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[Rudolf]

(b Stollberg, Saxony, April 20, 1764; d Finchley, London, March 30, 1834).

English publisher and patron of German birth. He trained as a carriage designer in Paris and moved to England between 1783 and 1786. He established his own business as a carriage maker, undertaking major commissions in London and Dublin. In 1804 he designed Pius VII’s carriage for the coronation of Napoleon and in 1805 the funeral carriage of Horatio, Viscount Nelson. By 1800 Ackermann had built up a unique business at 101 The Strand, London, known as ‘The Repository of Arts’. This encompassed a drawing school with 80 pupils, the sale and loan of Old Master paintings and watercolour drawings, the publication of decorative prints and illustrated books and the manufacture of watercolour paints including a number of new chemical pigments.

In the early 19th century, Ackermann was an important and regular patron of English watercolour painters, employing William Henry Pyne, Augustus Charles Pugin, Thomas Heaphy, Frederick Mackenzie (1787–1854...

Austrian family of publishers of Italian descent. The family originally came from Blevio, near Como, in northern Italy, and in the mid-18th century worked as itinerant art dealers in Germany and Austria, offering an extensive range of English and French prints to the public. Francesco Artaria (b Blevio, 1744; d Vienna, 1808) and his cousin Carlo Artaria (b Blevio, 1747; d Vienna, 1808) settled in Vienna in the 1760s, establishing the firm Artaria & Co. in 1770. In 1774 they took over a subsidiary firm based in Mainz that had been founded in 1765 by their uncle Giovanni Casimiro Artaria (1725–97). Shortly after 1793, however, this branch relocated to Mannheim, where it eventually became Artaria & Fontaine. In Vienna, Artaria & Co. established its headquarters in the Kohlmarkt and began to specialize in the publication of prints. In 1775–6 it published its first large volume of copper engravings, ...

French, 18th – 19th century, male.

Engraver, print publisher.

Basset the Elder lived in Paris, on the Rue St-Jacques, and was associated with Françoise Basset. He published a large number of anonymous plates, and also plates by engravers such as Alexis, Blanchard, Fortier, Gabriel, Gatine, Jubin, Rubières and Thiebault. Basset the Elder could be the same as the engraver André Basset mentioned by Heinecken....

German, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 15 April 1748, in Nuremberg; died 26 February 1812, in Frankfurt am Main.

Engraver, print publisher.

Johann Christian Berndt settled in Frankfurt am Main in 1775, and was granted citizenship there in 1780. He was a pupil of his father and of Preissler, and completed his studies in Leipzig with Oeser and Stock. He then worked in Vienna and Würzburg with his brother Johann Oswald (born around ...

(b London, c. 1758; d Byfleet, Surrey, June 4, 1834).

Miniature painter and publisher. He was originally self-taught and then a pupil of John Smart (1741–1811), whose work he copied and whose style he imitated: between 1783 and 1828 he was an occasional exhibitor at the Royal Academy, being appointed in 1789 painter in watercolours to George III and miniature painter to Queen Charlotte (1744–1818). He was a keen promoter of history painting and in 1792 launched a prospectus for an edition of David Hume’s History of England, to be ‘superbly embellished’ with illustrations engraved after historical paintings by leading artists, including Benjamin West, Robert Smirke, Francis Wheatley and Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg. Bowyer also published the Historic Gallery, which, until its failure, with great financial loss, in 1806, provided substantial patronage to history painters and fostered a taste for national history paintings, especially of medieval subjects. The five folios that appeared contained, in addition to engravings of historical paintings, engraved portraits, manuscripts and antiquarian material. Bowyer also published ...

[Antoine]

(b Brussels, May 15, 1772; d London, April 16, 1813).

Flemish engraver and print publisher, active in London. The son of Antoine Alexandre Joseph Cardon (1739–1822), a painter and engraver in Brussels, he was persuaded by the troubled times to go to London in 1792. He entered the Royal Academy Schools on 3 November 1792 and was engaged by Paul Colnaghi to engrave, under the direction of Luigi Schiavonetti, three of the Cries of London after Francis Wheatley in 1794–6. Cardon was an enterprising man, soon establishing himself as an independent publisher. He took advantage of the peace of 1801, in that year engraving and publishing in Paris and London Joseph Boze’s painting of The First Consul and General Berthier at the Battle of Marengo (untraced) jointly with the painter. He was known to Joseph Farington, who noted some of his activities, such as his purchase of two paintings by Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg for engraving (4 March 1805...

French, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 1772, in Nantes; died 1817, in Paris.

Draughtsman, engraver (etching/burin), print publisher.

Alexis Chataigner, a pupil of François-Marie Queverdo, was one of the most prolific engravers of the Revolution and the Empire.

Paris, 14 Dec 1935: The Husband's Departure...

(b Kingston upon Hull, 1770; d London, 12 or March 14, 1812).

English publisher and engraver. He studied in London under Francesco Bartolozzi and engraved a number of book illustrations but was best known as a publisher, issuing the designs by William Blake for Robert Blair’s poem The Grave (London, 1743). In 1805 Cromek commissioned Blake to draw and engrave the designs, but Blake felt betrayed when Cromek engaged Luigi Schiavonetti instead because he saw that Blake’s style of engraving would not please the public (for further discussion see Blake, William). Blake was further annoyed when Cromek commissioned Thomas Stothard to paint the Canterbury Pilgrims (1806; London, Tate; for illustration see Stothard, Thomas), an idea that Blake thought had been stolen from him; in 1809 Blake published a very successful singly issued print of it. Bentley has shown that although Cromek had considerable understanding and sympathy for Blake his treatment of him helped to increase the artist’s isolation....

French, 18th – 19th century, male.

Active in Versailles.

Draughtsman, engraver (burin), print publisher.

(b London, 1747; d Paris, 1823).

English engraver and print publisher. He worked first for the painter Robert Edge Pine, exhibiting mezzotints of Pine’s pictures at the Society of Artists between 1769 and 1773. He then began publishing some of his own mezzotints independently: his portrait of Joseph Banks (Chaloner Smith, no. 4), made in 1774, was the first of 22 excellent mezzotints made after Sir Joshua Reynolds, 12 of which appeared during the 1770s. His 100 or so portrait mezzotints were well drawn and finely scraped; their brilliance was often enhanced by the use of warm brown inks. From 1776 to 1781 Dickinson published prints with Thomas Watson from New Bond Street, London; they engraved and published stipples as well as mezzotints and became the principal publishers of humorous stipples after the amateur artist Henry William Bunbury. In the decade after 1783 Dickinson engraved only two mezzotint portraits, while publishing plates by other engravers, such as his pupil ...

French family of typographers, printers, publishers and collectors. The first to settle in Paris was Denis Didot (2nd half of 17th century), whose son François Didot (1689–1759) founded in 1713 the family publishing business. His sons François-Ambroise Didot (1730–1804) and Pierre-François Didot (1731–93) developed the business, adding a type foundry and a paper-mill. The elegance of their publications brought them the patronage of the brothers of Louis XVI: Monsieur (later Louis XVIII) and the Comte d’Artois (later Charles X). The sons of François-Ambroise included Pierre Didot, a publisher, among whose illustrators were some of the most distinguished artists of the day, and Firmin Didot (1764–1836), who designed the Didot typeface for his brother’s use. Firmin Didot’s son Ambroise Firmin-Didot was a notable collector of prints. The cadet branch of the family, Didot Jeune, the descendants of Pierre-François Didot, included Saint Marc Didot, who assembled a fine collection of paintings....

French, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 1759, in Paris; died 5 May 1812, in Paris.

Engraver, print publisher.

Antoine Filhol was the pupil of F.-D. Née. Although he engraved landscapes, he is especially remembered as a publisher, and in particular for his publication of the ...

(b Abbeville, Somme, March 24, 1756; d 1812).

French engraver and print-publisher, active in England. He entered the Royal Academy Schools, London, in 1771, with the aim of becoming a painter; he exhibited in 1778–81 at the Royal Academy. In 1780 he began to engrave, initially engraving and publishing his own paintings. Some colour prints that he published were among the few English ones printed from several plates, rather than à la poupée. Gaugain built up a successful business; he bought pictures and drawings to engrave as decorative stipples, such as Selling Guinea Pigs and Dancing Dogs (1789–90), after George Morland, which enjoyed a large sale abroad, and the Sailor Boy after William Redmore Bigg, engraved (1791–2) by Thomas Burke. The decline in the export trade probably affected Gaugain more than most print-publishers, as in 1793 his stock of plates was auctioned. He continued to engrave, notably an ambitious Hogarthian set of Diligence and Dissipation...

