OPEN EDITIONS

LIMITED EDITIONS

ENGRAVINGS

ORIGINAL PAINTINGS

GOUTTELETTES ®

• The Collection
• History
• Printing
• Materials
• Techniques
• Glossary
• Biographies
• Bibliography

The Atelier Collection is an historic collection of hand-pulled and hand-coloured engravings and a small selection of hand-coloured prints. Rosenstiel's has built up the collection since the company was founded in 1880 and the original copper plates from which the prints are pulled span two centuries of print history. Each print is painstakingly pulled by skilled craftsmen, using techniques which have changed little over the last four hundred years. Most images are then hand-coloured by a skilled watercolourist, whilst some are carefully inked in the plate.

Biographical details of artists, engravers and others

ABBOTT, FRANCIS (1760-1803)

A painter chiefly of portraits. Lord Nelson was one of his most celebrated sitters. He exhibited at the Royal Academy on 15 occasions.

ACKERMANN'S

Rudolph Ackermann and his family deserve a place in this list due to their monumental contribution to the dissemination of, particularly, sporting and topographical prints and their patronage of generations of artists and engravers over a span of two centuries. Rudolph founded his Repository of Arts in the Strand in 1783. Among all his other achievements was the design of Nelson's funeral carriage. His son, Rudolph junior, founded the Eclipse Sporting Gallery in Regent Street as a separate concern in 1826. Rudolph senior died in 1834 and his younger sons took over as Ackermann & Co., remaining in business until 1852. Meanwhile, Rudolph junior continued at the Eclipse Sporting Gallery and was succeeded in 1860 by Arthur, his son. The firm continued under the name of Arthur Ackermann until a few years ago.

AGASSE, J.L. (1767-1849)

A Swiss-born painter who, after studying under Jacques-Louis David in Paris, came to England to escape the Napoleonic Wars

ALKEN, HENRY THOMAS (1785-1851)

The most famous of the Alken family, who originated in Denmark. Henry specialised in sporting subjects and undertook a huge amount of work for the Ackermanns. He was a versatile artist: a painter, etcher and aquatint engraver and he also worked in lithography which in the early years of the 19th century was developing as an exciting new pictorial medium.

ALKEN, SAMUEL (1756-1815)

The father and first teacher of Henry Alken. He was an aquatint engraver specialising in sporting subjects, landscape and topography. He and Henry frequently collaborated.

ANNIS, WILLIAM T. (fl. late 18th c., early 19th c.)

A mezzotint engraver specialising in landscapes and portraits.

ANSDELL, RICHARD, R.A. (1815-1885)

He followed the vogue for Highland subjects, painting many Scottish pictures rather reminiscent of those of Edwin Lanseer. He also painted battle scenes and pictures inspired by journeys in Spain.

APPERLEY, CHARLES JAMES (1779-1843)

A sporting writer who used the pseudonym 'Nimrod'. He rode with the Quorn and Pytchley hunts and wrote the authoritative Hunting Tours and contributed many articles to the Sporting Magazine and other sporting journals.

BARTOLOZZI, FRANCESCO, R.A. (1727-1815)

A Florentine engraver who came to England in 1764. He made his mark so quickly that he was a founder Royal Academician in 1768 - an honour denied at that time to all other engravers, who were considered 'mere imitators'. Bartolozzi was a major exponent of stipple engraving, in which medium he executed many portraits and decorative subjects. In 1802 he went to Lisbon to become superintendent of the Portuguese National Academy, in spite of the efforts of King George III to retain him with the offer of a generous pension.

BELL, EDWARD (fl. late 18th c., early 19th c.)

Mezzotint engraver, mainly of sentimental subjects such as Morland's Selling Cherries and Selling Peas. A pair of the original prints in colour can fetch as much as £1,500.

BENTLEY, CHARLES (1806-1854)

A London watercolour artist and aquatint engraver specialising in topographical, sporting and coaching subjects, especially after the designs of Henry Alken.

BIGG, WILLIAM REDMORE, R.A. (1755-1828)

A painter of domestic and sporting subjects, most of which were popularised through engraving. He was elected R.A. in 1814.

BINKS, REUBEN WARD (1880-1950)

A leading canine portraitist working in drypoint, etching and aquatint. He enjoyed royal patronage: Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII and George VI all commissioned work from him. He was frequently invited to sketch at the royal shoots at Sandringham and also worked in the Punjab and the U.S.A.

BLANCHARD, AUGUSTE THOMAS MARIE (1819-1898)

A French engraver who did much work after both French and English contemporaries. Perhaps his best-known engravings are those after the pictures of W. P. Frith (for example, Derby Day) and W. Holman Hunt.

BOND, WILLIAM (fl.late 18th c., early 19th c.)

A stipple engraver of mainly decorative subjects. He became President of the Society of Engravers, founded in 1803.

