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Up for sale a RARE! "Line Engraver" William Bernard Cooke Hand Written Letter dated 1822.
ES-2235
William Bernard Cooke (1778
– 2 August 1855), was an English line engraver.
Cooke
was born in London in 1778. He was the elder brother of George Cooke (1781–1834),
and became a pupil of William Angus (1752–1821),
the engraver of the "Seats of the Nobility and Gentry in Great Britain and
Wales". After the termination of his apprenticeship he obtained employment
upon the plates for Brewer's "Beauties of England and Wales", and
then undertook the publication of "The Thames" which was completed in
1811, and for which he engraved almost all the plates after Samuel Owen.
His
most important work was the "Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of
England", chiefly from drawings by Turner, which he produced between 1814 and 1826, conjointly
with his brother, George Cooke, and for which he executed no less than
twenty-two plates, besides many vignettes. He also engraved after Turner
"The Source of the Tamar" and "Plymouth", and in 1819 five
plates of "Views in Sussex" which were published with explanatory
notices by R. R. Reinagle. Besides
these he engraved "Storm clearing off", after Copley Fielding, for the Gallery of the Society of
Painters in Watercolours,' 1833, as well as plates for Ebenezer Rhodes's "Peak Scenery", 1818, Peter De Wint's "Views in the South of France, chiefly on
the Rhone", Scenery" 1836, Noel Humphreys's
"Rome and its surrounding Scenery" 1840, and other works. He likewise
published "A new Picture of the Isle of Wight" 1812, and
"Twenty-four select Views in Italy" 1833.
He
was an engraver of considerable ability, and excelled especially in marine
views, but the works which he published did not meet with much success. He died
at Camberwell of heart disease, on 2 August 1855, aged 77.