James Walker (engraver)

James Walker (1748–1808?) was a British mezzotint engraver.

Life

The son of a captain in the merchant navy, Walker became a pupil of Valentine Green.^[1]

In 1784 he went to St. Petersburg, appointed engraver to the Empress Catherine II. He remained in Russia till 1802, engraving portraits of the imperial family and of the Russian aristocracy, as well as pictures by Old Masters in the imperial collection. Walker's appointment as court engraver was renewed by the Emperor Alexander I, and he was a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts at St. Petersburg. He returned to England with a pension in 1802.^[1]

Walker is said to have died about 1808.^[1]

Works

Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia and Emperor Alexander I, engraving by James Walker after Johann-Baptist Lampi the Elder

Walker's earliest published plate bears the date 2 July 1780. During the following three years he published: portraits, after George Romney and others; domestic scenes, The Spell, and The Village Doctress, after James Northcote; a scene from Cymbeline, after Edward Penny.^[1]

Many of Walker's plates were lost by shipwreck off Great Yarmouth, when Walker returned to England in 1802. A list of those was given in the catalogue of a sale of his remaining plates and impressions from the lost plates, at Sotheby's, on 29 November 1822. A portrait of Alexander I was published after his return, on 1 May 1803.^[1]

A number of Walker's mezzotints were published for the first time in 1819, and one, The Triumph of Cupid, after Parmigianino, in 1822.^[1]

Notes

1.  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Walker, James (1748-1808?)". Dictionary of National Biography 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Walker, James (1748-1808?)". Dictionary of National Biography 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co.