Richard Cooper II, (1740 - 1814). Scottish Engraver.
The London addresses from the British Museum Website.
Peter's Court, lower end of the broad pavement, St. Martin's Lane (1761) [the broad pavement was on the upper west side of St Martin's Lane].
2 St. Peter's Court, on the pavement, St. Martin's Lane
(1763 - 64).
Great Russell Street, facing Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury
(1778-9)
24 Edward Street, London (1782-3)
Charles Street, St James's Square (1787-1805)
103 Mount Street (1807-8)
95 Mount Street (1809).
Richard Cooper II (1740 - 1814) Landscape draughtsman and printmaker; born in Edinburgh, son and pupil of Richard Cooper I (1701 - 64).
22 August 1755. Richard junior (aged 15!) appears in the accounts of Lord Glenorchy, later 3rd Earl of Bredalbane. “To Cooper, the engraver’s son who came with me from Edinburgh to draw views of the place [Taymouth Castle]. 3 guineas” [£256.65]. [NAS. MSS account, GD112/21/79. Also GD112/15/345, Items 22.
see - https://www.academia.edu/97549330/Life_Chronology_of_the_engraver_Richard_Cooper_senior_1701_1764_
and 26. Cooper paid 10/6 for paper and colours when he 'was
called to Taymouth in July and August last.' (1756).]
Richard Cooper junior is in London. [Letter from Charles Grenville to his uncle, Sir William Hamilton dated 1st April 1761. BL. Add. MS 41,197.]
15 September 1762. Richard Cooper I signed, in London, a Disposition, giving
all of his property to his wife and children and failing his children, to his
wife and sister, Elizabeth. Witnessed by John Sage in the Parish of St. Vedast
Foster, Haberdasher and John McArthur, writer in Edinburgh 'inserter of the
place, date and witness names'. [NRS. B22/8/128 unpaginated. Disposition dated
15 September 1762, probate, 28 January 1764.]
Exhibited in London, Incorporated Society of Artists 1761, 1764, 1783 and Free Society in 1761, 1762;
Visited Italy, 1771-3(6?) [see Ingamells,Yale. 1997], where he produced a series of drawings; in London again by 1777, and exhibited at RA until 1809; published aquatints.
1778-79; drawing master to Queen Charlotte and at Eton
College; historical engraver and later lithographer.
.....................
Portrait of Richard Cooper Jnr.
John Downman (1750 - 1784).
Chalk and stump.
1777.
(Fitzwilliam Museum).
.....................
For the life Richard Cooper I, see-
I have quoted extensively from this piece here -
Until recently, Richard Cooper's biography was based almost entirely on the Memoirs of his most famous pupil, Sir Robert Strange, published in 1855.
Written after the events they described, Strange had a patchy memory of his master's early years According to him, Cooper was born in London and was 'bred under Pine, an engraver', presumed to be John Pine (1690-1756), although no record of any apprenticeship has been found.
Strange also said that Cooper inherited a substantial sum on the death of his father and as a result, spent some time in Italy, passing 'several years in Rome'. The destruction of Cooper's family effects in a warehouse fire in the nineteenth century makes it difficult to verify any of this.
It seems certain that he was indeed born in London as his earliest known work is a bookplate for George Baillie of Jerviswood dated 1724, the account settled in London in 1725.
Cooper senior may have attended Merchant Taylors’ School, leaving in 1711-12 aged 15 and his association with John Pine presumably began soon afterwards.
There is some new evidence to suggest that Cooper may have been associated with the first St. Martin’s Lane Academy, in London, the cradle of the rococo style in Britain.
The name ‘Cooper’ appears in George Vertue’s retrospective (1742/3) list of members of the Rose and
Crown Club and Illaria Bignamini has pointed out that this is probably the ‘Wm. Cooper’who appears in Vertue’s list of subscribers to the first St. Martin’s Lane Academy in 1720.
This may be Richard's uncle, William about whom nothing is yet known. The first St. Martin's Lane Academy was formed in October 1720, under the direction of Louis Cheron (1660-1725) and John Vanderbank (1694-1739). Cheron was an important figure who had studied at the Académie Royale in Paris under Charles Le Brun (1619 - 90) and won the Prix de Rome in 1676 and 1678. He has only recently been recognised for introducing design for manufactures, the tradition of the French Académie, into British art.
The academy and the London art clubs attracted a number of Scottish supporters and one of the most significant projects to emerge from the Rose and Crown Club was a suite of ten engravings illustrating The Life of Charles I, published between 1722 and 1728.
An album of drawings in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery contains works by Cooper and drawings from his teaching collection, some by the 'great masters' as Strange put it, which he collected while abroad. There is one grey/blue sheet in the album, drawn in black chalk and Sepia wash, heightened with white, that is very similar to the large studies by Cheron in red chalk, also on grey or blue paper, washed in Sepia, in the print room of the British Museum and this drawing could be his work.
As further evidence for Cooper's contact with the London academies, he sat for his portrait to George Englehart Schröder (1684-1750), a leading member of the first St. Martin's Lane Academy. This was later published in mezzotint, possibly by Cooper himself, to announce his arrival in the Scottish capital. (Fig. 5). The timing of the portrait is significant. Louis Cheron died in 1725, at which point Schröder returned permanently to his native Sweden and shortly afterwards Cooper arrived in Scotland.
Robert Strange noted: 'The arrival of such a stranger was no small acquisition to Edinburgh, where the
arts had languished, or where, more properly speaking, they
had never had
been introduced ... in a short time, he enlarged the circle
of his acquaintances
amongst many of the nobility and principal gentry of that
country. All, as if by
one consent, solicited his remaining, and many had already
tendered to him
their friendships and good offices'.
....................
In later life he does not appear to have spent much time in London.
...................
For an excellent very detailed chronological history of Richard Cooper I.
https://www.academia.edu/97549330/Life_Chronology_of_the_engraver_Richard_Cooper_senior_1701_1764_
se also
For a series of drawings made in Ialy 1771 - 75 with London Dealers Abbott and Holder see
https://www.abbottandholder.co.uk/richard-cooper-italian-drawings/
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