FAMOUS ENGRAVER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 June 1940, Page 3

FAMOUS ENGRAVER

WORK OF SAMUEL COUSINS. Samuel Cousins ,one of our most notable English engravers, was born at Exeter in 1801. and died in London on May 7. 1887. One of nine children, Samuel showed great taste for art even as a schoolboy, spending all his spare time making pencil sketches of engravings. One of these was displayed in a shop window, and a gentleman who saw it there was so pleased with it that he bought it, together with several others, and sent young Samuel off to get more skill at the Society of Arts. Before he was 11 Samuel had won the society's silver palette for a drawing of The Good Shepherd, and lie was only a year older when he won a medal for another picture. Coming to the notice of an engraver of note, he was apprenticed without his father having io pay the usual premium. which generally amounted to about £3OO. Encouraged by Sir Thomas Dyke Acland. Samuel made rapid progress. Alton finishing his apprenticeship he was assistant master lor lour years, earning £250 a year. He engraved portraits of Sir Joseph Banks and the Duchess of Gloucester, and his name was often linked with that of Reynolds. Elected an associate of the Royal Academy when 34. he spent the rest of his life engraving pictures. lie never married, one of his sisters keeping house for him.

Many of his prints and drawings are treasured at the British Museum, and he gave £15.000 to the Roya! Academy for the help of poor artists. Among his scores of engravings his portraits of Lady Acland. Queen Victoria receiving the Sacrament at her

Coronation, Sir Rdbert Peel, and Cardinal Newman take high rank; and he also engraved Millais’ Cherry Ripe. Simplicity by Reynolds, Landseer's Bolton Abbey, and The Maid of Saragossa.