ENGRAVING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century some of the most celebrated
artists of the French school of painting belonged, by the nature
of their talent as well as by the date of their chief successes,
to the ante-revolutionary period. Greuze, Fragonard, Moreau, Mme.
Vigée-Lebrun, Vien even, notwithstanding his intentions of reform,
Regnault and Vincent, in spite of their influence as professors on the
new generation--all seemed rather to recall the past than to herald the
future. One man, Louis David, personified the progress of the epoch.
His pictures, "Les Horaces," and the "Brutus," had appeared some years
before, and the approaching exhibition of "Les Sabines" was impatiently
expected. At this time the younger artists and the public unanimously
regarded David as the regenerator of national art and a master justly
supreme. Architecture, painting, furniture, even fashion in dress, were
all subjected to his absolute sway; everything was done in imitation of
the antique, as understood and interpreted by him. Under the pretexts
of pure beauty and a chaste style, nothing but a soulless body, a sort
of coloured statue, was represented on canvas; while sculpture became
no more than an imitation of Greek or Roman statuary. Since Lebrun,
indeed, no single influence had so completely tyrannised over French
taste.
Engraving, though fated like the other arts to accept the dictatorship
of David, was at any rate the first to throw off his yoke. Before
the Restoration, whilst the painter of Marat, then painter to the
Emperor, was still in the fulness of his power, the great Italians,
whose pictures crowded the Louvre, had already been interpreted with
more respect for the memory of the old manner than submission to the
requirements of the newer style.
The most talented of these new artists, Boucher-Desnoyers, when working
at his "Belle Jardinière," after Raphael, or his "Vierge aux Rochers,"
after Leonardo, probably thought much less of contemporary work than of
the French engravers of the seventeenth century; while on their part
Bervic and Tardieu, who had long before given proof of their power,
faithfully maintained the great traditions: the one in an austerity of
execution and a firmness of touch hereditary in his family, the other
in his scientific ease of handling. These three were of the race of
the older masters, and their work, unjustly forgotten some years later
during the rage for the English manner, deserves a better fate than to
be confounded with the cold and formal prints published in the France
of the First Empire. The engravings after David, by popularising his
work, obtained some success in their day, but have failed to secure a
lasting reputation. The fault, however, is not altogether with the
engravers: in spite of the apparent conscientiousness of the painter,
his real indecision of method must count for something in the mediocre
achievements of his interpreters.
Free to impose his own system on all other artists, David might have
enforced his artistic authority on his contemporaries; and even if
it were beyond his power to restore the French school of engraving,
he might at least have regenerated its principles, and, combining
separate efforts under the synthesis of his own personal conception,
have breathed into it a fresh spirit of unity. This he never attempted;
and it is even hard to guess at what he expected from his engravers.
It might be supposed that his own fondness for precision of form would
have led him to require from them insistence as to the drawing, and not
much attention to colour and effect; yet most of the prints after his
pictures--amongst others those by Morel and Massard--are heavy in tone
and feeble in drawing. There is in them no trace either of the precise
manner of David, or of the large method of the old school; it is
therefore not in these commonplace works, and still less in the barren
engravings composing the great "Commission d'Égypte," that we must look
for signs of such talent as then existed in France.
[Illustration: FIG. 94.--ALEXANDER TARDIEU.
The Earl of Arundel. After Van Dyck.]
The few painters who, like Regnault, were more or less independent
of David's influence, or, like Prud'hon, had ventured to create an
entirely original method, were admired by so small a public that their
pictures were not generally reproduced in engraving, and thus could
do little for the progress of the art. Some, however, of Prud'hon's
drawings and pictures met, under the Directory and the Empire, with
excellent interpreters in Copia and in Barthélemy Roger; while in the
last years of the eighteenth century Bervic's engraving of Regnault's
"Éducation d'Achille" had obtained at least as much success as the
original had won in the Salon of 1783. To give a companion to this
justly celebrated piece, Bervic soon after published his "Enlèvement de
Déjanire," after Guido. This work, to which the judges of the Decennial
Competition awarded the prize in preference to any engraving published
in France from 1800 to 1810, by confirming the engraver's reputation,
caused his fellow-craftsmen to return once more to the old path of
progress.
It must not, however, be supposed that Bervic did not himself diverge
somewhat from the way of the masters: it may even be said that he was
always more inclined to skirt it than to follow it resolutely. At the
outset he was not sufficiently alive to the perils of facility; and
later on he was apt to attach too much importance to certain quite
material qualities. Yet it must be added that he never went so far as
to entirely sacrifice essentials to accessories, and that more than
once--in his fine full-length of Louis XVI. for instance--he displayed
an ability all the more laudable as the original was by no means
inspiring.
[Illustration: FIG. 95.--BERVIC.
"L'Éducation d'Achille." After Regnault.]
From the engraving it is hard to suspect the mediocrity of Callet's
picture. This, now at Versailles, is insipidly coloured and loosely
and clumsily drawn; the print, on the contrary, is to be admired for
its solid appearance, and its easy yet unostentatious handling. Lace,
satin, velvet, all accessories, indeed, are treated with a largeness
of touch by no means at variance with delicacy, and the general tone
is harmoniously luminous. Here and there, however, is already visible
a certain artifice of manner which threatens to degenerate into an
unwise cultivation of fine line, and end in an abuse of skill. This,
indeed, is what happened. Bervic, henceforth, thought of little else
but dexterity, and ended in his "Laocoon," perhaps the best known of
all his works, by a display of common technical fireworks, to a certain
extent surprising, but by no means to be unreservedly admired. The care
with which he set himself to imitate the grain of marble by minute
workmanship is only trifling with his subject; and though a group
of statues cannot be treated in the same way as figures painted on
canvas, it was more important, and more desirable in every respect, to
reproduce the character and style of the original than to imitate the
substance in which it was wrought.
Moreover, in the attempt so to interpret his model, Bervic has defeated
his own purpose. By a multitude of details, and an abuse of half-lights
intended to bring out the slightest accidents of form and modelling, he
has only succeeded in depriving the general aspect of brilliancy and
unity.
Far removed, indeed, was such a method from that of the Old Masters,
and Bervic lived long enough to change his mind. "I have missed
the truth," he declared in his old age, "and if I could begin life
again, I should do nothing I have done." There he wronged himself.
As happens often in tardy repentances, he remembered past errors only
to exaggerate them; but we must be juster to the engraver of the
"Louis XVI." and "L'Éducation d'Achille" than he was to himself, and
not forget that much of his work should be excluded from the sweeping
condemnation which he launched upon the whole.
Whilst Bervic was counted the greatest French engraver, Italy boasted
of a man, his inferior in reality, but whom, in the existing dearth
of talent, his countrymen agreed to thrust into the glorious eminence
of a master. Like Canova, his senior by a few years only, Raphael
Morghen had the good fortune to be born at the right time. Both
second-rate artists, they would have passed almost unnoticed in a more
favoured century; as it was, in the absence of contemporary rivals,
their compatriots accepted their accidental superiority as a proof of
absolute merit. Moreover, by merely submitting in some sort to the
dictates of opinion and of public taste, their popularity and success
were easily assured. The writings of Winckelmann and Raphael Mengs had
brought antique statues and Italian pictures of the sixteenth century
once more into favour; so that Canova, by imitating the former more or
less cleverly, and Morghen by engraving the latter, could neither of
them fail to please, and it is especially to their choice of subjects
that we must attribute the great reputation they both enjoyed.
Morghen, the pupil and son-in-law of Volpato, whose weak engravings
from the "Stanze," in the Vatican, are known to every one, shared with
that feeble artist, and with Longhi, the privilege of reproducing
admirable paintings, which had either never been engraved, or not
since the time of the masters. This alone gives a certain value to his
plates, faulty as they are. Assuredly, for instance, the engraving of
Leonardo's "Last Supper" reproduces no more than the general lines of
the composition and the attitude of the figures. We look at it as we
might listen to an inferior actor reading verses from "Polyeucte" or
"Athalie," because the inspiration of the master is still to be felt,
in spite of the intermediary of expression; only the sort of beauty
inherent in the conception and arrangement of the original remains in
this piece of Morghen's. What can be said of the head of the Saviour,
like those of the Apostles, _restored_ by the engraver, and unillumined
by the faintest glimmer of sentiment? How is it possible, examining the
work in detail, not to be offended by the arrogance of the technique
and the display of mere mechanical facility, when one remembers the
incomparable accuracy of Leonardo and his perfection of style?
But in thus substituting his own manner, and the caprices of his
individual taste, for the manner and the taste of the painter of
"The Last Supper," Morghen only treated this great master as he was
in the habit of treating others. Whether it was his lot to interpret
Raphael or Poussin, Andrea del Sarto or Correggio, he had but one
uniform method for the most conflicting types; and to his tricks of
hand he subjected, without remorse, the inspired grace or the noble
energy of whatever he copied. Once, however, it was given him to
entertain higher aspirations, and to study more conscientiously the
particular characteristics of the work he was to reproduce. It would be
impossible without deliberate injustice to avoid recognising merit in
his plate from Van Dyck's "Francesco de Moncada," as much on the score
of intelligent fidelity as of skilful execution. But, for his other
works, could one, without equal injustice, condone the inadequacy of
expression and drawing, the systematic contempt of all effort, the many
evidences of vain and self-confident ease which refuses to be humbled
even in the presence of genius?
Morghen preserved till the end the brilliant reputation which his
extreme fertility and the complacent patriotism of the Italians had won
for him at the outset. Born in Naples, he settled in Florence, whither
he had been allured by the Grand Duke Ferdinand III., and where he
remained during the French occupation, and, much less resentful than
Alfieri, repulsed neither the homage nor the favour of the foreigner.
On the return of the Grand Duke, his old protector, he was still less
ready to yield to the Neapolitans, who coveted the honour of recalling
the renowned artist to his native country. When at length he died in
1833, all Italy was stirred at the news, and innumerable sonnets, the
usual expression of public regret or enthusiasm, celebrated "the
undying glory of the illustrious engraver of 'The Last Supper.'"
Johann Godard Müller, who early in life had had nearly as widespread
a recognition in Germany as Morghen in Italy, departed this world in
lonely misery three years before the Neapolitan. Beyond the walls
of Stuttgart, scarce any one remembered the existence or the brief
renown of the engraver of the "Madonna della Sedia" and the "Battle of
Bunker's Hill." For he had long ceased to trouble about his work or
his reputation, and lived only to mourn a son, who in 1816 died at the
very time when, in his turn, he was about to become one of the most
distinguished engravers of his country.
From childhood this son, Christian Frederick Müller, had been devoted
to his father's art. His first attempts were successful enough to
warrant his early admittance to the school of engraving recently
founded at Stuttgart by Duke Charles of Wurtemberg. We have seen that
during the second half of the eighteenth century many German engravers
came to Paris for training, and that many remained there. Expelled from
France, their adopted country, by the Revolution, they returned to
Germany, and the institution of a school of engraving in Stuttgart was
one result of their expulsion. But by 1802 many of the fugitives were
already back in Paris, and the studios, closed for ten years, once more
opened their doors to numerous pupils. Frederick Müller, then barely
twenty, followed his father's example, and in his turn went to perfect
himself under French masters.
Commended to the good offices of Wille, then past eighty, who felt it
an honour to have taught Johann Godard Müller, and introduced by him,
the young man was soon in relation with Bervic, Tardieu, and Desnoyers;
and without constituting himself a thorough-going imitator of these
fine craftsmen, he yet borrowed enough from them to be considered,
if not their rival, at least one of their most faithful disciples.
The plates he engraved for the "Musée Français," published by Laurent
and Robillard,[50] show laudable submission to the principles of the
masters and an already sound experience of art; but it is in the
"Madonna di San Sisto," in which he seems to have arrived at maturity,
that his talent may be fully measured. Before undertaking this plate,
the young engraver went to Italy to study other work by the "Divine
Painter," and to prepare himself for the interpretation of the picture
in the Dresden Gallery by drawing from the Vatican frescoes. On his
return to Germany, he at once applied himself to the task, and pursued
it with such ardour that, towards the end of 1815, that is in three
years, he had brought it to an end. The "Madonna di San Sisto" deserves
to rank with the finest line engravings of the beginning of the
century. It has long been popular; but renown came too slowly for the
engraver, and unhappily he lacked the patience to await its coming.
