John Samuel Agar (1773 – 1858) after John Uwins (1782 – 1857)

Doctors in Divinity, Esquire Beadle, and Yeoman Beadle (1815)

Hand-coloured aquatint

25 x 30 cm

Published by Rudolph Ackermann (1764 – 1834).

An engraving of two Doctors in Divinity and two beadles (administrative assistants to the Chancellor and Proctors of the University) from Ackermann’s ”A History of the University of Cambridge, Its Colleges, Halls and Public Buildings”. The four figures walk forward with ceremonial accoutrements, likely to a graduation ceremony.

Thomas Uwins RA RWS was a British painter in watercolour and oil, and a book illustrator. He became a full member of the Old Watercolour Society and a Royal Academician, and held a number of high-profile art appointments including the librarian of the Royal Academy, Surveyor of Pictures to Queen Victoria and the Keeper of the National Gallery. In the late 1790s he began producing work for Ackermann”s collections.

John Samuel Agar was an English portrait painter and engraver, who exhibited his works at the Royal Academy from 1796 to 1806 and at the British Institution until 1811. He was at one time president of the Society of Engravers. Rudolph Ackermann published many of his engravings.

Rudolph Ackermann was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman. In 1795 he established a print-shop and drawing-school at 96 Strand. Here Ackermann set up a lithographic press and began a trade in prints. He later began to manufacture colours and thick carton paper for landscape and miniature painters. Within three years the premises had become too small and he moved to 101 Strand, in his own words “four doors nearer to Somerset House”, the seat of the Royal Academy of Arts. Between 1797 and 1800 Ackermann rapidly developed his print and book publishing business, encompassing many different genres including topography, caricature, portraits, transparencies and decorative prints.

Condition: good. Some age toning.

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