"Line Engraver" William Bernard Cooke Hand Written Letter Dated 1824 For Sale

 Up for sale "Line Engraver" William Bernard Cooke Hand Written Letter Dated 1824.

ES-394A

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", 1825, Cockburn's "Pompeii", 1827, Stanfield's "Coast 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.