Robert Woodlark, Founder of Catherine Hall, Cambridge from a Picture at the Hall (1815)

Hand-coloured aquatint

24 x 20 cm

Published by Rudolph Ackermann (1764 – 1834). A copy of this engraving is held by the National Portrait Gallery, reference NPG D4871.

Robert Woodlark (also spelt Wodelarke) was an English academic and priest. He was the Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and the founder of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. He drew up the original statutes for the governance of the college and obtained a charter from Edward IV, 16 August 1475. Woodlark was a professor of sacred theology at the University and served as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1459 to 1460, and again from 1462 to 1463.

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 gentle age toning. Handsome gilded frame with elaborate wash line mount.

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