11.5 Worlidge’s Approaches to Fame
‘No man understood the drawing of an head better’
Worlidge added his initials and signature to most of the works and omitted any mention of Rembrandt, as was usually the case when printmakers copied works by other artists. Only in very few cases did Worlidge credit Rembrandt as the original maker of the prints [45]. Instead, Worlidge mostly stuck to motif-based references.
Worlidge had a very subtle way of communicating with contemporary connoisseurs, which was based on an intellectual, and perhaps even humorous, level: he renounced comparison with Rembrandt through an official reference on the print, yet he worked so closely with Rembrandt’s motifs and techniques that his works could almost be mistaken for those of Rembrandt himself.1 In this way, Worlidge showed to the public not only that he understood Rembrandt’s prints and how he worked, but also that he was deeply involved in Rembrandt’s oeuvre and therefore understood how the art market worked at the time. Worlidge’s marketing of his work in newspapers and shops at the time is evidence of this.
Worlidge’s strategy of working closely with Rembrandt’s art proved quite successful with the public, as his posthumous reception has shown. Under the direction of Worlidge’s pupils Alexander Grimaldi (son of his former teacher Alessandro Grimaldi) and George Powle complete volumes of the Select Collection of Drawings from Curious Antique Gems ... Etched after the Manner of Rembrandt were published in 1768.2 Worlidge himself had published the etchings as individual sheets from 1754, but without any reference to Rembrandt. Paradoxically, the gems had nothing to do with Rembrandt’s art, either in terms of technique or subject matter. The addition in the title, ‘etched after the Manner of Rembrandt’, was intended as an advertisement to attract the attention of potential buyers, but also to reaffirm his connection with Rembrandt. He must have been well known for this during his lifetime, as is also evidenced by a quote from the theorist William Gilpin (1724-1804) in his 1768 Essay on Prints: ‘Among the imitators of Rembrandt, we should not forget our countryman Worlidge; who has very ingeniously followed the manner of that master; and sometimes improved upon him. No man understood the drawing of an head better’.3
45
Thomas Worlidge after Rembrandt
Portrait of Rembrandt leaning on a stone sill, c. 1757
London (England), British Museum, inv./cat.nr. 1859,0806.27
Notes
1 In 1751, Benjamin Wilson printed what appeared to the public to be a newly discovered Rembrandt print. The print turned out to be a hoax by Wilson himself, who together with William Hogarth had tricked Thomas Hudson and Arthur Pond into accepting the fake print as an original by Rembrandt. This was Hogarth’s way of expressing his frustration with the contemporary art market, which was more interested in Rembrandt prints than contemporary art. But the fake Rembrandt print was also an example of the ongoing search by amateurs and connoisseurs for new Rembrandt prints to value: Dickey 2018, p. 70-71.
2 Howard 2010, p. 42. Dack 1907, p. 9.
3 Gilpin 1768, p. 119.