The prints themselves had been accumulated in the first half of the 20th century by William S. Ladd. He had purchased a great many of them as deaccessioned duplicates from the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Primarily portraits of significant and lesser known figures in medicine and science, the prints span a period from the early 17th century to the first half of the 19th century. The printing processes used to render the various images include etching, engraving, stipple, mezzotint, and lithography. Among the etchers, engravers, artists and lithographers are some very famous names, a history in fact of English and Continental art and printmaking, with a smattering of American efforts among the lot. For example, the portrait of John Syng Dorsey (1783-1818), a little known American surgeon who rated a footnote in Fielding Garrison’s An Introduction To The History Of Medicine, is an engraving after a painting by Thomas Sully (1783-1872). Sully, who had studied with Gilbert Stuart and Benjamin West, is best known for his famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware. The portrait of Charles Lucas (1713-1792), an Irish physician who did not even get a footnote in Garrison’s work, was engraved by James McArdell after a painting by Joshua Reynolds. James McArdell was an engraver who specialized in mezzotints. ...READ MORE

Ladd, William S. The William S. Ladd Collection of Prints, ca. 1600 to ca. 1850.