Frederick Christian Lewis (1779 – 1856) after Frederick Mackenzie (1788 – 1854)
Divinity School (1813)

Hand-coloured aquatint
24 x 29 cm

Published by Rudolph Ackermann (1764 – 1834).

Oxford’s medieval Divinity School, which was once the beating heart of theological studies at the University.

Frederick Mackenzie (circa 1788 – 1854) was a British watercolourist and architectural draughtsman. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1804, and contributed eleven drawings between that year and 1828. He contributed to the Society of Painters in Water Colours exhibitions from 1813, becoming an associate in 1822, and a full member the following year. From 30 November 1831 until, his death he was treasurer to the society. In later life Mackenzie was no longer commissioned to illustrate books.

Frederick Christian Lewis was an English etcher, engraver, and painter. He studied under Joseph Stadler and at the Royal Academy and produced the plates for the publisher John Chamberlaine’s ‘Original Designs of the most celebrated Masters in the Royal Collection’ in 1812. His superlative skills as engraver led to frequent commissions from Royalty, and to his contribution to J. M. W. Turner’s Liber Studiorum, a collection of seventy-one etchings with mezzotint, greatly influencing landscape painting.

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: Generally very good.

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