When Müller had finished his work, he determined to publish it himself,
hoping to gain not only honour but legitimate profit. He was exhausted
by hard work, but he trusted to meet with the reward which he felt to
be due to such continual effort, and to meet with it at once. Time
passed, however, and the young engraver, a prey to feverish anxiety,
began to rail at the indifference of his contemporaries. He had soon to
make arrangements with a publisher, that the fruit of his labours might
not be altogether lost. Several amateurs then bought proofs, but there
was as yet no general popularity for a print the appearance of which,
in the expectation of its author, should have had all the importance
of a public event. So many disappointments completed the ruin of his
health, and at last affected his reason. In a paroxysm of excitement,
Müller stabbed himself with a burnisher. Shortly after his "Sistine
Madonna" obtained that great success which the poor artist had fondly
anticipated. The publisher grew rich upon the proofs; and the name of
the young engraver who had made too great haste to sell them was with
justice acclaimed throughout Europe.
The works of Bervic, of Desnoyers, of Morghen and of Müller, may be
said to represent the state of engraving in France, in Italy, and in
Germany during the early years of the nineteenth century. They show
that at that time the three schools professed the same doctrines,
or, at least, followed the same masters; but this seeming conformity
was not destined to be of long duration. The principles of art were
soon modified by the influence of new ideas, and the German engravers
(taking the lead in this change of aim) entered the path which they are
still following.
At the time of Müller's death, the influence of Goethe and Schiller
on German literature had begun to extend to the pictorial arts.
Passionate study of the Middle Ages took the place of the worship of
antiquity, and whilst the classical dictionary was still the only
gospel for French painters, those beyond the Rhine were already
drinking inspiration from Christian tradition and national legend. This
was a happy reaction in so far as it reinvested art with that ethereal
character which is indispensable to its higher developments; but, on
the other hand, rapidly degenerating into mere archæology, the movement
ended by oppressing and imprisoning talent under invariable formulas.
A few years sufficed to reduce German art to such a condition that
asceticism became the established rule. Since then Overbeck, Cornelius,
and Kaulbach have added the weight of their authority and example,
and continued and perfected the tradition of their forerunners; and
this reformation has been as thorough in Germany as the far different
revolution accomplished by David in France.
The German painters having thus laid aside a part of their material
resources, the German engravers have been obliged to confine themselves
to a translation of the ideal sentiment of their originals. In this
task it must be allowed they have perfectly succeeded. They reproduce
with singular completeness that generative thought, and religious,
philosophical, or literary imagination, which, far more than any
pictorial idea, inspires the German painter.
Strictly speaking, they do not produce engravings: that is, they do
not produce works in which the burin has sought to render the value
of tone, colour, chiaroscuro, or any constituent of a picture save
composition and drawing; they are satisfied to cut in the copper, with
a precision frequently approaching dryness, the outlines of simple
forms; while, by way of concession to the true pictorial spirit,
they think it enough to throw in here and there a few suggestions of
modelling and light masses of shadow. Among the numerous specimens of
this extreme reticence of execution, it is sufficient to mention the
"Apostolical Scenes" engraved, after Overbeck, by Franz Keller, Ludy,
and Steinfensand; the plates after Cornelius, published at Carlsruhe
and Munich, by Schäffer, Merz, and others; and lastly, Thaeter's big
"Battle of the Huns," after Kaulbach.
Although subdivided into smaller classes, the modern German school is
composed--at least, in so far as historical painting and engraving
are concerned--of a group of kindred talents, inspired by abstract
reflection rather than the study of reality. Nevertheless this main
idea has not everywhere been carried out with the same logical rigour.
The Düsseldorf engravers, for instance, have not always confined
themselves, like those of Munich, to the representation of figures and
their accessories, as mere silhouettes, strengthened, if at all, by
the palest of shadows. Even more elastic principles have prevailed
elsewhere. Felsing of Darmstadt, Mendel of Berlin, and Steinla of
Dresden, have proved by their engravings after Fra Bartolommeo,
Raphael, and Holbein, that they have no notion of denying themselves
any of the methods used by the masters of engraving for imitating
in the highest perfection the relief and life of objects figured on
canvas. But these and other efforts must be considered exceptional. As
we have said, the dominant tendency of German art since the reform is
rather towards deliberate, even systematic, conception than spontaneous
expression of sentiment: it is, in fact, the mortification of the eye
for the intelligence. In a word, German engravers trust too much to
logic and analysis, and too little to their senses. It is only natural
that they should. The qualities lacking in their works are also lacking
in the pictures and drawings from which these are engraved. Still,
their main principle once admitted, we must allow that it could not
well be pushed to a more logical conclusion. In Germany, separate and
independent talents do not exist, as in Belgium, Austria, Switzerland,
and Russia. The end is the same for all, and is obtained by all in
nearly the same degree. In England, also, engraving, considered as a
whole, presents an incontestable unity; nevertheless, the difference
between the schools is great. A trifle hypochondriacal by dint of
privations and penance, German art is sustained by a feverish faith
which lends to it the animation of life; while in spite of its
flourishing looks, English art is really decayed in constitution.
Its health is only apparent, and the least study of its vital sources
compels the recognition of its frailty.
It has frequently been said that the arts are the expression of
the moral tendency of a people. This is doubtless true; at all
events, it is true of those people for whom the arts have always
been a necessity--of Greece and Italy, for example, where they have
been as it were endemic. Where, however, art has been diffused by
contagion--as an epidemic--it may remain quite distinct from national
tendencies, or only represent a part of them, or even suggest the
presence of quite antagonistic influences. Strictly speaking, a
school of painting has only existed in England since the eighteenth
century; surely its characteristics, past and present, are in nowise a
spontaneous expression of national feeling? Are all its most important
achievements--the portraits of Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrence, and
the landscapes of Turner--inspired by that practical wisdom, that
spirit of order and love of exactness in everything, which characterise
the English equally in private and in public life? On the contrary,
the quest of spurious brilliancy and effect, exaggerated at the
expense of accurate form and precision of style, is the one tradition
of the English school of painting; and in spite of the inventive and
tasteful work produced in the first half of the century by artists like
Wilkie, Smirke, and Mulready, as of the more recent efforts of the
Pre-Raphaelites, it would seem as if the school were neither able nor
willing to change.
The æsthetic formula accepted and used, from one generation to another,
by the English painters has influenced--and, perhaps naturally, with
still more authority--their compatriots the engravers. Just now English
engraving seems careless of further effort. It is as though its
innumerable products had nothing whatever to reveal to those who buy
them, and were bought from habit, and not from taste.
It has been seen that George III. did his utmost to encourage line
engraving, and that the exportation of prints soon became a source of
revenue. How could the country neglect those wares which abroad were
made so heartily welcome? The aristocracy set the example. Men of
high social position thought it their duty to subscribe to important
publications. In imitation, or from patriotism, the middle class in
their turn sought to favour the growth of engraving; and when, some
years later, it became the fashion to illustrate "Keepsakes" and "Books
of Beauty" with steel engravings, their cheapness put them within
everybody's reach. People gradually took to having prints in their
houses, just as they harboured superfluities of other kinds; and,
the custom becoming more and more general, engravers could be almost
certain of the sale of any sort of work. This is still the case. In
London, every new print may reckon on a certain number of subscribers.
Hence the facility of production, and the constant mechanical
improvements tending to shorten the work; hence, too, unfortunately,
the family likeness and purely conventional charm of the English prints
of the last half-century.
A glance at any recent aquatints and mezzotints or into a new book of
etchings, discovers nothing one does not seem to have seen a hundred
times before. There are the eternal conflicts of light and darkness,
the eternal contrasts between velvety and pearly textures. In its
needless formality, this trickery resembles that of uninspired and
styleless singers. A brief _piano_ passage is followed by a crashing
_forte_; the whole thing consists in abruptness of contrast, and
depends for success entirely upon surprise. In both cases this element
is soon exhausted by too frequent use. The novelty of their appearance
might at first impart a certain charm to English engravings; but the
unending repetition of the same effect has destroyed their principal
merit, and it is difficult to regard them with attention or interest.
It would be unjust, however, to confine ourselves to the consideration
of the abuse of general methods, and to say nothing of individual
talents. England has produced some remarkable engravers since those
in mezzotint formed by Reynolds and the landscape artists who were
Woollett's pupils. Abraham Raimbach, for instance, was a fine workman,
and a better draughtsman than most of his compatriots; his plates
after Wilkie's "Blind Man's Buff," "The Rent-Day," and "The Village
Politicians," deserve to be classed amongst the most agreeable works
of modern engraving. Samuel William Reynolds, in his portraits
after many English painters, and his plates from Géricault, Horace
Vernet, and Paul Delaroche, and Samuel Cousins, in his engravings of
Lawrence's "Master Lambton," "Pius VII.," and "Lady Gower and her Son,"
have succeeded in getting a good deal more from mezzotint than the
eighteenth century masters.
In spite of the dissimilarity of their talents, Raimbach and Cousins
may yet be compared as the last English engravers who attempted to
invest their work with a character in conformity with the strict
conditions of the art. Since them the London craftsmen have practised
more or less skilfully an almost mechanical profession. They have
only produced either the thousands of engravings, which every year
proceed from the same source, or the prints that deal with still less
ambitious subjects--animals, attributes of the chase, and so forth--on
an absurdly large scale. They have, indeed, gone so far as to represent
life-size dogs, cats, and game. There is even a certain plate, after
Landseer, whose sole interest is a parrot on its perch, and which is
much larger than the plates that used to be engraved from the largest
compositions of the masters. To say the least, here are errors of taste
not to be redeemed by improvements in the manufacture of tools, nor
even by ingenious combinations of the different processes of engraving.
However skilful contemporary English engravers may be in some respects,
they cannot properly be said to produce works of art; because they
insist on technique to an inordinate degree, and in like measure reduce
almost to nothing the proportions of true art and sentiment.
One might, with still greater reason, thus explain the mediocrity
of American prints in the present day. Few as they are, they do not
rivet attention as the manifestations of an art which, young and
inexperienced, is yet vital in its artlessness; on the contrary, they
are depressing as the products of an art fallen into the sluggishness
of old age. It is as though engraving in the United States had begun in
decay--or rather, it may be, negatively, with no tendency to change,
and no impulse to progress. Mostly mezzotints or aquatints, the prints
sold in New York and New Orleans suggest that their authors only wished
to appropriate as best they could the present fashions and methods of
English engraving. As for work in line, it is almost entirely confined
to the embellishment of bank notes and tradesmen's cards. Some of its
professors are not without technical knowledge and a sort of skill; and
if it were absolutely necessary to find a characteristic specimen of
American art it should, perhaps, be sought amongst works of this sort.
In any case, it is best to reserve a definitive opinion, and simply to
state what American engraving is, and must be, till a master arise by
whose influence and example it may be animated and renewed.
If, after considering the condition of engraving at the beginning of
the present century, one should wish to become acquainted with its
subsequent phases, assuredly one has to admit the pre-eminence of
French talent. It may even be advanced that French engravers have
maintained, and do still maintain, almost unaided the art of engraving
within those limits from which it cannot deviate without the risk of
becoming, as in Germany, a language of pure conventionality, or, as in
England, the hackneyed expression of mere technical dexterity.
Without doubt, evidences of broader and more serious talent were not
lacking even in that school which some years earlier seemed to have
gone to decay. After Volpato and Morghen, and in opposition to their
example, there were Italian engravers who worked to such purpose as to
redeem the honour of the school. The plates by Toschi and his pupils,
from pictures and frescoes by Correggio at Parma; Calamatta's "Vœu de
Louis Treize," after Ingres; Mercuri's "Moissonneurs," after Léopold
Robert, and many prints besides, either by the same artists or others
of their race, assuredly deserve to rank with the most important
achievements of French engraving in the first half of the nineteenth
century. But the years that have lapsed since their publication,
while barren for Italy, have brought a continued harvest to France.
After the engravers who made their appearance in the last years of
the Restoration their pupils became masters in turn; and, in spite of
adverse circumstances, the indifference of a section of the public,
and the increasing popularity of photography, their zeal seems no more
likely to diminish than the value of their work.
Once, it is true, at the most brilliant period of English engraving,
the French school was not without a moment of hesitation on the part
of some, of disloyalty on that of others. During the First Empire,
the existence of the art movement in London in the last years of
the active rule of George III. and the beginning of the Regency was
unsuspected in France. The cessation of commercial relations between
the two countries left the French in such complete ignorance that,
until 1816, the only English prints they knew were those by Strange,
Ryland, and Woollett: those, in fact, published before the end of the
eighteenth century. And when, after the Restoration, English work first
came under the eyes of French engravers, the fascination of its novelty
dazzled them more than the splendour of its merit.
Those who, like Tardieu and Desnoyers, were especially concerned
with loftiness of style and masculine vigour of execution, were but
little moved by such innovations, if we may judge by the nature of
their subsequent publications. The "Ruth and Boaz," engraved by the
former after Hersent, the divers "Madonnas" and the "Transfiguration,"
engraved by the latter after Raphael, do not testify that their belief
in the excellence of the old French method was at all shaken. But
others, either younger or less stable of conviction, were soon seduced.
