Margaret Lemon

An almost exact contemporary of Van Dyck’s, the French etcher Jean Morin is among the earliest and best printmakers to have worked after him. Taking full advantage of the subtle gradations and quivering lines allowed by the etching process, Morin based this plate on the portrait of Van Dyck’s mistress. The lack of an inscription identifying the sitter suggests the print was made less as a likeness of a particular woman than as an example of Van Dyck’s mastery of the genre, although the handwritten annotation indicates that her identity was preserved.