William Dickinson (1746–1823) was an English
mezzotint engraver.
Life
He was born in London. Early in life he began to engrave in mezzotint, mostly caricatures and portraits after
Robert Edge Pine, and in 1767 he was awarded a premium by the
Society of Arts. In 1773 he commenced publishing his own works,[1] and in 1778 went into partnership with
Thomas Watson, who engraved in both stipple and mezzotint, and who died in 1781.[2]
Dickinson appears to have been still carrying on the business of a printseller in 1791 in London, but he later moved to Paris, where he continued to engrave, making prints for the new regime and then for Napoleon; in 1814 Thomas Lawrence and Benjamin West visited him in Paris, the latter trying to persuade him to come back to London to engrave his paintings.[3]
He died in the summer of 1823 and[2] his death was noted in the Gentleman's Magazine[4] in September of that year.
Lydia (1776), by William Dickinson after
William Peters. This print edition of a painting commissioned by Richard Grosvenor, 1st Earl Grosvenor carried three lines from
John Dryden's Amphitryon:
This is the mould of which I made the Sex
I gave them but one Tongue to say us Nay,
And two kind Eyes to grant.
John Chaloner Smith in his British Mezzotinto Portraits described 96 plates by Dickinson. His major works were portraits, in particular those after
Sir Joshua Reynolds.[6] He also engraved portraits of:[2]
Lord-chancellor Thurlow (full-length), Admiral Lord Keppel, Thomas, lord Grantham, Sir Charles Hardy, Dr. Law, bishop of Carlisle, Isaac Reed, and Miss Ramus (afterwards Lady Day), after
George Romney;
George II (full-length), Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick,
David Garrick, Miss Nailer as "Hebe", Mrs. Yates (full-length),
John Wilkes (two plates), and
James Worsdale, after Robert Edge Pine;
Richard, first earl Grosvenor (full-length), after
Benjamin West;
the Duke and Duchess of York (two full-lengths), after
John Hoppner;
Mrs. Siddons as "Isabella" (full-length), after
Thomas Beach;
Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, and William, Lord Auckland, after
Sir Thomas Lawrence;
Samuel Wesley when a boy (full-length), after
John Russell;
Mrs. Gwynne and Mrs. Bunbury as the "Merry Wives of Windsor", after
Daniel Gardner;
Besides these he engraved a "Holy Family", after
Correggio; heads of
Rubens, Helena Forman (Rubens's second wife), and
Anthony van Dyck, after Rubens; "The Gardens of Carlton House, with Neapolitan Ballad-singers", after
Henry William Bunbury; "The Murder of David Rizzio" and "Margaret of Anjou a Prisoner before Edward IV", after
John Graham; "Lydia"," after
Matthew William Peters; and "Vertumnus and Pomona" and "Madness", after Pine, some of which are in the dotted style.[2] One of his most famous engravings was of
Henry William Bunbury's A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath, which he published in 1787 and which measured around 7 feet (2.1 m) in length.
The Dinner. Symptoms of Eating & Drinking after Henry William Bunbury, 1794
"A Smoking Club" After Henry Williams Bunbury; published by Samuel William Fores (1792)
After: Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (1772)
(after Robert Edge Pine) 1775
The meeting of Ulysses and Penelope 1788
Mrs. Gwynne and Mrs. Bunbury in the Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare)
Notes
^Maxted, Ian (1977). The London Book Trades1775-1780. Folkestone, England: Dawson. p. 66.
ISBN0-7129-0696-7.
^They include full-length portraits of George III in his coronation robes, Charles, duke of Rutland, Elizabeth, countess of Derby, Diana, viscountess Crosbie, Mrs. Sheridan as ‘St. Cecilia,’ Mrs. Pelham, Mrs. Mathew, Lord Robert Manners, and Richard Barwell and son; and three-quarter or half-length portraits of Jane, duchess of Gordon, Emilia, duchess of Leinster, Lady Charles Spencer, Lady Taylor, Richard, earl Temple, Admiral Lord Rodney, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore, Soame Jenyns, and the Hon. Richard Edgcumbe.