Like the English engravers, they attempted to unite all the different
processes of engraving in their plates; and they sought, to the
exclusion of all besides, the easiest way of work, piquancy of result,
and prettiness everywhere, even in history. These imitations became
more numerous by reason of their first success, till they threatened
the independence of French engraving, which had not been encroached
upon since the seventeenth century.
The fever, however, soon cooled. A happy reaction set in soon after
1830, and continued during the following years; and infatuation having
everywhere been succeeded by reflection, the misleading qualities of
the English manner were finally recognised. The French school takes
counsel with none save itself, its past, and its traditions. To this
just confidence in its own resources are owing its present superiority
to, and independence of, other schools, and, what is more important
still, its place apart from that mechanical industry which, with its
spurious successes, its raids upon a territory not its own, and its
pretentious efforts to occupy the place of art, would seize upon those
privileges, which, do all it may, it can never hope to confiscate.
Of all the engravers who have honoured our epoch not in France
alone, but also in other countries, the first in genius, as in the
general influence he has exerted for nearly half a century, is
certainly Henriquel--as he called himself in the early part of his
career--Henriquel-Dupont in the second half. But he too, it would seem,
had his hours of indecision. Perhaps, in some of his early works,
certain traces may be discovered of a leaning towards the English
manner, certain tendencies of doubtful orthodoxy; but, at any rate,
they have never developed into manifest errors: they have, at the most,
resulted in venial sins, which themselves have been abundantly atoned.
[Illustration: FIG. 96.--HENRIQUEL.
Cromwell (Etching). After Paul Delaroche.]
Henriquel is a master in the widest acceptation of the word: a master,
too, of the stamp of those in the past of whom the French have the
greatest right to be proud. The masters of the seventeenth century have
scarcely left us plates at once so largely and so delicately treated,
as his "Hémicycle du Palais des Beaux-Arts," his "Moïse Exposé sur
le Nil," and his "Strafford," after Paul Delaroche; his admirable
sketch in etching of the "Pilgrims of Emmaus," after Veronese; and
the portrait of M. Bertin, after Ingres; and these are but a few. We
have, besides the Van Dyck, "Une Dame et sa Fille," engraved some
years before the "Abdication de Gustave Wasa," after Hersent, and the
"Marquis de Pastoret," after Paul Delaroche; the "Christ Consolateur,"
engraved rather later, after Scheffer; and, among less important,
though certainly not less meritorious works, the portraits engraved
now with the scientific ease of the burin, now with the light and
delicate touch of the needle: the "Pasta," the botanist "Desfontaines,"
"Desenne" the draughtsman, the "Brongniart," the "Tardieu," the "Carle
Vernet," the "Sauvageot," the "Scheffer," the "Mansard et Perrault,"
the "Mirabeau à la Tribune," the "Rathier," and, latest of all, the
charming little "Père Petétot."
[Illustration: FIG. 97.--HENRIQUEL.
The Marquis de Pastoret. After Paul Delaroche.]
[Illustration: FIG. 98.--HENRIQUEL.
Alexander Brongniart. After a Drawing by the Engraver.]
In these--and in how many besides? for the work of the master does
not fall short of ninety pieces, besides lithographs and a great deal
in pastel and crayon--Henriquel proves himself not only a trained
draughtsman and finished executant, but, as it were, still more a
painter than any of his immediate predecessors. Bervic--whose pupil
he became, after some years in the studio of Pierre Guérin--was able
to teach him to overcome the practical difficulties of the art, but
the influence of the engraver of the "Laocoon" and the "Déjanire" went
no further than technical initiation. Even the example of Desnoyers,
however instructive in some respects, was not so obediently followed by
Henriquel as to cause any sacrifice of taste and natural sentiment. By
the clearness of his views, as much as by the elevation of his talent,
the engraver of the "Hemicycle" is connected with the past French
school and the masters who are its chief honour; but by the particular
form of expression he employs, by a something extremely unexpected
in his manner and extremely personal in his acceptance of tradition,
he stands to a certain extent apart from his predecessors, and may
be called an innovator, though he by no means advertises any such
pretension. As we have just remarked, his use of means is so versatile
that he paints with the graver or the needle, where just before him
others, even the most skilful--men like Laugier and Richomme--could
only engrave; and the influence he has exerted--whether by direct
teaching, or by his signed work--has had the effect of rejuvenating
engraving in France in more than one particular, and of awakening
talents, some of which, though plainly betraying their origin, have
none the less a weight and an importance of their own, and deserve an
honourable place in the history of contemporary art.
[Illustration: FIG. 99.--HENRIQUEL.
Alexander Tardieu. After a Drawing by Ingres.]
Several of his most distinguished pupils are dead: Aristide Louis,
whose "Mignon," after Scheffer, won instant popularity; Jules François,
who is to be credited, among other fine plates, with a real masterpiece
in the "Militaire Offrant des Pièces d'Or à une Femme," after the
Terburg in the Louvre; and Rousseaux, perhaps the most gifted engraver
of his generation, whose works, few as they are, are yet enough to
immortalise him. Who knows, indeed, if some day the "Portrait d'Homme"
from the picture in the Louvre attributed to Francia, and the "Madame
de Sévigné" from Nanteuil's pastel, may not be sought for with the
eagerness now expended on the search for the old masters of engraving?
The premature death of these accomplished craftsmen has certainly been
a loss to the French school. Fortunately, however, there remain many
others whose work is of a nature to uphold the ancient renown of French
art, and to defy comparison with the achievement of other countries.
Where, save in France could equivalents be found, for instance, of
the "Coronation of the Virgin," after Giovanni da Fiesole, and the
"Marriage of Saint Catherine," after Memling, by Alphonse François;
of the "Antiope," by Blanchard, after Correggio; of the "Vierge de la
Consolation," after Hébert, by Huot; of Danguin's "Titian's Mistress,"
or Bertinot's "Portement de Croix," after Lesueur; of several other
plates, remarkable in different ways, and bearing the same or other
names? What rivalry need Gaillard fear, in the sort of engraving of
which he is really the inventor, and which he practises with such
extraordinary skill? Whether he produces after Van Eyck, Ingres, or
Rembrandt, such plates as the "Homme à l'Œillet," the "Œdipus," and the
"Pilgrims of Emmaus," or gives us, from his own drawings or paintings,
such portraits as his "Pius IX." and his "Dom Guéranger," he, in
every case, arrests the mind as well as surprises the eye, by the
inconceivable subtlety of his work. Even when translating the works of
others he shows himself boldly original. His methods are entirely his
own, and render imitation impossible because they are prompted by the
exceptional delicacy of his perceptions; but, with all the goodwill in
the world, it would be no less difficult to appropriate his keenness of
sentiment or to gain an equal degree of mental insight.
In France, then, line engraving has representatives numerous enough,
and above all meritorious enough, to put to rout the apprehensions
of those who believe, or affect to believe, the art irretrievably
injured by the success of heliography. We have only to glance at the
feats accomplished in our own day in engraving of another kind, and
to examine those produced in France by contemporary French etchers,
to be reassured on this question also. Might we not, even, without
exaggeration, apply the term renaissance to the series of advances
effected in the branch of engraving formerly distinguished by Callot
and by Claude Lorraine? When, since the seventeenth century, has the
needle ever been handled in France by so many skilful artists, and
with so keen a feeling for effect and colour? But let none mistake the
drift of our praise. Of course, we do not allude here to the thousands
of careless sketches scrawled on the varnish, with a freedom to be
attributed to simple ignorance, far more than to real dash and spirit;
nor to those would-be "works of art," for which the skill of the
printer and the tricks of printing have done the most. To the dupes of
such blatant trickeries they shall be left. Still, it is only just to
acknowledge, in the etchings of the day, a singular familiarity with
the true conditions of the process, and generally a good knowledge
of pictorial effect, solid enough and sufficiently under control to
maintain a mean between pedantry and exaggerated ease.
Many names would deserve mention, were we not confined to general
indications of the progress and the movement they represent. It is,
however, impossible to omit that of Jacquemart, the young master
recently deceased, who, in a kind of engraving he was the first to
attempt, gave proof of much ingenuity of taste and of original ability.
The plates of which his "Gemmes et Joyaux de la Couronne" is composed,
and his etchings of similar models--sculpture and goldsmith's work,
vases and bindings, enamels and cameos--all deserve to rank with
historical pieces of the highest order; even as the still-life painted
by Chardin a century ago still excites the same interest, and has a
right to the same attention, as the best pictures by contemporary
allegorical or portrait painters.
The superiority of the French school, in whatever style, has, moreover,
been recently recognised and proclaimed in public. It has not been
forgotten that the jury entrusted with the awards at the International
Exhibition of 1878 unanimously decreed a principal share to the
engravers of France. Without injustice this share might perhaps have
been even greater if the jury, chiefly composed of Frenchmen, had
not thought right to take full account of the special conditions of
the competition, and the readiness with which the artists of other
countries had responded.
[Illustration: FIG. 100.--JULES JACQUEMART.
Henri III. After a Sixteenth Century Bronze.]
Since then the position of art in Europe, and the relative importance
of talents in different countries of Europe, have not changed. If,
to understand the state of contemporary engraving, it be thought
desirable to confine our attention to the present moment, there can
be no doubt whatever that the most cursory examination of the works
representing the different processes of engraving must justify the
above observations. These we should wish briefly to recapitulate.
We have said that etching has, within the last few years, returned so
much into favour, that probably at no other time have its products
been more numerous, or in more general demand. This is but fair; and
it is not in France only that the public taste for etched work, large
and small, is justified by the talent of the artists who publish it.
To quote a few names only among those to be commended, in different
degrees, for their many proofs of sentiment and skill, we have Unger in
Austria; Redlich and Massaloff in Russia; Gilli in Italy; and Seymour
Haden in England. By their talents they assist in the reform which
the French engravers began, and which they now pursue with increasing
authority and exceptional technical knowledge.
[Illustration: FIG. 101.--JULES JACQUEMART.
Tripod, by Gouthière.]
Mezzotint and aquatint have been not nearly so fortunate. The former
appears to have fallen, almost everywhere, into disuse. Even in
England, where, as soon as Von Siegen's invention was imported, a
school was founded to cultivate its resources--in England, where, from
Earlom to S. W. Reynolds and Cousins, mezzotint engravers so long
excelled--it is a mere chance if a few are still to be found supporting
the tradition. In other countries, France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy,
mezzotint is, to speak strictly, scarcely practised at all. It has
been replaced by aquatint, which itself, as we mentioned in a former
chapter, is only used for purely commercial requirements, except by
engravers of real talent in combination with the needle and the graver.
Wood engraving has made, in certain respects, considerable progress
in the course of the last few years. In France and England it is
producing results that not only confirm its advances, but are as the
prophecy of still better things. Amongst recent prints, those of
Robert, for instance, do more than promise; they realise the hopes
which others only hold out. All the same, it is commonly the case with
wood engravers that, clever though they be, they are apt to deceive
themselves as to the special conditions of their art, and too often
to forget that it is not their province to imitate the appearance of
line engraving. Instead of attempting to copy the complicated results
of the graver, they should rather, in accordance with the nature of
the process at their disposal, be satisfied with rapid suggestions
of effect and modelling and a summary imitation of form and colour.
The illustrations after Holbein, by Lützelburger and other Germans of
the sixteenth century, and the portraits and subjects cut on wood by
Italian artists, or by Frenchmen of the same epoch, as Geofroy Tory and
Salomon Bernard, are models to which the engravers of our own day would
do well to conform, instead of entering, under pretext of improvements,
upon attempted innovations as foreign to the true nature of the process
as to its objects and real resources.
Though the practice of line engraving is more scientific in France
than anywhere else, it has nevertheless distinguished representatives
in other countries. Besides the French, the German, and the Italian
engravers we have mentioned, Weber, in Switzerland; De Kaiser, in
Holland; Biot and Franck, in Belgium; Jacobi, Sonnenleiter, and Klaus,
in Austria, are working manfully for the cause so well supported by
Henriquel and his followers. But everywhere the perseverance of zeal
and talent is unfortunately insufficient to overcome the prejudices
of the public, and its exaggerated confidence in the benefits of
mechanical discovery.
Since the progress accomplished by science in the domain of
heliographic reproduction, since the advantages with regard to
material exactness that photography and the processes derived from it
have offered, or seem to offer, line engraving, of all the different
methods, is certainly the one that has suffered most from the supposed
rivalry. A mistake, all the more to be regretted as it seems to be
general, gave rise to the idea that it was all over with the art of
engraving, simply because, as mere copies, its products could not have
the infallible fidelity of photographic images, and that, however
painstaking and faithful the engraver's hand, it could never produce
that exact fac-simile, that ruthless imitation of the thing copied.
