Lot Essay
The portrait of John Cecil, Baron Burghley, at the age of twelve was painted in 1686 by William Wissing. It was engraved by John Smith the same year, and later copied by Petrus Schenk, see F.W.H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700, Amsterdam, 1981, vol. XXV, no.978, where the Schenk engraving is illustrated. It is the Schenk engraving which the Chinese artists appear to have copied. A plate from this service is in the Rijksmuseum, illustrated by D. F. Lunsingh Scheurleer, Chinese Export Porcelain - Chine de Commande, London, 1974, fig.252 together with an engraving, also in the Museum, as fig.253.