Nathaniel Marchant (Sussex 1739 - 1816 London)

Frederick Augustus III Elector of Saxony (1750-1806), by whom gifted to:
George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough (1739-1817), Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire;
thence by descent to John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough (1822-1883), Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire;
David Bromilow, Bitteswell Hall, Lutterworth, until 1898;
by descent to Julia Harriet Mary Jary (née Bromilow);
Christie, Manson and Woods London, Catalogue of the Marlborough Gems: Being a Collection of Works in Cameo and Intaglio Formed by George, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, 27 June 1899, lot 304, acquired by ‘Money’ for £15.10S;
private collection, England, acquired second half 20th century (possibly from Cameo Corner, Burlington Arcade, London);
by family descent to the present owner

London, Royal Academy of Arts, Somerset House, 1794, no. 521 (the impression and not the gem);
London, British Institution for Promoting the Replica Handbags s in the United Kingdom, Pall Mall, 1806, no. 6 (probably the impression)

T. Cades, Impronte Gemmarie dell'Instituto, 66/403;
M. H. Nevil Story-Maskelyne, The Marlborough Gems, Oxford, 1870, no. 304;
A. Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904, London, 1906, p. 181, no. 521 ['Marchant, Nathaniel, R.A. Gem Engraver … An impression from an intaglio, Hercules restoring Alcestes to Admetus. Vide Euripides'];
G. Lippold, Gemmen und Kameen des Altertums und der Neuzeit, Stuttgart, 1922, pl. 136.5;
G. Seidmann, 'Nathaniel Marchant, Gem-engraver 1739-1816', Walpole Society, LIII, London, 1987, pp. 24, 53-54, no. 58;
G. Seidmann, ‘An Eighteenth-Century Collector as Patron: The 4th Duke of Marlborough and the London Engravers’, Survivals, p. 269, fig. 13;
J. Boardman, D. Scarisbrick, C. Wagner and E. Zwierlein-Diehl, The Marlborough Gems formerly at Blenheim Palace, Oxford, 2009, p. 281, no. 672