Nothing could be truer than this, if the only object of line engraving
were to give us a literal copy, a brutal effigy of its original. But
is it necessary to mention again that, happily, it has also the task
of interpretation? Owing to the very limited field in which he works,
as it were in monochrome, the engraver is compelled to choose and to
combine the best means of rendering by analogy the various colours of
his original, to organise its general effect, and to bring out both the
character and the style, now by the simplification of certain details,
now by applying the principle of selection to certain others. We have
no longer here the stupid impartiality, or, if it be preferred, the
unreasoning veracity of a mechanical apparatus, but the deliberate use
of feeling, intelligence, and taste--of all those faculties, indeed,
which mould and enter into the talent of an artist.
Now as long as there are men in the world capable of preferring idea to
matter, and the art which appeals to the mind to the fact which speaks
to the eyes, line engraving will retain its influence, however small
it may be supposed, however limited it may really be. In any case,
those who in these days, in spite of every obstacle, are determined to
pursue in their own way the work of such men as Edelinck and Nanteuil,
will have deserved recognition from their contemporaries, and will have
averted, so far as they could, the complete decay, if it must come,
of art properly so called, when sacrificed to the profit of chance
manufacture and mere technique.
A CHAPTER ON
ENGLISH ENGRAVING.
BY WILLIAM WALKER.
England appears at first only to have participated in the European
movement amongst the fine arts by the trade which it carried on in
foreign productions, and the hospitality and the patronage which it
gave to many celebrated artists. Thus the country was enriched with
foreign works, and examples were obtained, not perhaps worthy of being
slavishly followed, but at all events capable of stimulating native
talent. At the persuasion of Erasmus, Holbein, in 1526, came to try
his fortune in England, and was followed afterwards by Rubens and Van
Dyck, as well as De Bry, Vorsterman, and the indefatigable Hollar, the
latter an engraver unrivalled in his own style, and perhaps the most
unfortunate in worldly circumstances who ever practised the art.
As early as 1483 wood-cuts were used for illustration in Caxton's
"Golden Legend," and subsequent printers adopted the same practice in
issuing their publications. In like manner, copperplate engravings
appeared first as illustrations for books, notably in one called "The
Birth of Mankind," dedicated to Queen Catherine, and published by
Thomas Raynalde in 1540, and in a translation of Vesalius' "Anatomy,"
published in 1545 by Thomas Geminus, who not only did the literary
work, but copied the original wood-cuts on copper. In the middle of the
century, the Hogenbergs took advantage of the method for portraiture,
Francis engraving in 1555 a portrait of Queen Mary, and his brother
Remigius in 1573 one of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, who
seems to have retained the engraver in his service.
About the same period appeared William Rogers, who was born in London
in 1545, and may be considered as the earliest English engraver
worthy of mention. His series of portraits are of considerable merit,
especially a whole length, taken from a drawing by Isaac Oliver, of
Queen Elizabeth, standing with orb and sceptre, and clothed in a rich
embroidered and puffed dress. This print bears at the bottom the name
of the engraver, and was afterwards reduced in size all round, turning
the figure of the Queen into a three-quarter length, and cutting away
Rogers' name, which was not reinserted in the later publication. Both
sizes of the print are scarce, especially the original, and indeed for
a considerable time the reduced impression was considered anonymous,
until the appearance of the larger engraving and its comparison with
the smaller established the identity of the two. The elder Crispin de
Passe engraved a plate from the same drawing of smaller size, and with
different accessories in the background.
De Passe, a native of Utrecht, and his family, William, Simon, and
a daughter Magdalen, came over to England at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, and engraved many prints of much interest in a
style peculiarly their own. Reginald Elstracke (born 1620) and Francis
Delaram flourished about the same period.
But nothing was accomplished by any English engraver of great artistic
value, or which could be fairly compared with the work in other
countries, until the middle of the century. It was then that William
Faithorne, by his series of portraits, full of colour and executed in
a clear and brilliant style, freed England from this reproach. He may
be said to have inaugurated the era of English engravers, who, though
mostly surpassed by other nations in the line manner of engraving, have
no rivals in mezzotint. This style, which, when combined with bold
etching, may be called the culmination of the art, was taken up in this
country as soon as discovered, adopted by the English as their own,
and gradually brought by them to the fullest perfection. Faithorne was
a pupil of Sir Robert Peake, painter and engraver, and is said also
to have studied under Nanteuil, when driven through the troubles of
the first revolution to take refuge in France. His portraits of Mary,
Princess of Orange, the Countess of Exeter, Sir William Paston, Queen
Catherine of Braganza, Charles II., with long flowing black hair,
Thomas Killegrew, dramatist and court favourite, and the famous Marquis
of Worcester, one of the contributors to the invention of the steam
engine, rank high as engravings, and worthily take their place amidst
the achievements of other countries.
Before treating of mezzotint and the new field which it opened out
to the engraver, it will be well to call attention to the coming of
Hollar to England, and his peculiar method of work, which consisted
mainly of etching, assisted by the point or fine graver. Wenceslaus
Hollar (born 1607) was forced early in life by the exigencies of those
warlike times to leave his native land--Bohemia--and to travel through
Germany, designing and engraving on his way, until, in 1636, he met at
Cologne with the Earl of Arundel, the English Ambassador to Ferdinand
II., who immediately took him into his employment, and on his return
from his mission brought him to England, where, with the exception of
the troubled years of the first revolution, Hollar resided for the
remainder of his life.
Misfortune, however, which attended Hollar in youth, seemed relentless
throughout his entire career; after the restoration of Charles II.,
he underwent the terrible experiences of the plague and of the fire
of London, and the times, hostile to every pursuit of art, reduced
Hollar to a state of indigence and distress from which, in spite of
persevering industry, he seems never to have been able to recover.
Sent to Africa in 1669 as the king's designer, to make drawings of
the fortifications and surroundings of the town of Tangiers, he meets
with Algerine corsairs on his way back, from which he escapes with
difficulty. On his return, it is only after delay and vexation that he
can obtain £100 from the impecunious king for his two years' labours
and expenses. He travels through England, making drawings and etchings
of abbeys, churches, ruins, and cathedrals, and ultimately dies at
Westminster (1677) in a state of extreme poverty and distress, his very
death-bed being disturbed by bailiffs, who threaten the seizure of the
last article of furniture he possessed, the bed upon which he is lying.
His body was laid in the churchyard of St. Margaret's, Westminster;
his name and works remain living and immortal. Hollar's prints amount
to considerably over two thousand, and embrace all kinds of subjects,
portraits, landscapes, architecture, costume, and animal and still-life
of varied character and quality. His treatment of the textures of hair,
feathers, or the bloom on butterflies and other insects, is simply
unrivalled. Besides his portraits, among other well-known and valued
prints, there are--after his own designs--the long bird's-eye view
of London in four parts, plans of the same city before and after the
great fire (1666), exterior and interior views of the old Cathedral of
St. Paul,[51] Westminster Hall, with its picturesque surroundings, the
Cathedrals of Lincoln, Southwell, Strasbourg, Antwerp, and York, sets
of butterflies, insects, costumes, muffs, and richly-wrought jewelled
vessels.
In addition to these, he engraved a set of thirteen plates (1671)
on the various English ways of hunting, hawking, and fishing, after
Francis Barlow, painter and engraver, who flourished during the same
period, and excelled in the representation of animals, birds, and
fish. The latter artist has left a curious print--of which the only
known example is supposed to be that of the British Museum--entitled
"The Last Horse Race" (August 24, 1684), run before Charles II., at
Dorsett Ferry (? Datchett), near Windsor Castle. Hollar was the master
of Robert Gaywood, who in some measure imitates his style, and many of
whose plates are justly esteemed, such as the series of heads after
Van Dyck, the curious likeness of Cromwell, the large print of the
philosophers Democritus and Heraclitus, as opposing professors of
gaiety and gravity, and the plates of birds and animals after Barlow.
In the meantime, the art of mezzotint had been invented, in the first
place, by Ludwig von Siegen, a lieutenant-colonel in the service of
the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who used the method to execute a large
portrait, bearing the date 1642, of the Princess Amelia Elizabeth, the
dowager Landgravine of Hesse. The credit for the discovery has also
been ascribed to the well-known Prince Rupert,[52] nephew of Charles
I.; but the legend of the prince meeting with a soldier cleaning his
corroded gun, and thus conceiving the idea of engraving a copper plate,
rests on no sufficient foundation. It is, however, enough for this
romantic prince's undying renown, that, having acquired the secret of
producing the necessary ground by some means or other, most probably
from Von Siegen, he not only introduced the process into England,
but executed himself several remarkable engravings in the style,
one of which, known as "The Great Executioner" (dated 1658), after
Spagnoletto,[53] to distinguish it from a smaller plate containing the
head only of the same figure, remains to this day as a powerful and
wonderful example of the method. It is curious that, with the partial
exception of Germany, and a few isolated instances in other countries,
mezzotint should have been practically confined to England; the very
name is not recognised elsewhere. Germany uses the word "Schabkunst,"
scraping art; the French, "La manière noire," the black manner; and
Italy, "L'incisione a fumo," engraving in smoke or black,[54]
Before the discovery of the new method, all engraving consisted of
an arrangement of lines varied occasionally by dots, which had to be
cut into the polished copperplate either directly by the graver or
indirectly by the use of acid. Untouched by either graver or acid, the
polished plate would thus, under the ordinary process of copperplate
printing (rubbing in the ink by a suitable dabber and then cleaning off
all the ink not held fast by in-dents), print white; mezzotint reverses
the process. The plate, instead of being polished when the engraver
commences his work, presents a close, fine, file-like surface, which,
if inked, wiped, and put under the heavy-pressure roller press, would
now print off a deep uniform surface of bloomy black; in place,
therefore, of putting in lines or dots to hold the ink, the engraver
has to scrape off the close file-like grain at the required parts,
bringing up his highest lights by means of a burnisher; the scraper and
burnisher, not the graver, are consequently the principal tools used in
executing mezzotint. In addition to the greater ease and rapidity with
which an engraving could be made by this process, the range of effect
or colour was immensely increased. All tones between pure white and the
deepest black were now capable of realisation, and it is easy to see
how greatly were enlarged the resources of the engraver, whose special
gift and claim as an original artist--a fact too often forgotten, or
rather not sufficiently recognised--consist in his power of translating
into various shades of black and white the numerous colours at the
disposal of the painter.
The forming or laying the grained surface, technically called _ground_,
is necessarily of the utmost importance, and is effected by a tool
known amongst practical workers as "the rocker," called also "cradle,"
or "berceau"--the French equivalent--from the peculiar rocking motion
given to it by the operator. The rocker is made of moderately thin
and carefully tempered steel about two inches broad, and might be
termed a stumpy, wide chisel were it not that it is curved (like a
cheese-cutter) and notched or serrated at the cutting edge, which
serration is caused by one side of the steel being indented into small
fluted ridges running parallel upwards to the handle by which the tool
is held, and somewhat presenting the appearance of a small-tooth-comb.
On the plain smooth side the rocker is ground level to the edge, like
other cutting tools, and sharpened on a stone or hone of suitable
quality. In laying the ground this instrument is held firmly in the
hand, the elbow resting on a convenient cushion, the serrated cutting
edge placed on the plate with a slight inclination, and a steady
rocking motion given to the tool, which slowly advances over the
surface of the copper or steel, forming on its way a narrow indented
path. Side by side with this path another is made until the whole
surface of the plate has been covered. The series of parallel paths
is then repeated at a certain angle over the previous ones, and so on
in regular progressive angular order until the required closeness of
texture has been produced; to do this it is necessary that the series
of parallel paths--technically called a _way_--should be repeated
in proper angular progression from sixty to a hundred times. As the
continual friction of the elbow against the cushion caused the laying
of a ground to become a severe and painful operation, particularly when
the use of steel instead of copper plates came into practice early in
the present century, a modification of this plan was introduced whereby
the tool was fixed at the fitting angle into one end of a long pole,
the other end being inserted loosely in a ring fixed on the board upon
which the plate was placed; the requisite rocking motion could then
be easily given by the hand, and much painful labour avoided. The
necessity for a good ground being so great, as the process became more
and more general in England, a race of professional ground-layers grew
up, who were paid at a certain rate per square inch for the surface
thus covered. Much controversy has taken place as to the means by which
Siegen, Prince Rupert, and the earlier mezzotinters produced their
grounds, but there is little doubt that it must have been accomplished
by some rude form of the present tool, and the curious appearance of
the grain--as seen in very early mezzotints--must have been caused
by the irregular crossings of the impressed layers, the necessity of
regular angular procedure throughout the plate, in order to obtain an
even tone, not having been recognised at first.