BOUCHER, FRANCOIS (1703-1770)

A leading French rococo painter whose output of mythological and decorative paintings, executed with an incomparable lightness of touch, was enormous. His pastoral scenes are a fascinating blend of close observation of nature, and almost theatrical artifice. His chief patron was Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV.

BRADLEY, BASIL, R.W.S. (1842-1904)

A painter of landscape and genre. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1873 and 1899.

CARDON, ANTHONY (1772-1813)

A Belgian line and stipple engraver who came to England in 1792. A specialist in portraits and military subjects, he undertook much book illustration. He was the engraver of some of Francis Wheatley's Cries of London.

CLARK, JOHN (fl.late 18th c., early 19th c.)

Draughtsman and aquatint engraver of topographical, marine and sporting subjects after his own drawings and those of others. He is perhaps best known for his beautiful series of aquatints of Scottish towns.

CORMACK, Mrs.MINNIE (b.1862)

She is by no means the only woman to have made a living as an engraver, though women are of course far outnumbered by men in the profession. Minnie Cormack was born in Cork and worked in London, making mezzotints after the paintings of celebrated British portraitists and after her own pictures.

DOUGLAS, EDWARD ALGERNON STUART (1850-c.1892)

A painter of mainly hunting subjects who lived and worked in Barnes, near London. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1880 and 1892.

DRUMMOND, ARTHUR (1871-1951)

A painter of historical and figure subjects in general. He studied under the famous Dutch-born painter Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema R.A. and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1890.

DUNCAN, EDWARD (1803-1882)

A London marine painter who studied engraving with the great Robert Havell (who engraved plates for J. J. Audubon's Birds of America). He did much work for the print publishers Fores, of Piccadilly, whose history is almost as distinguished as that of the Ackermanns.

EARLOM, RICHARD (1743-1822)

An eminent mezzotint engraver. His many works include 200 engravings after Claude Lorrain's Liber Veritatis and the celebrated Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match after Johann Zoffany.

EGINTON, FRANCIS (1775?-1823)

Glass painter, etcher, stipple-engraver, aquatint engraver.

FORREST, WILLIAM S. (fl.late 18th - early 19th c.)

An engraver of sporting subjects.

FRITH, WILLIAM POWELL, R.A. (1819-1909)

The archetypal painter of Victorian life, he left many vivid depictions of scenes at Epsom, Paddington Station, the General Post Office, the Royal Academy etc. His autobiography gives a fascinating insight into the artistic milieu of his day.

GAUGAIN, THOMAS (1748-1810)

French stipple engraver who came to England when very young and lived and worked for many years in Soho.

GLEADAH, JOSEPH (fl. early 19th c.)

Aquatint engraver of landscape, topography, sporting subjects and caricature.

GRANT, SIR FRANCIS, R.A. (1803-1878)

Painter of portraits and hunting subjects. He painted many prominent sitters including Queen Victoria, Lords Melbourne and Palmerston, and the artist Edwin Landseer. He spent much time in Melton Mowbray and his paintings of the Melton hunt are well-known through engravings.

GREEN, VALENTINE, A.R.A. (1739-1813)

One of the greatest and most prolific of mezzotint engravers. He produced 400 plates in 40 years in this arduous medium, notably after the works of Reynolds, Gainsborough and Joseph Wright of Derby.

GROZER, JOSEPH (fl. late 18th c.)

Mezzotint, stipple and aquatint engraver after the works of Morland, George Romney and Reynolds.

HAMILTON, WILLIAM R.A. (1751-1801)

A painter who designed many book illustrations. He studied in Italy where he may well have made the contacts that led to his later collaboration with Francesco Bartolozzi in London. The latter engraved a number of the painter's works.

HARDY, HEYWOOD (1843-1933)

A painter of animals who exhibited widely at the Royal Academy and other institutions.

HARRIS, JOHN (1811-1865)

An aquatint engraver of sporting and military subjects whose large output of plates was commissioned mainly by Ackermann's and Fores'.

HENDERSON, CHARLES COOPER (1803-1877)

A painter of coaching scenes tinged with nostalgia, for many were painted when coach travel was in decline. A number of his works were engraved for Ackermann's and Fores'.

HERRING, JOHN FREDERICK (1795-1865)

He began work as a sign painter and is said to have worked as a coachman, driving coaches on the Yorkshire routes. On turning to painting, he specialised in animal subjects. He painted farmyard scenes and racehorses including 33 successive St.Leger and Derby winners. His son, J.F. junior, imitated the elder Herring and their works are therefore sometimes confused.

HESTER, EDWARD GILBERT (1843-1903)

A line, mezzotint and aquatint engraver, mainly of sporting subjects.

HODGES, WALTER PARRY (dates uncertain)

The Dorset amateur who designed The Chase of the Roebuck and The Death of the Roebuck. Working from these designs, Henry Alken etched in the composition and R.G.Reeve supplied the tones in aquatint.