(b Basle, April 4, 1737; d Berlin, Nov 4, 1817).

Swiss engraver, publisher and dealer, active in France and Germany. Although he was apprenticed in 1753 to the engraver Georg Daniel Heumann (1691–1759) in Nuremberg, his friendship with the brothers Johann Justin Preissler (1698–1771) and Georg Martin Preissler (1700–1754) was of greater importance. He continued his education (1755–7) with Johann Georg Pintz (1697–1767) in Augsburg, then went to Paris in 1757, to the academy of Jean-Georges Wille, who not only nurtured his taste for realistic representation of a landscape but also transformed him into a courtier and shrewd businessman. From 1760 to 1764 Mechel ran his own engraving studio in Paris, printing and distributing his own work and that of such engravers as L. de Montigny, Elie Mesnil (b 1728), Joseph Jean Halle (1740–1805), Jean-Baptiste de Lorraine (b 1731) and Antoine Louis Romanet (...

German, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 1749, in Dresden; died 1815, in Dresden.

Enameller, engraver (burin), print publisher.

Morasch engraved notably architectural views, perspectives and sketches of folk costumes.

French, 18th – 19th century, male.

Active in Paris from 1790 to 1820.

Engraver, print publisher.

Jean-Baptiste Moret is known for the plate The Patriots' Café.

Paris, 27 Nov 1997: Chance Tumble; Sudden Fall (coloured engraving, after Caresme and Huet, 8¼ × 9½ ins/21 × 24 cm) ...

(b Nuremberg, Aug 6, 1733; d Nuremberg, April 8, 1811).

German publisher, writer and art historian. After obtaining a doctorate in law from the University of Altdorf, he travelled (1756–7) to Strasbourg, the Netherlands and England, where he met well-known figures in science, art and politics. In 1758 he set off again from Nuremberg to Vienna and northern Italy. Besides his employment as a Nuremberg weighmaster and customs official from 1760, Murr wrote about German art history and culture. He also published various magazines such as the weekly Der Zufriedene (Nuremberg, 1763–4), the Journal zur Kunstgeschichte und zur allgemeine Litteratur (Nuremberg, 1775–89) and the Neues Journal zur Literatur und Kunstgeschichte (Nuremberg, 1798–9). Stimulated by his wide-ranging correspondence with leading figures within and outside Europe, these contained many articles on the art history and culture of other countries. His work also encompassed linguistic surveys, political and historical subjects and writings about the Jesuit order. He was the author of 82 titles, though his own literary experiments remained insignificant. Murr became a member of the Königliches Historisches Institut, Göttingen, in ...

Italian, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 1732, in Perugia; died before 15 December 1810, in Perugia, where he was buried on that date, in S Teresa.

Painter, decorative designer, print publisher. Historical subjects. Church decoration.

A pupil of Fr. Busti, Orsini continued his training in Rome with Masucci and Capriozzi. He became the director of the academy of Perugia and executed many of the chancel pictures in the cathedral of Perugia....

German family of painters, draughtsmen, and engravers. Georg Philipp Rugendas I, an esteemed painter and graphic artist in Augsburg, established a print publishing house there in 1735. His sons Georg Philipp Rugendas II (1701–74), Christian Rugendas (1708–81), and Jeremias Gottlob Rugendas (1710–72) helped with this business, as did their descendants, including Georg Philipp II’s grandson, the engraver ...

Italian family of engravers and print publishers, active in London. Luigi [Lewis, Louis] Schiavonetti (b Bassano, 1 April 1765; d London, 7 June 1810) was a pupil of the painter Giulio Golini before learning to engrave. It is said that he made some imitations of Francesco Bartolozzi’s works for the engraver Gaetano Testolini, who passed these off as his own and was invited to England by Bartolozzi, with Luigi following in 1790. The critic William Paulet Carey wrote that ‘although not a pupil of Bartolozzi’ Luigi ‘had the advantage of his opinions and example’; he proved to be one of the ablest engravers of the day, capable of working in stipple, line and with the etching needle. The best-selling Cries of London, a set of thirteen stipple-engravings after Francis Wheatley, published (1793–7) by Colnaghi’s, were engraved under the direction of Luigi, who carried out six himself. By ...