A very rare German mezzotint portrait of the bell and cannon founder, Michael Weinholdt, engraved by Bodenehr after a painting by Johann Georg Böhm. Weinholdt is shown half length, turned slightly to the left, wearing a long periwig, richly brocaded velvet coat, and with a heavy cape draped over his left shoulder. In his right hand he holds a pair of calipers, while his left, clutching a cannon ball, rests over the side of one of his guns, its muzzle cast with decorative acanthus leaves. In the background, the fires of the forges and furnaces can be seen. Weinholdt, a native of Danzig (Gdansk), was the owner of foundaries both in his home town and in Dresden, serving as Master of Metallic Arts to both the King of Poland and the Elector of Saxony. Below the portrait, in the centre of the inscription space, an armorial bears a pair of intertwined grape vines, with a feathered helm surmounted by a double-tailed lion holding a bunch of grapes.

We have been able to trace only two institutional examples of this portrait, in the Anne SK Brown Military Collection of Brown University and in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.

Johann Georg Bodenehr (1691-1730) was a German mezzotint portrait engraver, and one of the large family of Bodenehr engravers and painters active in Augsburg between the late 1600s and mid 1700s.

Johann Georg Böhm (1672-1746) was a German genre painter and portraitist active in Dresden. His son of the same name was also a painter.

Condition: Minor surface abrasion. Minor creasing and marginal tears, not affecting plate. Otherwise a strong clean impression.