JONATHAN THE HIGH PRIEST

Original 1777 10 1/4 inch x 8 inch Etching titled JONATHAN THE HIGH PRIEST AND HIS ATTENDANCE ARE MASSACRED NEAR JERUSALEM BY A BAND OF ROBBERS; ENCOURAGED BY ELEAZAR SON OF DINCUS

Etched by Joseph Collyer (1748 – 1827). Engraver, mostly employed in book illustration, sometimes published his own work. Associate engraver of RA in 1786; later portrait engraver to Queen Charlotte and master warden of the Stationers’ Company.

After Jan Luyken (1649 – 1712). Luyken was born in Amsterdam and learned engraving from his father Kaspar Luyken.

He illustrated the 1685 edition of the Martyrs Mirror with 104 copper etchings and published Het Menselyk Bedryf (“The Book of Trades”) in 1694, which contains numerous engravings, by Luyken and his son Caspar, of 17th century trades.

From “The Works of Flavius Josephus. I. The Life of Josephus as written by Himself; II. The Antiquities of the Jewish People, with a defence of those Antiquities, in Answer to Apion; III. The History of the Martyrdom of the Maccabees, and the Wars of the Jews with the Neighbouring Nations till the final Destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman Power; IV. Account of Philo’s Ambassy from the Jews of Alexandria, to the Emperor Caius Caligula (1777). Published by Fielding and Walker, London, 1777.

Josephus, Flavius (37 – c. 100), was a first-century Romano-Jewish scholar, historian and hagiographer, who was born in Jerusalem (then part of Roman Judea) to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry.

Image size 5 3/8 inch x 3 3/4 inch

The etching is in good condition with some foxing and slight age related toning. Reverse side blank.