HUNT, CHARLES (senior) (b.1806)

An eminent engraver of sporting, animal, topographical and transport prints. He lived and worked in London after all the best-known sporting artists. He and his son, also named Charles, frequently collaborated. Charles senior also worked with a George Hunt ( who seems to have been his brother), notably on Pollard's St. Alban's Grand Steeplechase.

HUNT, WALTER (1861-1941)

Son of Charles Hunt junior. A painter of farmyard scenes.

HUYSUM, JAN VAN (1682-1749)

An Amsterdam-born flower painter. He was a meticulous craftsman, so much so that he delayed the completion of one of his patron's pictures because he was unable that year to find a rose of the correct colour.

IBBETSON, JULIUS CAESAR (1759- after 1818)

So named because his was a Caesarian birth. He first worked in Yorkshire as a scene painter. He went to London in 1777 and he first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1785, where by 1818 he had exhibited 81 works.

JONES, JOHN (1745-1797)

A stipple and mezzotint engraver after the works of, notably, George Romney and Joshua Reynolds. He was the engraver of W.R.Bigg's Black Monday and Dulce Domum.

LAPORTE, GEORGE HENRY (1799-1873)

An animal and sporting painter who exhibited widely at the Royal Academy and elsewhere from 1821 to 1873. He was appointed Animal Painter to the Duke of Cumberland, later King of Hanover, and hence he worked for a time in Hanover.

LEIGHTON, EDMUND BLAIR (1853-1922)

A portrait and history painter who exhibited many works at the Royal Academy between 1874 and 1920. The elegant ladies and gallants of an earlier age are his hallmarks.

LESLIE, GEORGE DUNLOP, R.A. (1835-1921)

A painter of landscape and genre.

LEWIS, FREDERICK CHRISTIAN (1779-1856)

A prominent landscape painter and an etcher and stipple-engraver of topography and portraits. He and his family - including his son Charles George, also an engraver - lived in Charlotte Street, London, and were near neighbours of the Landseer family. Charles and the young Landseers were playmates.

LUCAS, JAMES SEYMOUR (fl. mid-19th c.)

Line and mezzotint engraver of landscape, biblical and historical subjects.

MARSHALL, BENJAMIN (1767-1835)

One of the greatest of all English sporting painters. Thomas Oldaker, Master of the Berkeley Hunt, was one of his most celebrated sitters. Marshall moved to Newmarket in 1812 to be close to the racing confraternity that was his main source of inspiration. He was a regular writer in The Sporting Magazine, under the pseudonym of 'Observator', and his evocative account therein of the 1830 Epsom races is often quoted.

MARTIN, DAVID (1736-1798)

A Scottish painter, line and mezzotint engraver of portraits. He held the title of Chief Painter to the Prince of Wales.

MORLAND, GEORGE (1736-1804)

A prolific painter of village, farmyard and sporting scenes characterised by a picturesque nostalgia and strongly reminscent of similar scenes painted by Dutch and Flemish artists of the 17th century. Morland first exhibited at the Royal Academy at the age of ten, and is said to have produced as many as four thousand paintings in his short life.

MUNNINGS, SIR ALFRED, P.R.A. (1878-1959)

Munnings was last in the line of prominent equestrian portraitists. HeÃwas President of the Royal Academy from 1944 to 1949.

NORTHCOTE, JAMES, R.A. (1746-1831)

He worked as assistant to Joshua Reynolds, whose biography he published in 1831. From 1771-1780 he studied the work of the Old Masters in Rome and he exhibited many works at the Royal Academy.

NUTTER, WILLIAM (1754-1802)

A prominent stipple engraver, trained by Bartolozzi.

ORME, DANIEL (b.1765)

A line, stipple and aquatint engraver who reproduced a number of Morland's works.

POLLARD, JAMES (1797-1867)

One of the most famous of the early 19th-century coaching and sporting painters and aquatinters.

REEVE, RICHARD GILSON (1803-1889)

A versatile engraver who reproduced fox-hunting subjects after Henry Alken and coaching scenes (for example, The Royal Mail's Departure from the General Post Office) after James Pollard.

REINAGLE, RICHARD RAMSAY, R.A. (1775-1862)

A prolific and precocious painter of landscapes, portraits and sporting subjects. He exhibited 244 works at the Royal Academy, starting in 1788 at the age of thirteen.

ROSENBERG, CHARLES (fl. mid-19th c.)

An aquatint engraver of sporting, coaching and marine subjects. Like many of his fellow engravers, he worked after James Pollard.

ROWLANDSON, THOMAS (1756-1827)

The renowned graphic satirist of 18th-century and early 19th-century society, of which no stratum escaped his sharp eye.

