Edward Williams (engraver)
Edward Williams (c.1755-1797?) was an
Williams is said to have been born about 1755, though this is not certain, and he is said to have known the celebrated painter and engraver William Hogarth (1697-1764), which would make Williams about 9 years old when Hogarth died.[1] As 9 is the age during the Georgian era when many apprenticeships began, this means that Williams may have briefly studied under Hogarth. He eventually became an engraver as well and some of his work was subsequently published by the master of mezzotint engraving John Raphael Smith.
Williams became friends with the brothers
Williams produced several engravings of Rowlandson's caricatures, most notably A College Scene, and another titled Polygamy, a copy of which is in the Royal Collection. He also engraved an illustration by
Mary Ward within a few years left Edward Williams for another man, leaving behind their son, who was named after his father the engraver.[2] The younger Edward Williams went on to become a very successful landscape artist, following in the tradition of his artist uncle James Ward, but he is best known for raising six sons, all successful landscape painters in their own right, who are collectively known as the Williams family of painters. Edward Williams the engraver probably died in 1797 or before, as Henry Robert Morland, the father of George Morland, died that same year, and he is said before his death to have asked Mary Ward's brother James as to the circumstances of Edward Williams' demise.[5]
Notes
References
- Bryan, Michael (1889). Dictionary of Painters and Engavers. London: George Bell & Sons. v. II, 778 p.
- Fussell, G.E. (1974). James Ward R.A.: Animal Painter 1769-1859 and his England. London: Michael Joseph. p. 42. ISBN 9780718112424.
- Hassell, John (1808). Memoirs of the life of George Morland. Paternoster-Row, London: published by James Cundee.
- Reynolds, Jan (1975). The Williams family of painters. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors Club.