WILLIAM

See also:

• WILLIAM FINDEN (1787—1852)

FINDEN (1787—1852)  , English line engraver, was born in 1787 . He served his apprenticeship to one James Mitan, but appears to have owed far more to the influence of James Heath, whose works he privately and earnestly studied . His first employment on his own account was engraving illustrations for books, and among the most noteworthy of these early plates were Smirke's illustrations to Don Quixote . His neat style and smooth finish made his pictures very attractive and popular, and although he executed several large plates, his chief work through-out his life was book illustration . His younger brother, Edward Finden, worked in conjunction with him, and so much demand arose for their productions that ultimately a company of assistants was engaged, and plates were produced in increasing numbers, their quality as works of art declining as their quantity rose . The largest plate executed by William Finden was the portrait of King George IV. seated on a sofa,after the painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence . For this work he received two thousand guineas, a sum larger than had ever before been paid for an engraved portrait . Finden's next and happiest works on a large scale were the " Highlander's Return " and the "Village Festival," after Wilkie . Later in life he undertook, in co-operation with his brother, aided by their numerous staff, the publication as well as the production of various galleries of engravings . The first of these, a series of landscape and portrait illustrations to the life and works of Byron, appeared in 1833 and following years, and was very successful . But by his Gallery of British Art (in fifteen parts, 1838-184o), the most costly and best of these ventures, he lost the fruits of all his former success . Finden's last undertaking was an engraving on a large scale of Hilton's " Crucifixion." The plate was bought by the Art Union for £1470 .

He died in

London on the loth of September 1852 .