A Philosopher in Meditation, from the series Imitations of Drawings, Engraved by Messrs. Pond and Knapton

Arthur Pond was an English portrait painter, printmaker, and art connoisseur who published two collections of his own work in the 1730s and 1740s. One collection in particular is “Imitations of Drawings, Engraved by Messrs. Pond and Knapton,” published around 1732-36, in which Pond collaborated with Charles Knapton to create prints after Old Master drawings held in English collections. “A Philosopher in Meditation,” found in “Imitations of Drawings,” reproduces a drawing by seventeenth-century Italian artist Salvator Rosa that Pond found in the collection of his mentor Jonathan Richardson. Functioning as a pendant within the portfolio, the composition depicts a robed man deep in thought seated at the base of a tree. This print layers forms articulated with line etching over gradations of tone printed with woodblocks.