Prince Rupert imparted the secret of the process to Wallerant Vaillant,
a native of Lisle, a portrait painter (born 1623, died 1677) who
practised the method with great success, working chiefly at Amsterdam,
and leaving to posterity many prints of considerable artistic merit.
Sir Christopher Wren is also credited with the execution of one of the
earliest mezzotints, a negro's head with a collar round the throat, but
there is no satisfactory authority for the various statements to this
effect, the only sound fact being that this early print is an extremely
interesting specimen of the process. The first English engraving
executed in this style _bearing a date_ is a portrait of Charles II. in
an oval frame (Giul. Sherwin, fecitt 1669), by William Sherwin, who,
there is some reason to believe, acquired his knowledge of the process
directly from Prince Rupert. Sherwin, born about 1650, engraved also in
line,[55] and is said to have had the distinction of engraver to the
king conferred on him by patent, an exceptional honour.
Among the mezzotinters about this period, Abraham Blootelingh, born
at Amsterdam in 1634, and distinguished both as a line engraver
and etcher, came over to England in 1673, made use of the method
with admirable success, and is said to have effected considerable
improvement in the process of laying the ground; his life-size head of
the Duke of Monmouth, in an oval border or frame, is a masterpiece of
the art. But, with the above exceptions, the works left by the majority
of the early mezzotinters, both English and foreign, are more curious
to the student than satisfactory to the artistic eye. It was not until
the close of the century, when Isaac Beckett and John Smith had already
begun to issue their grand series of portraits after Kneller, Lely,
and other contemporary painters, that the full capabilities of the
invention were realised and the foundation laid for the steady and
uninterrupted progress of the art. John Smith's clear, bright, and
intelligent face ought to be well known to Englishmen both from his
own engraving and also from Kneller's admirable picture, from which
it was taken, so long to be seen hanging in the Rubens and Rembrandt
room of the National Gallery, and lately fittingly transferred to the
National Portrait Gallery. He was a pupil of Beckett and native of
Northamptonshire, and died at Northampton in 1742, where there is a
tablet to his memory in St. Peter's Church.
When the eighteenth century opened, mezzotint had taken firm root
in England; Beckett and John Smith were in the plenitude of their
powers; Jean Simon, a Protestant refugee from France (born in Normandy,
1675), had taken refuge in England, and forsaking his original method
of line, had adopted that of mezzotint with great success, while G.
White was already giving the first indications of the advantages that
might be gained by the introduction of etching into the method. John
Faber, junior, was also establishing his reputation, not only by his
well-known portraits (which include the set of the Kit-cat Club[56]
and the Hampton Court beauties), but by many spirited fancy subjects
after Mercier, and above all by an admirable print after Frank Hals of
a man playing the guitar. Faber, the younger, was born in Holland in
1684, and brought to England when three years old by his father (also
an engraver in mezzotint, but completely overshadowed by his son); he
studied under Vanderbank, and was patronised by Kneller; his works
are peculiarly valuable as forming records of the painters--now so apt
to be carelessly passed by[57]--who lived between the time of Kneller
and the rise of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and all left work of value to
posterity.
The modern sharp division between painters and engravers was unknown
in those days; the painter was only too glad to avail himself of the
talent of the engraver to make his paintings known, and in many cases
keep alive and hand down to after generations a name which otherwise
might have died out and been forgotten. Painters of the present age
ignore the engraver, and prefer the more tangible money results to
be obtained from treating with a publisher for the purchase of their
copyrights, adopting in this respect the teaching conveyed in the witty
speech of Sir Godfrey Kneller, who, when reproached for his preference,
to other branches of painting, of the lucrative one of portraiture,
replied: "Painters of history make the dead live and do not begin to
live themselves till they are dead; I paint the living and they make
me live." Kneller might, however, have defended his practice on higher
grounds, for portraiture, though often ignorantly decried, tests the
powers of a great artist to the uttermost, and bequeaths to posterity a
legacy of as valuable work as it is in the power of man to accomplish.
It is interesting to note here that copyright in works of art was first
obtained on the behalf of engraving; Hogarth, painter and engraver,
finding that so many of his prints--which, numerously distributed,
could easily be pirated--were being copied, boldly and successfully
asserted his rights in the courts of law, and was the means of
obtaining from Parliament a Copyright Act to defend property in art.
To Faber succeeded Thomas Frye and James McArdell, who were both born
in the same city, Dublin, the birthplace of several other distinguished
engravers. The life of Frye was eventful; he came in early manhood to
London in the company of his fellow-townsman Stoppelaer, who by turns
became artist, actor, dramatic writer, and singer. Frye commenced by
painting and engraving portraits, and then took charge of the china
manufactory just established at Bow, from the ruins of which afterwards
arose those of Chelsea and Worcester; there he remained fifteen years,
and by his taste and skill improved the manufactures in material form
and ornamentation until, the business not succeeding and his health
being injured by the heat of the furnaces, he had to take a journey to
Wales to recruit, the expenses of which he paid by painting portraits,
ultimately returning to London with some money in his pocket. Frye now
took a house in Hatton Garden, where he painted miniatures, life-size
heads in oils and crayons, and in the space of about two years, 1760-2,
executed in mezzotint the remarkable and justly esteemed series of
life-size heads, which contain, among others, portraits of himself,
his wife, and his mother. These were his last productions, as he
died of a complication of diseases in 1762 at the age of fifty-two.
Frye was industrious, amiable, and generous in character, patient in
misfortune, and ingenious in accomplishing his objects; his likenesses
of George III. and Queen Charlotte were obtained by frequent visits to
the theatre, where it is said that the king and queen, on knowing his
purpose, used kindly to turn their heads towards the artist to help
him in his task; other portraits were perhaps accomplished more by the
exercise of imagination, as the fine ladies he would ask to sit were
wont to refuse with the excuse that they did not know in what company
they might find themselves placed.
McArdell, the jovial companion of artists, the friend of Quin the
actor, of whom Sir Joshua Reynolds observed, that even if the colours
of his (Sir Joshua's) pictures faded his fame would be preserved by
McArdell's engravings, marks an epoch in the art; for he was the first
to use vigorous etching to increase the effect of mezzotint. He died
young, in June, 1765, in his thirty-seventh year, and was buried in
Hampstead Churchyard, where, according to Lysons, a short inscription
to his memory recorded the fact.[58]
McArdell's immediate successors were numerous, and of striking power
and originality in the exercise of their art; the more important
of them were Richard Houston, John Greenwood, Edward Fisher, John
Spilsbury, Valentine Green, William Pether, Richard Brookshaw, John
Blackmore, John Dixon, John Jones, Robert Laurie, and the two Watsons,
James and Thomas, who were closely followed, in point of time, by
William Dickinson, James Walker,[59] John Dean, John Young, the popular
J. R. Smith (John Raphael), and perhaps the greatest of them all as an
engraver, Richard Earlom. Many of these also practised in stipple, but
their finer works in mezzotint completely overshadow these productions.
It may be added that even the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds would
hardly have been appreciated as thoroughly both in England and other
countries, were it not for the admirable renderings of his pictures
by the famous band of engravers practising during his lifetime.
Gainsborough has undoubtedly suffered in this respect, for, unlike
Wright of Derby, Hoppner, Opie, Morland, and Lawrence, few important
mezzotints have been executed after his pictures; and were the art to
revive and the engravers to be found, a mine of wealth would be waiting
to reward with its treasures well-directed labour.
Earlom was born in 1743, and at his death in 1822 had reached his
eightieth year; when fourteen years old he gained a premium from
the Society of Arts, and attracted attention by making copies of
Cipriani's pictures on the Lord Mayor's state carriage; this led
to his becoming the painter's pupil and to his acquiring a thorough
knowledge of drawing. The Boydells employed him to make drawings and
engravings from the Houghton collection, and throughout his long life
he continued to exercise unremittingly his laborious profession; his
plates are numerous and of great excellence, while his skilful use of
etching gives effect and variety to the many textures represented.
Earlom engraved after various masters ancient and modern, and perhaps
first showed the world the wide range of subjects which the style was
capable of effectively representing, such as--to mention only a few of
the more important plates--Correggio's "Repose in Egypt," Rubens' "Son
and Nurse," Van Dyck's "Duke of Arembergh on Horseback," Vanderwerff's
"Bathsheba bringing Abishag to David," the "Fish, Game, Vegetable, and
Fruit Markets," after Snyders and Long John,[60] Van Huysum's fruit and
flower pieces, Zoffany's terribly realistic representation of a "Scene
in the French Revolution on the 10th of May, 1793," and his "Life
School at the Royal Academy," Wright of Derby's "Blacksmith's Shop" and
"Iron Forge," and the six plates after Hogarth, "Marriage à la Mode."
The renown acquired by the works of English mezzotinters gradually
attracted the notice of other nations--particularly Germany--where
the style had almost died out, and many foreign engravers came to
this country, amongst others, J. G. Haid and the Viennese Jacobe, who
not only executed valuable works in England, but were the cause of a
partial renewal of the method in their own countries. The Austrian
Pichler (born 1765, died 1806) finished in pure mezzotint many plates
of exceptional merit, while his fruit and flower pieces after Van
Huysum rival the masterpieces of Earlom after the same painter.
During the same period the English school had been making rapid strides
in the other branches of copperplate engraving, line, stipple, and
etching. Line, which to this day is considered by many as the highest
style of the art, and which most certainly is well fitted to render
the human form with grace and purity of outline and detail, has
notwithstanding to overcome the difficulty of adequately expressing
the various shades of colour and texture, and above all of realising
the due effects of atmosphere and distance, a serious matter where
the accessories are of importance or where landscape enters largely
into the composition of the picture. It is, therefore, not surprising
that, with mezzotint at hand with its wide range of capabilities, there
should be comparatively few English engravers of eminence devoting
themselves to line.
Hogarth, who was born in 1697, and began life as an engraver of arms
and cyphers, naturally employed the method of line to give expression
to his bold and vigorous designs, and in this was assisted by Luke
Sullivan, who had been a pupil of Thomas Major. Major (born 1720) had
spent some years in Paris engraving after Berghem, Wouvermans, and
others; he was an artist of skill, and lived to a considerable age,
holding for forty years the office of seal engraver to the king, and
being the first _associate_[61] engraver elected by the Royal Academy.
In the year 1730, Vivares, who was a Frenchman by birth, and who, in
spite of natural artistic talents, had been apprenticed to a tailor,
came to England at the age of eighteen and studied under Chatelain,
an artist of French Protestant parentage, but born in London. Vivares
soon surpassed his master, acquired great renown for his many fine
plates of landscape and sea-scenes, and became a member of the Society
of Artists; he lived for thirty years in Great Newport Street, and was
buried in Paddington Churchyard in the year 1780.
It is, however, from the pre-eminent excellence of the line engravings
of Strange, Woollett, and Sharp that the right of England to a place
in the hierarchy of the art has been conceded by other nations. Sir
Robert Strange, descended from an ancient Scottish family, was born at
Orkney in 1721, and served an apprenticeship of six years to Richard
Cooper of Edinburgh. In this city Strange started as an engraver on his
own account; when the civil war broke out he joined the side of the
Pretender, engraved a half-length portrait of him, and was appointed
engraver to this prince; after the battle of Culloden, in which he is
said to have taken part, Strange escaped to Paris, and had there the
advantage of studying under Le Bas. In 1751 he returned to England,
and established himself in London, where his talents were readily
recognised and appreciated. On the accession of George III., Strange
refused the commission to engrave whole-length portraits of the king
and his Prime Minister, Lord Bute, thereby giving great offence, which,
together with the remembrance of his former adventures, made Strange
think it prudent to leave the country for a time; therefore, to turn
to good account even such untoward circumstances, he determined to
increase the knowledge of his art by travelling through the continent.
