Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. Adelphi.

Method Aquatint with hand colouring
Artist John Bluck after Augustus Charles Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson
Published [London Pub July 1st 1809 at R. Ackermann's Repository of Arts 101 Strand]
Dimensions Image 200 x 260 mm, Sheet 218 x 270 mm
Notes Plate 71 from Vol 3 of the 'Microcosm of London', 1809. The scene shows the interior of the Great Room in the Adelphi, during a meeting in which a presentation is taking place. Large paintings by James Barry entitled "The progress of human knowledge and culture" cover the walls of the room, with rows of people on curved seating watching the presentation.

Thomas Rowlandson (1756 - 1827) was an English watercolourist and caricaturist. Born in London, the son of a weaver, Rowlandson studied at the Soho Academy from 1765. On leaving school in 1772, he became a student at the Royal Academy and made the first of many trips to Paris where he may have studied under Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. In 1775 he exhibited the drawing Dalilah Payeth Sampson a Visit while in Prison at Gaza at the Royal Academy and two years later received a silver medal for a bas-relief figure. As a printmaker Rowlandson was largely employed by the art publisher Rudolph Ackermann, who in 1809, issued in his Poetical Magazine The Schoolmaster's Tour, a series of plates with illustrative verses by Dr. William Combe. Proving popular, the plates were engraved again in 1812 by Rowlandson himself, and issued under the title The Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of the Picturesque. By 1813 the series had attained a fifth edition, and was followed in 1820 by Dr Syntax in Search of Consolation, Third Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of a Wife in 1821 and also in the same year by The history of Johnny Quae Genus, the little foundling of the late Doctor Syntax. Rowlandson also illustrated work by Smollett, Goldsmith and Sterne, and for The Spirit of the Public Journals (1825), The English Spy (1825), and The Humorist (1831).

John Bluck (1791 - 1832) was a British printmaker and engraver, specialising in aquatint.

Augustus Charles Pugin (1762 - 1832) was a topographical draughtsman and etcher. He was the father of the artist and architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.

Rudolph Ackermann (1764 - 1834) was a lithographer and publisher born in Saxony. He moved to London in 1787 and later established a business as a coachmaker at 7 Little Russell Street, Covent Garden. In 1796, having already published the first of many books of carriage designs, he moved to 96 Strand where he ran a drawing school for ten years. The following year, Ackermann moved to 101 Strand (known, from 1798, as The Repository of Arts) where he sold old master paintings and artists' supplies as well as prints. In 1803, 220 Strand was given as his address in a print published that year. The Microcosm of London (1808-10) and the monthly Repository of Arts (1809-29) established his reputation for fine colour plate books. From 1816, he began to publish lithographs. Ackermann always maintained links with his native Germany, and in the 1820s, he also opened outlets in Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, and Peru. In 1832, he handed the running of the business over to his second son George and his younger brothers, who traded as Ackermann & Co.at 106 The Strand until 1861. Ackermann also established a print business for his eldest son Rudolph at 191 Regent Street.

Condition: Vertical centrefold, trimmed within platemark, toning to sheet.
Framing unmounted
Price £75.00
Stock ID 48789

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