenceslaus Hollar, 180- (?). Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Source: Wellcome Collection.

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Description

A portrait of one Phyllis Johnson, supposedly a prostitute who charged 1 crown for her services in the London of Charles II (ruled 1660-1685). The print is one of ten which seem to have been created in a later period also notorious for libertinage, the period of, and preceding the Regency of George Prince of Wales (1811-1820). Some of them appear to be copied from etchings by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677), a Bohemian printmaker who worked in England. By invoking the promiscuous world contemporary with the diarist Samuel Pepys, the founding of the Royal Society, and the paintings of Lely in the mid seventeenth century, publishers and print-buyers could legitimise equally free conduct in their own, later times

Publication/Creation

[London?] : [publisher not identified], [between 1800 and 1809?]

Physical description

1 print : etching ; platemark 10.1 x 6.1 cm

Lettering

Phy.s J--n 1 crown

References note

Richard Pennington, A descriptive catalogue of the etched work of Wenceslaus Hollar 1607-1677, Cambridge 1982, p. 310 no. 1944a
Alicia Meyer, 'Engraving the courtesan: sex work and "The Renaissance" in Victorian books', The collation, Folger Shakespeare Library blog, 21 September 2023, https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/engraving-the-courtesan/

Reference

Wellcome Collection 27941i

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