In Italy he produced some of his finest engravings after Titian,
Raphael, Correggio, Domenichino, Guido, and Van Dyck; his talent
was everywhere acknowledged; he was elected member of the Academies
of Rome, Florence, Bologna, Parma, and Paris; and, on his return to
London, by his engraving after West of the apotheosis of the king's
three children, who had died in infancy, he regained the royal favour
and received the distinction of knighthood. Sir Robert Strange was a
member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, but was very hostile
to the Royal Academy, deeply and justly resenting their exclusion of
engravers from full membership. During the later part of his life he
lived in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he died in
1792. He was buried in St. Paul's Churchyard, Covent Garden.
Strange had chiefly devoted himself to classical subjects and the
delineation of the human form, Woollett, on the other hand, took
up the branches of landscape and history, and by his skill of touch
and persistently intelligent labour produced such results as were
sufficient to call forth ungrudging praise from all competent judges,
not only in his own country, but abroad. Among Woollett's most
celebrated plates are the "Fishery," the "Battle of La Hogue," and the
"Death of General Wolfe." In the printing of the last plate an accident
occurred after a few proofs had been taken; a printer in careless
fun taking up a hammer, cried out, "General Wolfe seems dying, I'll
finish him;" saying this, he suited action to word, and unintentionally
brought the hammer down on the face of the general, thus destroying by
the freak of a moment the work of days of patient labour. It is said
that Woollett cried on hearing the news; the painter, his art once
learnt, fired by imagination, can by rapid strokes of his brush give
effect to his will, while the engraver only attains his end by months
of unremitting and trustful toil.
Woollett was born at Maidstone in 1735, and was apprenticed to John
Tinney, who is now best known as having been the master of three
distinguished pupils, Anthony Walker, John Browne, and Woollett
himself. Anthony Walker engraved the well-known "Law and Physic" after
Ostade, and the figures in the print of "Niobe," Woollett's first work
of importance. He was the brother of the William Walker who greatly
increased the effect of etching by re-biting, and it is said that
Woollett, when making use of the process, was wont to exclaim, "Thank
you, William Walker."[62] Woollett lived in London all his life in the
neighbourhood of Rathbone Place, where, when he had finished a plate,
he used to celebrate the event by firing a cannon from the roof of his
house; he died in 1785, and a tablet[63] was placed to his memory in
the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.
William Sharp was the son of a gunmaker in the Minories, where he was
born in 1749, and afterwards apprenticed to Barak Longmate, a notable
heraldic engraver, with whom Sharp's first essay as an apprentice was
engraving pewter pots. Sharp completed the plate of West's "Landing
of Charles II.," left unfinished by Woollett at his death, while many
will know one of his finest works, the "Doctors of the Church," after
Guido. Although he never left England, his prints were celebrated
throughout Europe; he was elected honorary member of the Imperial
Academy at Vienna and of the Royal Academy at Munich, but like
Woollett, Strange, and Hall, was not recognised by the English Royal
Academy. His religious and political views were peculiar, and being
considered a dangerous character, he was summoned before the Privy
Council, where at length, annoyed by repeated and, as he considered,
irrelevant questions, Sharp is said to have deliberately pulled out
of his pocket a prospectus of his engraving of the celebrated Polish
general and patriot Kosciusko, and handing it to the council, requested
their names as subscribers; this and his frank manner relieved him from
the unpleasant predicament in which he found himself placed. Sharp also
engraved a portrait of Richard Brothers--a fanatic whose prophecies and
writings excited attention at the time--with the title of "Prince of
the Hebrews," and wrote underneath: "Fully believing this to be the man
whom God has appointed, I engrave his likeness." Though successful and
industrious in his art, Sharp died in comparative poverty in the year
1824 at Chiswick.
Among other distinguished men who worked in line during this period
must be mentioned James Heath, Anker Smith, John Keyse Sherwin, Francis
Legat, Thomas Morris--a pupil of Woollett's--who engraved the fine
views of the Monument, seen from Fish Street Hill, and St. Paul's
Cathedral from Ludgate Hill, and lastly the unfortunate William Wynne
Ryland, who engraved the portraits of George III. and Lord Bute, which
Strange had refused to undertake, and who, though of greater eminence
in line, is credited with bringing into notice in England the stipple
manner of engraving. Ryland finally ended an adventurous career by
being hanged for forging two bills on the East India Company, and by
his death--notwithstanding all efforts to obtain a reprieve--justified
words used in relation to the event: "Popes and monarchs have pardoned
men who had committed crimes of the deepest dye--even murder--in
consideration of their talents as artists; but Ryland lived in England,
the land of trade and commerce, and had committed an offence against
the laws of money, the god of its idolatry." Nor during the history
of this period ought the names of Thomas Worlidge, David Deuchar, and
the ingenious Captain Baillie to be omitted; Worlidge in the early
part, and Deuchar at the close of the century, etched each in his own
style with precision and effect, while William Baillie, an Irishman and
retired cavalry officer (born 1723, died 1810), etched and worked in
mezzotint with equal happiness and success.
William Blake (born 1757), poet, engraver, and painter, stands alone.
In engraving--the laborious art by which he was content to live--he has
executed admirable works, apart from his own peculiar methods, both in
line, as shown in the portrait of Lavater, and in stipple, as in the
"Industrious Cottager," after Morland; as poet and painter he has left
songs and designs which, if soaring higher than men can follow, or even
his own powers of hand and mind sufficiently express, remain for ever
to arouse the wonder and excite the imagination of posterity. Though
he lived in poverty, and oppressed with cares, he was always cheerful
and beloved by all who knew him intimately; he was ever at work while
life lasted, and died in 1827, as he had lived, a righteous and happy
man. He was laid in Bunhill Fields burying-ground, but the spot where
he was buried is marked by no tombstone, nor can it now be actually
identified; but who that has looked at the portrait engraved by Jeens
from Linnell's wondrous miniature can ever forget the face of the poet,
engraver, and painter, William Blake?
Before speaking of the branch of engraving known by the name of
stipple, it would be well to say a few words as to the mode of printing
in colour, so prevalent at one time, and of the connection which the
works of Kirkall had in relation to the method. Edward Kirkall, born at
Sheffield in the year 1722, published a set of plates, in the printing
of which he made use both of mezzotint and etching on copperplate
combined with wood blocks (that is to say, one printing was from a
copperplate, the remainder from wood blocks), in order to give variety
of colour to a set of chiaroscuros and other engravings which he
executed at that time. His plan differed from that of Leblond in that
he used only one copperplate printing, the other tints being given by
wood blocks; the results were interesting and effective, partaking
more of the character of chiaroscuros, the name he himself gave to
them. Apart from the failure of Leblond to realise his ingenious idea
that, by the consecutive and proper superposition of three layers of
primitive colours, every shade of colour might be produced in the
print, there still remained another fatal defect in the process: all
his colours were impressed by copperplate printing, that is, he made
use of three plates successively printed one after the other on the
same sheet of paper. Now a person who can realise the heavy pressure
under which a copperplate has to pass so as to force it into the damp
paper, in order that the paper should extract the ink from the grain
in which it is held, will be able to see that the second and third
printing--no matter how accurate the register--must crush the grain or
burr given to the paper by the previous printing and thus destroy the
beauty of the engraver's work. Notwithstanding the really remarkable
results produced by Leblond, this fatal imperfection mars all the
engravings he has left executed in this manner. The copperplates which
were printed in colour and carried to such perfection, particularly
in England, about the close of the eighteenth century, were printed
from one plate, generally executed in stipple, and the various tints
or colours carefully rubbed in by the printer, who used for this
purpose a sort of stump instead of the ordinary dabber. Whatever
artistic harmony in colour might be produced was therefore partially
the work, and to the credit of the printer; the printed impressions
were in addition generally touched up afterwards, and in some cases
almost entirely coloured by hand. Every impression printed in colours
necessarily varies; some are really exquisite in their delicacy of
tone and assemblage of shades, while others are contemptible in their
staring vulgarity. Kirkall engraved an elaborate ornamental form on
which to give a receipt to his subscribers for these engravings; one
of which, running thus, "Receipt from Sir Hans Sloane of one guinea
as part payment for twelve prints in chiaroscuro which he (Kirkall)
promises to deliver when finished on payment of one guinea more," can
be seen at the British Museum, and will give some idea of the moderate
remuneration artists of those days were content to receive for their
valuable labour.
The rise of stipple as a separate style took place in the middle of
the eighteenth century, and although the coming of Bartolozzi to
England gave it so great an impetus, it is necessary to point out that
the works of the school which goes by his name by no means show the
capabilities of the method. The aim of Bartolozzi and his followers was
essentially prettiness; to this all their efforts tended, and for this
stipple was a convenient medium. The very printing in red, recently so
popular, is barbarous in its ineffectiveness, plates so printed being
deprived of a great part of their proper ranges of light and shade. The
more serious work in this method was accomplished by other engravers,
of whom may be specially mentioned Thomas Gaugain, Anthony Cardon,
Caroline Watson, and, later on in the present century, William Walker,
who carried the style to the highest point ever reached or likely to be
reached. Engraving in stipple--that is, putting dots into the plate in
place of lines--was, however, no new invention; from early times line
engravers had placed dots in the interstices of their crossed lines to
give solidity and greater effect. Ottavio Leoni, a Roman painter, had
used the method freely in a set of plates of distinguished artists,
which he engraved in the years 1621-5, executing the heads, with the
exception of the hair, entirely in stipple; and early in the century
French engravers made use of the same means to give effect to many
of their flesh textures. The crayon style of engraving introduced by
Demarteau, and the feeble English manner known as chalk, which had only
a limited reign, are but modifications of the style.
Francesco Bartolozzi, the life-long friend of Cipriani (born in 1725 at
Florence), was educated in engraving at Venice by Joseph Wagner, and
like Cipriani, who had preceded him, came over to England in 1764. His
reputation was already established there; he was appointed engraver to
the king with a salary of £300 a year, became one of the first forty
full members of the Royal Academy (1768), and was the only engraver
admitted to the honour down to the year 1855. Bartolozzi remained in
England for thirty-eight years, continuously producing his innumerable
and well-known plates; at length, in 1802, seduced by the offer of a
house, pension, and a knighthood, he went, at the age of seventy-seven,
to Lisbon, where he died in 1815, having reached his ninety-first year,
and working at his profession to the last. John Ogborn, Cheesman,
Thomas Ryder, Chapman, Agar, T. Burke, and the delightful P. W.
Tomkins--who, with the late C. H. Jeens, may be called the miniaturist
of engravers--were all followers more or less of his school. An
admirable draughtsman and perfect master of the graver, Bartolozzi was
in addition able to infuse a certain grace and beauty into the trivial
work by which he is best known; but he has done work of a higher stamp,
and some of his line engravings, such as "Clytie," the "Death of Dido,"
the portraits of Lord Thurlow and Martin van Juchen in full armour
(worthy of the graver of Pontius or De Jode), make all who care for the
art regret that so talented an artist gave the greater part of his time
and attention to producing prints which, though graceful and pleasing,
charm but for the moment and leave no permanent impression.
This, the Augustan era of English engraving, saw also the rise of the
talented and genial Thomas Bewick (born 1753, died 1828), who made
the domain of natural history his own, and in addition to executing
some interesting copper plates, has by his exquisite wood-cuts after
his own drawings entitled England to claim her place amongst the
greatest artists in that form of engraving. The Boydells, too, had
established their celebrated firm; both were engravers, John in line,
and Josiah, his nephew (a pupil of Earlom), in mezzotint. John Boydell
was born in 1719, and established himself first (in 1752) at the sign
of the "Unicorn," corner of Queen Street, Cheapside, afterwards at 90
Cheapside, and finally took additional premises in Pall Mall for the
Shakespeare Gallery. Josiah was born in 1752, succeeded on his uncle's
death (1804) to the business, and died in 1817. A great proportion of
the best prints of this period will be found to bear the addresses of
these famous publishers and engravers.
The last years of the eighteenth and the commencement of the present
century witnessed the death of many of the famous engravers already
mentioned. It was now that the Birmingham school of line arose, and,
urged by the influence of J. M. W. Turner, executed their delicate
line engravings after that famous painter. William Radelyffe was the
founder of this school, and was followed by his son Edward, Robert
Brandard, J. T. Willmore, E. Goodall, R. Wallis, William Miller, and
others. Sharp, Anker Smith, James Heath, Earlom, Dickinson, Young,
and J. R. Smith still remained for a time, but much of their best
work was already done. William Ward, apprenticed to J. R. Smith, his
brother James, the noted animal painter, Charles Turner and Samuel
William Reynolds had also appeared to carry on and bring to its fullest
development the great British school of mezzotint. William Ward, born
in 1766, by his series of engravings after George Morland--whose sister
he married--has made the names of the painter and engraver almost
indissoluble, each having contributed to the immortality of the other.
James, the painter and Royal Academician, born in 1769, studied under
his brother, with whom he served an apprenticeship of nearly nine
years; his plates of "Cornelius the Centurion" after Rembrandt, Sir
Joshua's "Mrs. Billington as St. Cecilia," and the studies after nature
of heads and feet of ducks, ducklings, geese, and calves, are among
the finest works executed in the method. James lived to a great age,
dying in 1859 in his ninety-first year, having survived his brother and
also a nephew, William James Ward. The last-named was likewise a good
mezzotint engraver, but unfortunately died in the prime of life in the
year 1840.
