RARE "Line Engraver" William Bernard Cooke Hand Written Letter For Sale

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.