3-047-109 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Richard Lane, A.R A., 1872. Engraving from a photograph by Charles Watkins. 'Mr. Richard James Lane...was one of the two engravers who were Associates in the old class of the Royal Academy of Arts; his election dating from 1828. Until 1866, the full honours of a Royal Academician were denied to engravers. The deceased gentleman, who was born in the year 1800, was a son of the Rev. Theophilus Lane, Prebendary of Hereford; his mother was a niece of Gainsborough, and by her, losing his father in early life, Richard Lane was chiefly educated. In 1816 he was apprenticed to Charles Heath, the line engraver, and practised that art till 1824, when he left it for lithography, and in this department gained a high degree of success. In the course of nearly fifty years he produced more than a thousand works, some of which have won a large share of popular favour, and have proved his merits as an artist. He was latterly engaged as superintendent of the etching class in the Government School of Art, at South Kensington. The literary attainments of Mr. R. Lane were not inconsiderable, as he showed in many essays and compositions of verse'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.