Charles Turner was born in the same year as S. W. Reynolds (1773), and
survived the latter by more than twenty years; his prints are very
numerous, and comprise a great variety of subjects. The large upright
mezzotint of Sir Joshua's group of the Marlborough family, with the
two younger children in front, one holding a mask, the other shrinking
back in fright, is deservedly well known, as is also his fine rendering
of "The Shipwreck" after J. M. W. Turner, published in 1807. Other
characteristic prints which may be mentioned are "Black and Red Game,"
after Elmer; "Pheasants," after Barenger; the portraits of "Alexandra,
Empress of Russia," after Monier; "Lord Newton," after Raeburn; and a
marvellous life-size head of Salvator Rosa's "St. Francis," engraved
in 1805. Turner lived till the year 1857, when he died at his house in
Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, at the age of eighty-three.
Samuel William Reynolds, one of the most gifted men who ever applied
themselves to the engraver's art, studied mezzotint under C. H. Hodges;
he commenced his comparatively short career both as painter and
engraver, and exhibited for several years at the British Institution.
Endowed with singular powers of fascination, Reynolds seems to have
attracted and kept fast the friendship of all with whom he became
acquainted, irrespective of their particular social surroundings.
Samuel Whitbread, the distinguished Member of Parliament, of old Drury
Lane Theatre renown, was his intimate and kindest friend; Sheridan
and Edmund Kean played at Pope Joan with his daughters, and the very
printer of his plates fifty years after Reynolds' death would grow
bright when recalling his memory, saying, "He was the prince of
engravers." He gave lessons in drawing to the daughters of George III.,
who wished to make him their equerry, and afterwards an important post
with a salary of £900 a year was offered him, but both these offers
were refused.
It is from the technical skill and firm daring which Reynolds displayed
in his prints, and the intelligent use he made of the means at his
command, that his name as an engraver remains pre-eminent; the
"Falconer," "Vulture and Snake," "Heron and Spaniel," and "Leopards"
after Northcote; the "Duchess of Bedford" after Hoppner; the "regal"
whole-length of the unfortunate Princess Charlotte; the large and
exquisitely finished etching from Rembrandt's famous picture of "The
Mill;" and the "Land Storm"--known also as the "Mail Coach in a
Storm"--after George Morland, are but a few of the many prints which
show the power and versatility of the engraver. In the last-named print
(published 1798), where the resources of mezzotint and etching combined
have been used to fullest purpose, the familiar identity of the painter
has been almost hidden under the massive effects of light and shade
shown in the landscape, where amidst lightning flash and rushing wind
the terror-stricken horses are seen dashing madly onward.
When Reynolds went to Paris in 1826, artists there were astonished
at his paintings and the effects that he produced. Sixdeniers and
Maile studied with him, and several plates bear their combined
names; unfortunately both these engravers, excellent as they were
as mezzotinters, chiefly engraved after painters whose productions
partook of a frivolous and somewhat free character. Reynolds,
however, left more permanent marks of his stay in the French capital
by executing there the large plates of Géricault's "Wreck of the
Medusa," Horace Vernet's "Mazeppa," and the masterly representations
of Charlet's characteristic types, the "Village Barber" and the "Rag
Picker." In the last two the technical handling is so free that it
would almost seem as if the scraper had been used with the same
facility as chalk on paper. In reference to this there is a story
extant that Reynolds once scraped a large whole-length portrait in a
day and a night; the story is true, but it is also true that it is one
of his worst plates.
Shortly before his death Reynolds was greatly struck with Constable's
picture of "The Lock," and resolved to engrave it at his own cost;
writing to Constable on the arrival of the picture, he says:--"I
have been before your picture for the last hour. It is no doubt
the best of your works true to nature, seen and arranged with a
professor's taste and judgment. The execution shows in every part a
hand of experience; masterly without rudeness, and complete without
littleness; the colouring is sweet, fresh, and healthy; bright not
gaudy, but deep and clear. Take it for all in all, since the days of
Gainsborough and Wilson no landscape has been painted with so much
truth and originality, so much art, so little artifice." But he did
not live to fulfil his intention, for while still full of hope and
high purpose for the future, Reynolds was suddenly stricken with
paralysis, and died at his house in Bayswater in the year 1835.
This sudden ending was the cause of his son--likewise named Samuel
William--forsaking painting to finish some of his father's plates, and
ultimately continuing with success the practice of mezzotint on his
own account. Reynolds' daughter Elizabeth, who married the stipple
engraver William Walker--though chiefly known by her miniatures and
other paintings--also engraved in early life.[64] Although there are
no authentic records of the pedigree, S. W. Reynolds always asserted
his collateral relationship to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and his son often
mentioned that his father, when quite a youth, called on Sir Joshua,
who, during the conversation that ensued, remarked to Reynolds, "Then
you are my cousin."
Other engravers of eminence that flourished during this period are,
in line, the Bromleys, John Landseer and his sons, Charles Heath,
William B. Cooke and his brother George,[65] John Burnet (celebrated
as painter, engraver, and author), Richard Golding, and John Scott;
in stipple, William Bond, Thomas Woolnoth, and James Hopwood; in
mezzotint, Henry Dawe, William Say, Henry Meyer, George Clint, and his
pupil Thomas Lupton, who, for his introduction of soft steel instead of
copper as the medium for mezzotint engraving, received in 1822 the gold
Isis medal from the Society of Arts.
The method of stipple was meanwhile slowly dying out, but, as often
happens when some particular art seems about to expire, this was the
very time when the capabilities of the style were shown in the highest
perfection. William Walker, born in Musselburgh in the year 1791,
served an apprenticeship to three engravers, Mitchell, Stewart, and
Thomas Woolnoth, and choosing stipple as his method of interpretation,
in his portraits of Sir Walter Scott, Raeburn, and the Earl of
Hopetoun, justified his choice by executing the finest works that
were ever accomplished in the style. He astonished the mezzotinters
of the period--who told him that, do what he could, he would never
make stipple equal mezzotint in colour[66]--by the amount of force,
colour, and effect which he was able to give to these plates. It is
needless to say that such work as this could only be accomplished at
the expense of intense energy and persevering labour, qualities which
were the essential characteristics of the Scotch engraver. Later on,
when settled in London, and more particularly after the introduction
of steel in place of copper, Walker chiefly practised mezzotint, in
which, however, he made use of his previous experience, etching his
subject first in stipple before laying the mezzotint ground. His plate
of Burns, engraved in mezzotint by himself and Mr. Cousins, owes a
great part of its renown to Walker's power of rendering likeness; in
regard to this, the painter Alexander Nasmyth remarked, on seeing
the finished print, "that all he could say was that it seemed to him
a better likeness of the poet than his own picture." This particular
quality of fidelity in likeness Walker carried out in all his after
historical works; for this purpose no trouble was too much, no labour
too severe; the engraving of the "Distinguished Men of Science
assembled at the Royal Institution in 1807-8," which occupied a period
of six years of unceasing research and labour, is a striking instance.
This was practically his last plate. He died at the age of seventy-six,
in the year 1867, at his house in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square,
and was buried at Brompton Cemetery.
The death of Reynolds in 1835 seems to mark roughly the closing period
of English engraving as a great art; two of his most renowned pupils
were, however, still in the fulness of power, David Lucas and the
present Mr. Samuel Cousins, R.A.[67] Of Mr. Cousins, it is sufficient
to relate that Reynolds, happening one day to be in the town of Exeter,
saw some drawings in a shop window which caught his eye, and on going
inside he learnt that they were by a lad of the name of Cousins, which
incident led to Reynolds taking the youth to London and keeping him
as his apprentice. Mr. Cousins' artistic genius, steady perseverance,
and sterling integrity in all that he undertook, brought their full
results, as shown in the fine series of mezzotint engravings so widely
known and highly appreciated, and his name may indeed be said to close
worthily the long line of great British mezzotinters.
David Lucas was born in the year 1802, and had the good fortune to meet
in early life with Constable, between whom and Lucas was formed that
intimate connection of painter and engraver which in earlier times had
led to such great results. Failing Reynolds, Constable had applied to
Lucas to be his engraver, and between them was completed the beautiful
mezzotint series of English landscape; Constable bore the expense
and was ever in counsel with the engraver, going into the minutest
details, thinking no trouble too much to produce a good result, down
to the printing of the plates, which they often did themselves, Lucas
having had a press erected at his house for the purpose. The execution
of this series led to Lucas undertaking the large plate of "The
Cornfield" at his own risk, and afterwards the companion picture of
"The Lock"--referred to before--finally culminating in his production
of the superb engraving of Salisbury Cathedral as seen from the
meadows, to which Constable himself gave the name of "The Rainbow."[68]
During all this period constant intercourse and correspondence took
place between the painter and engraver. At one time, Constable writes,
"Although much admired, Salisbury is still too heavy; the sentiment of
the picture is that of solemnity not gaiety, yet it must be bright,
clear, alive, fresh, and all the front seen." At another, "The bow is
a grand whole, provided it is clear and tender; how I wish I could
scratch and tear away with your tools on the steel, but I can't do it,
and your quiet way is I know the best and only way." At length comes,
"Dear Lucas, the print is a noble and beautiful thing entirely improved
and entirely made perfect; the bow is noble, it is startling, unique."
So hand-in-hand they worked on, the painter upbearing his helpmate the
engraver, each aiding the other, little noticed by the public at the
time, but slowly building up an imperishable fame. David Lucas died in
1881 in his eightieth year.
In the middle of the century, inartistic mixture of styles, mechanical
means replacing true work, exigencies of copyright, and above all the
complete severance of the engraver not only from the painter but also
from his only rightful patron the public, had worked its sure result.
Some good men survived, such as Lewis, Atkinson, Doo, Robinson, J. H.
Watt, R. Graves, J. Posselwhite, Lumb Stocks, Henry Cousins,[69] W.
Giller, J. R. Jackson, and a few others; but no young school had been
forming to replace those dying out, and everything presaged the gradual
extinction of engraving as one of the great arts. Has this lowest
point been reached? Perhaps, as with the beautiful art of miniature
painting, which for a time on the advent of photography seemed gone for
ever, yet still like some stream was only running on in hidden course
underground to appear again and reach daylight, so may it happen with
engraving.
Within the last few years two engravers have produced prints worthy of
any period of the art, the late C. H. Jeens and the present Mr. W. H.
Sherborne. Some of the stipple miniature book illustrations which Jeens
executed for Messrs. Macmillan and others, such as the gem medallions
of Plato and Socrates, "Love and Death," Woolner's "Beautiful Lady,"
the portraits of Allan Ramsay, Charles Young, Mr. Ruskin's two Aunts,
and above all William Blake, are engraved with the tender feeling and
fine touch of the true artist. Mr. Sherborne, born in 1832, probably
little known except by the few, originally a chaser and designer for
jewellers and pupil of Pietro Gerometti, the Roman cameo engraver and
medallist, in 1872, fired by hope and love of the art, forsook his own
branch to follow that of engraving. Like all true artists, his mode of
execution is his own. Apollo, exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1881,
the head of Mr. Seymour Haden, the portraits of Phelps the Chelsea
Waterman or Mrs. James Builth, and the interiors of Westminster Abbey,
seen at the Painter-Etchers' Exhibition in the summer of 1885, are
works that will last, and are good examples of the engraver's powers,
causing regret that Mr. Sherborne had not earlier turned his attention
to an art the beauty of which he so truly feels. While engraving as a
whole was decaying, one branch, that of etching, has been undergoing
a revival, and the names of Mr. Seymour Haden, Mr. Philip Hamerton,
and Mr. Whistler are world-known. They and their school have confined
themselves to producing their own designs, while others, like Mr. David
Law, Mr. Macbeth, and the Messrs. Slocombe, also translate the works of
painters. But, whether as a vehicle for conveying an original design
or translating that of another artist, etching is strictly limited in
its powers; it bears the same relation to the full art of engraving
as sketching or drawing does to that of perfect painting; suggestive,
capable of exhibiting broad effects of light and shade, or indicative
of the idiosyncrasy of the etcher, it is, of its very nature,
incomplete, and acts but as herald to proclaim the greater results to
be obtained by following out the art to its proper goal.
