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Up for sale "Line Engraver" William Bernard Cooke Hand Written Letter Dated 1824.
ES-394A
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", 1825, Cockburn's "Pompeii", 1827, Stanfield's "Coast 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.