Edward Radclyffe
| Born | 1810 |
|---|---|
| Died | 1863 |
| Place of Birth | Birmingham |
| Place of Death | London |
| Gender | Male |
| Biographical Notes |
Engraver, the eldest son of William Radclyffe, was baptized on 1 August 1810 at St Phillip's, Birmingham. Taught engraving by his father and drawing by J. V. Barber, he showed early promise by some etchings done at Hazlewood School in 1823, and in 1824 he was awarded the Society of Arts silver Isis medal presented by the duke of Sussex for an etching of animals. The following year he was given the society's silver palette for an engraving of cattle. At the end of his apprenticeship he moved to London about 1831, and immediately set up on his own. One of his earliest steel plates was for Roscoe's Wanderings in … North Wales (1836). He was primarily a landscape and figure engraver, and worked extensively for Charles Heath in The Keepsake (1836–47), Heath's Book of Beauty (1839–47), Heath's Versailles (1836), and Heath's Picturesque Annuals. By 1838 he was sufficiently well established to marry Maria, the daughter of Major Revell of Round Oak, Englefield Green, Surrey. He contributed often a single plate to George Virtue's and H. Fisher's topographical volumes, although he engraved seven plates for Christopher Wordsworth's Greece (1839), eleven for E. W. Brayley's Topographical History of Surrey (1841–8), and nineteen for John D'Alton's History of Drogheda (1844). He engraved after contemporary artists, including Thomas Allom, W. H. Bartlett, Cattermole and Creswick. For the Art Journal he engraved seven plates published between 1848 and 1866, among them The Homeward Bound and Morning on the Sea Coast, both after F. R. Lee, and his last, Hay Time, after Cox. He engraved a number of plates after his brother Charles, eighteen of which were brought together in Robert Bell's compilation Golden Leaves (1863). He engraved views on Admiralty charts, of which The Persian Gulf was exhibited at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1862. After 1859 he returned to etching for eleven designs after Cox, 300 sets of which were given as prizes by the Art Union of London in 1862. He began a Liber Studiorum of Cox's work, but completed only three before his death. These were published in 1876 by the Liverpool Art Club in connection with their Cox exhibition by the print publishers. Radclyffe used mezzotint especially for four plates after Cox, two of castles and two of Welsh scenery. He exhibited six engravings at the Royal Academy between 1859 and 1863. He died on 25 November 1863 at his home in Camden Town, London, and was buried in Highgate cemetery. His plates were variously signed, probably on account of mistakes by writing engravers; variants were ‘E. Radcliffe’, ‘E. Ratcliffe’ and ‘E. Ratclyffe’. . B. Hunnisett, ‘Radclyffe, William (1783–1855)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22997, accessed 8 May 2013] |
Works
Images
Glendalough, Wicklow (Engraver)
The Cove of Cork (Engraver)
Donegal Castle (Engraver)