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Dickinson, William
(b London, 1747; d Paris, 1823). English engraver and print publisher. He worked first for the painter Robert Edge Pine, exhibiting mezzotints of Pine’s pictures at the Society of Artists between 1769 and 1773. He then began publishing some of his own mezzotints independently: his portrait of Joseph Banks (Chaloner Smith, no. 4), made in 1774, was the first of 22 excellent mezzotints made after Sir Joshua Reynolds, 12 of which appeared during the 1770s. His 100 or so portrait mezzotints were well drawn and finely scraped; their brilliance was often enhanced by the use of warm brown inks. From 1776 to 1781 Dickinson published prints with Thomas Watson from New Bond Street, London; they engraved and published stipples as well as mezzotints and became the principal publishers of humorous stipples after the amateur artist Henry William Bunbury. In the decade after 1783 Dickinson engraved only two mezzotint portraits, while publishing plates by other engravers, such as his pupil George Keating (1762–1842) and Charles Knight. He bought or commissioned some 30 plates by Francesco Bartolozzi, including the well-known Resurrection of a Pious Family (1790), after one of a pair of pictures by the Rev. Matthew William Peters, which Dickinson had purchased and exhibited in 1788; he was one of the first to publish prints after the rustic genre scenes of George Morland. Dickinson eventually overreached himself and was declared bankrupt on 13 April 1793; his stock, including some 400 plates, was auctioned (London, Christie’s, 14–20 Feb 1794). He subsequently engraved a few mezzotints, but it was not until he moved to Paris sometime after 1800 that his talents as an engraver found further expression. During his career there he produced some accomplished plates, including the full-length Mme Talleyrand (Le Blanc, no. 42) after François Gérard and Malvina after Elisabeth Harvey ( fl 1802–12).
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