The great impetus which Bewick's genius gave to the art of wood
engraving at the commencement of the present century was carried
onwards by his distinguished pupils Luke Clennell, Charlton Nesbitt,
and William Harvey, the latter of whom, in 1821, cut the large block
of the death of Dentatus (15 in. × 11-1/4 in.) from the picture of the
erratic genius B. R. Haydon, under whom he was at that time studying
drawing. Robert Branston, John Thompson and his brother Charles,[70]
Jackson, and W. J. Linton, are names of equal renown; in fact,
during the first half of the century, England may be said to have
been supreme in the art. Gradually, however, the various mechanical
processes for facilitating the commercial extension of the art such
as electrotyping,[71] photography, &c., brought here, too, their
deteriorating effects, causing the engraver to become less of an artist
and more of a mechanic. In delicacy of work and elaboration of detail,
American artists now stand first among wood engravers; but they attempt
too much with the means at their command, and try to produce upon the
comparatively soft material, wood, the delicate fineness of line which
can only be realised in perfection on metal. The extreme closeness of
the lines, combined with the exigencies of rapid surface printing, dull
more or less the minute interstices which ought to show pure white;
effect is lost, and, notwithstanding the excellence of the workmanship,
the result becomes monotonous and wearying rather than pleasurable to
the satiated eye. In etching also America takes high rank; in addition
to Mr. Whistler, the names of Messrs. J. Gadsby Chapman, Gifford,
Duveneck, F. S. Church, Pennell, Stephen Parrish, and Mr. and Mrs.
Moran, are well known in Europe.
In the complete styles of engraving, stipple, line, and mezzotint,
although American engravers are little known out of their own
country--a large enough field, however, in which to exercise their
talents--some good work has also been done; in stipple, by David Edwin,
Ion. B. Forrest, Gimbrede, and C. Tiebout; in mezzotint, by Charles
Wilson Peale, A. H. Ritchie, and John Sartain, who, after having worked
under the direction of William Young Ottley, went from London to
America in 1830 at the age of twenty-two; and in line, by Asher Brown
Durand; Joseph Andrews; the Smillies; and Charles Burt, who is said to
have been the actual engraver of the fine plate of Leonardo's "Last
Supper," copied from Morghen's print of the same subject, and bearing
the name of A. L. Dick as engraver. The lives of these and others not
mentioned were often eventful and picturesque, and would repay study.
Some leaving England, Scotland, or Ireland in early life to settle in
the land of their adoption, had to struggle with difficulties, often
teach themselves, make their own tools, like John Cheney, or like
Charles Wilson Peale, turn their hands to whatever duty might present
itself. Peale was a captain of volunteers, dentist, lecturer on natural
history, saddler, watchmaker, silversmith, painter in oil, crayons, or
in miniature on ivory, modeller in clay and wax, engraver in mezzotint,
and to crown all, as his son was wont to say, a mild, benevolent, and
good man. Many also devoted their talents to bank-note engraving, a
branch of the art highly cultivated in the United States, in which the
skill of the inventor and mechanic has been united with the grace and
genius of the artist. As engravers in this particular style may be
specially mentioned W. E. Marshall, J. W. Casilear, M. J. Danforth,
Gideon Fairman, and Jacob Perkins, the latter of whom, with Fairman and
the ingenious Asa Spencer, came over to England in 1818 to compete for
the premium of £20,000 offered by the Bank of England for a bank-note
which could not be counterfeited. Although not successful, the Bank
allowed them the sum of £5,000 in consideration of their ingenuity and
the trouble and expense which they had incurred in the matter. While
Asa Spencer is to be credited with inventing the method of applying the
geometric lathe[72] to engraving the involved patterns on banknotes,
Perkins has the honour of introducing the process of transfer by means
of steel rollers. The portrait or other design is engraved in the usual
manner on a die plate, which is then hardened; a soft steel roller or
cylinder is now rolled over the die with great pressure by means of a
powerful machine, causing the cylinder to take off in its course the
impression of the design in relief; this roller is now hardened in its
turn, and by the use of similar means made to impress another soft
steel die; by repeating this process, any requisite number of plates
can thus be reproduced the exact fac-similes of the original engraved
die plate. Owing to the mechanical necessity that only a small surface
of the roller should press on the die at a given moment, the diameter
of the cylinder requires to be small, so that several of these dies,
and consequently of the rollers, will be required to complete the
entire plate from which the ultimate printing of the note is effected.
Finally it may be well to conclude this brief account of the British
school of engraving by calling attention to the considerations which
ought to govern buyers of engravings; buy only that which gives
real personal satisfaction, distrust a seller's inducements, in
price be ruled by the amount that can be justly afforded, reject
alluring thoughts of future money gain (or be prepared to pay the
sure penalty--destruction of natural artistic feeling and hope of
further cultivation), and ever bear in mind the words of Constable
to his engraver: "Tone, tone, my dear Lucas, is the most seductive
and inviting quality a picture or print can possess; it is the first
thing seen, and like a flower, invites to the examination of the plant
itself."[73]
* * * * *
*** The writer of the Chapter on English Engraving desires to
acknowledge the facilities kindly placed at his disposal by Mr. Sidney
Colvin, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, and to
express his recognition of the valuable aid afforded him by Mr. F. M.
O'Donoghue, of the same department.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
OF THE MORE IMPORTANT ENGRAVERS BELONGING TO THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF
ENGRAVING.
_Foreign Engravers practising in England are marked with an asterisk._
b. stands for born; d., died; fl., flourished; c., about.
16th Cent.
RAYNALDE, Thomas. Published in 1540 a book called "The
Birth of Mankind," illustrated by
copperplate engravings.
GEMINUS, Thomas. Published in 1545 a translation of
"Vesalius' Anatomy," written and
illustrated with copperplates
engraved by himself.
*HOGENBERG, Francis. Engraved in line a portrait of Queen
Mary I. of England, bearing date 1555.
(There are doubts as to the
correctness of this date.)
*HOGENBERG, Remigius. Engraved in line portrait of Matthew
(Brother of above.) Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury,
bearing date 1573.
ROGERS, William. b. London c. 1545. Engraved in line a
fine whole-length portrait of Queen
Elizabeth, afterwards republished and
reduced in size.
17th Cent.
*DE PASSE, Crispin. b. Utrecht c. 1560. Line. Engraved and
drew from life.
*DE PASSE, Magdalen. b. Utrecht 1583. Line.
(Daughter of above.)
*DE PASSE, William. b. Utrecht c. 1590; fl. 1620-27. Line.
(Son of above.)
*DE PASSE, Simon. b. Utrecht 1591; d. c. 1644. Line. His
(Son of above.) earliest work in England dated 1613.
DELARAM, Francis. fl. c. 1620. Line.
ELSTRACKE, Reginald. fl. c. 1620. Line.
PEAKE, Sir Robert. b. c. 1592; d. 1645. Line. Also painted
portraits in miniature. Master of
engraver Faithorne and painter Dobson.
*HOLLAR, Wenceslaus. b. Prague 1607; d. London 1677. Etcher,
finishing, when necessary, with fine
graver.
*LOMBART, Peter. b. Paris 1612; came to England c. 1653,
remaining for considerable number of
years; d. Paris. Line. Engraved series
of twelve portraits called "The
Countesses."
FAITHORNE, William. b. London 1616; d. London 1691. Line.
(Pupil of Sir Robert
Peake.)
*VANDERBANK, Peter. b. Paris; of Dutch extraction; came to
(Pupil of De Poilly.) England c. 1674; d. Bradfield 1697.
Line.
BARLOW, Francis. b. Lincolnshire 1626; d. London 1702.
Etcher, line engraver, and animal
painter.
GAYWOOD, Robert. b. c. 1630; d. c. 1711. Etcher and line
(Pupil of Hollar.) engraver, chiefly of animal subjects.
*LOGGAN, David. b. Dantzic c. 1630; d. London 1693.
(Pupil of Simon de Line. Portrait and architectural
Passe.) engraver and painter.
RUPERT, Prince. b. 1619; d. 1682. Introduced mezzotint
into England, and engraved some fine
prints in the method, which were
probably executed abroad.
SHERWIN, William. b. c. 1650; d. c. 1714. Engraved
portrait of Charles II. 1669, the
earliest dated print in mezzotint
authentically engraved in England.
OLIVER, John. b. 1616; d. 1701. Glass painter; also
(Nephew and pupil engraved in mezzotint.
of Peter Oliver,
miniature painter
and etcher.)
PLACE, Francis. b. c. 1640; d. 1728. Mezzotint, line,
etching.
{ fl. 1670. A good many early mezzotint
{ prints bear these two names, but only
{ as publishers (_excudit_ not
TOMPSON, Richard. { _sculpsit_), and there is great doubt
BROWNE, Alexander. { if any were actually engraved by them.
{ Browne wrote the "Ars Pictoria" in
{ 1669, in which "The Manner or Way of
{ Mezo Tinto" is described; published by
{ himself, Tompson, and another.
*BLOOTELINGH, Abraham. b. Amsterdam 1634; d. c. 1695. Line and
(Pupil of Cornelius mezzotint. Came to England for a few
Visscher.) years 1673.
*VALCK, Gerard. b. Amsterdam c. 1626; d. c. 1720.
(Pupil of Mezzotint and line. Accompanied
Blootelingh.) Blootelingh to England, not leaving
until after 1680.
WHITE, Robert. b. London 1645; d. London 1704. Line.
(Pupil of David Portrait draughtsman from life.
Loggan.)
*VANDERVAART, John. b. Haarlem 1647; d. London 1721.
Mezzotinter and painter. Came to
England 1674.
*VAN SOMER, Paul. b. Amsterdam 1649; d. London 1694.
(Pupil of John Van Mezzotint.
Somer, probably
his brother.)
FAITHORNE, William, b. London 1656; d. London 1686.
junr. (Son of Mezzotint.
William
Faithorne.)
LUTTRELL, E. b. Dublin c. 1650; d. c. 1710.
(Said to have Mezzotinter and crayon portraitist.
learnt method of
mezzotint from
Blois, ground
layer to
Blootelingh.)
BECKETT, Isaac. b. Kent 1653; d. 1719. Mezzotint. Prints
(Attracted by all dated between 1681-88.
Luttrell's works,
learnt the method of
mezzotint from Lloyd,
a printseller, who is
said to have obtained
the secret from
Blois, ground layer
to Blootelingh.)
SMITH, John. b. Daventry 1652; d. Northampton 1742.
(Pupil of Beckett Mezzotint.
and Vandervaart.)
WILLIAMS, R. b. Wales. Mezzotint. Prints dated
c. 1680 to 1704.
*DORIGNY, Sir Nicholas. b. Paris 1657; d. Paris 1746. Line.
Settled in London 1711-24. Knighted by
George I. for his set of Raphael's
cartoons.
LENS, Bernard. b. London 1659; d. 1725. Mezzotint.
*GRIBELIN, Simon. b. Blois 1661; d. England 1733. Line.
Came to England 1680; engraved first
complete set of Raphael's cartoons.
LUMLEY, George. b. York latter part of 17th century.
(Friend of Francis Mezzotint.
Place.)
WHITE, George. b. 1671; d. 1731-2. Mezzotint.
(Son and pupil of Introduced slight etching into the
Robert White.) method. Engraved also in line, and
painted portraits.
18th Cent.
*SIMON, John b. Normandy 1675; d. London c. 1755.
(or Jean). First engraved in line, then came to
England and devoted himself to
mezzotint.
VERTUE, George. b. London 1684; d. London 1756. Line;
antiquary, wrote notes on the history
of arts and artists in England.
Manuscripts now in the British Museum.
*VAN BLEECK, Peter. b. Flanders; d. 1764. Came to England
1723 Mezzotint.
*FABER, John, sen. b. Holland; d. Bristol 1721. Mezzotint;
also miniature painter. Came to
England in 1687 with his son.
*FABER, John, jun. b. Holland 1684; d. London 1746.
(Son and pupil of Mezzotint. Amongst others, engraved
above.) Kit Cat Club and Hampton Court
Beauties.
HOGARTH, William. b. St. Bees, Durham, 1697; d. London
(First apprenticed 1764. Line engraver and painter.
to silversmith.)
SULLIVAN, Luke. b. co. Louth, Ireland, 1705; d. London
1771. Line. Assistant to Hogarth, and
engraved some of his pictures.
*BARON, Bernard. b. Paris c. 1700; d. London 1762. Line.
(Pupil of Tardieu, Came to England in 1712. Employed by
the French engraver.) Hogarth.
WORLIDGE, Thomas. b. 1700; d. Hammersmith 1766. Etcher and
portrait painter. Chiefly resided at
Bath.
BICKHAM, George. d. 1769. Line and etching, draughtsman.
Published "The Universal Penman;"
father of George, also an engraver and
draughtsman.
*RAVENET, François Simon, b. Paris 1706; d. Hampstead Road 1774.
A.E. Line. Came to England a little before
(Pupil of Le Bas.) 1745, and settled in London.
FRYE, Thomas. b. near Dublin 1710; d. London 1760.
Mezzotinter and portrait painter,
chiefly lifesize.