King Edgar with an Anglo Saxon Youth of distinction. (1815)

By: Etched by I. A. Atkinson, Aquatint by R. and D. Havell - Smith, Charles Hamilton

Size: 12.00 H x 9.50 W inches

Source: Ancient Costumes of England by Charles Hamilton Smith. Published by Bulmer, London

Item #: 80399

Hamilton Smith was artist, illustrator, soldier, and spy. During the Napoleonic Wars, he was a British officer and spent some time in active duty. Much of his career, however, was spent in the British Isles fulfilling assorted staff positions. During this time, his abilities as a self-taught artist shone. He produced, according to his own records, 38,000 drawings. The prints from this work feature both hand-colored engravings as well as aquatints. The plates were engraved by I. A. Atkinson based on the drawings by Smith and aquatinted by R. and D. Havell and J. Hill. "So far as our own country is concerned, the most important and epoch-making books on costume were those of Charles Hamilton Smith and Samuel Rush Meyrick, written as they were from the point of view of the antiquary and the scholar." Prideaux, Aquatint Engraving, 321.