SADLER, WALTER DENDY (1854-1923)

A painter of nostalgically humorous and sometimes sentimental scenes of everyday life. His characters are usually arrayed in the costume of a generation or two earlier than his own.

SCANLAN, ROBERT RICHARD (fl.1832-1876)

An Irish portrait, genre and animal painter. He exhibited 17 works at the Royal Academy.

SCHIAVONETTI, LUIGI (1765-1810)

On coming to England, the Italian-born engraver caught the attention of Bartolozzi, whose pupil he became. He worked in the latter's studio in Sloane Square, producing many line and stipple engravings, some after Wheatley's Cries of London.

SHAYER, WILLIAM JOSEPH (1811-1892)

Painter of animals and landscape. His father, also William, was an artist and since both often signed their works W.S., some confusion can arise.

SIMSON, WILLIAM R.S.A. (1800-1847)

A Scottish painter, much-travelled in the Netherlands and Italy. Best known for his history pictures on themes such as the murder of the princes in the Tower of London. He painted occasional sporting subjects such as Salmon Spearing.

SMITH, JOHN RAPHAEL (1752-1812)

A mezzotint engraver whose output was prolific. He became Mezzotint Engraver to the Prince of Wales in 1784.

SOIRON, FRANCOIS DAVID (1764-1813)

A Swiss-born stipple engraver. During a few years in London his work included the engraving of A Tea Garden and St.James's Park after George Morland.

STACPOOLE, FREDERICK, A.R.A. (1813-1907)

A prominent mezzotint engraver who reproduced the famous battle pictures of Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler.

STOCK, C.R. (fl. late 19th c.)

An aquatint engraver of sporting and coaching scenes after such artists as E.A.S.Douglas, W.J.Shayer and Henry Alken.

STOCKS, LUMB, R.A. (1812-1892)

An eminent line-engraver. His best-known work is the engraving after Daniel Maclise's Meeting of Wellington and Blucher after Waterloo.

STUART, GILBERT (1755-1828)

An American painter whose only three known portraits of George Washington from life have provided the models for countless imitations and variations.

SUMMERS, WILLIAM (fl. mid- late-19th c.)

An aquatint engraver who reproduced the works of such artists as J.F.Herring and Henry Alken. He often collaborated with John Harris, whose pupil he was.

SUTHERLAND, THOMAS (fl. early to mid-19th c.)

An aquatint engraver of sporting, coaching, naval and military subjects. He engraved hunting and racing subjects after Henry Alken and many others.

TALLBERG, PROFESSOR AXEL, A.R.E. (dates uncertain)

An aquatint and mezzotint engraver. He was in England between 1886 and 1895 and it was apparently then that he engraved the much-reproduced Leicestershire Covers after the original designs by Henry Alken. Tallberg eventually became the first Principal of the School of Etching and Engraving at the Royal Academy of Arts, Stockholm.

TURNER, F.C. (1795-1865)

A painter of horses, shooting subjects and portraits. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1810 and 1846.

VENDRAMINI, GIOVANNI (1769-1839)

An engraver who came to London at the age of 19 and who studied and worked with Bartolozzi until the latter's departure for Portugal in 1802.

WARD, JAMES, R.A. (1769-1859)

A celebrated animal and landscape painter.

WARD, MARTIN THEODORE (1799?-1874)

An animal and sporting painter who studied under Edwin Landseer.

WARD, WILLIAM, A.R.A. (1766-1826)

A mezzotint and stipple engraver. The father of Martin Theodore Ward and the brother-in-law of George Morland, whose pictures he engraved. He was appointed Mezzotint Engraver to the Duke of York in 1803

WEBSTER. THOMAS, R.A. (1800-1886)

An artist who produced many intimate scenes of everyday life: children at play, village musicians practising etc. His work was obviously inspired by the similar subjects in 17th-century Flemish art, and was much reproduced by engravers.

WHEATLEY, FRANCIS, R.A. (1747-1801)

The painter of the well-known Cries of London.

WINTERHALTER, FRANZ XAVIER (1805-1873)

An artist with a long career as an international court painter who accumulated many honours in France, England, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Russia. His visits to England were mainly for the purpose of painting Queen Victoria and her family. In 1846 he painted the future Edward VII as a young boy in sailor's costume.

WOLSTENHOLME, DEAN (1798-1882)

An aquatint engraver of sporting subjects. The son of a notable artist - Dean senior - whose works he often engraved.

WRIGHT, GEORGE (1860-1942)

Painter of coaching and hunting scenes, a number of which were exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere from 1892.

ZOFFANY, JOHANN, R.A (1733-1810)

A German-born painter, mainly of portraits. After some years in Italy, he came to England in 1760 and was so admired by George III that he was made an R.A. in 1769. He worked in India from 1783-9, during which time he painted Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match afterwards engraved by Richard Earlom.