Key Information
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Reeve, Richard
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1780-1835
History
English aquatint-engraver. He was apprenticed to the line engraver John Paas ( fl c1770-1805) on 15 March 1795 and enrolled in the Royal Academy Schools on 3 February 1801. He was soon established as one of the leading aquatint-engravers, at first publishing most of his prints himself. His main early work was ten sets, each of four prints, of sporting subjects after Dean Wolstenholme (1757-1837) which he published between 1806 and 1814. After about 1815 he worked for other publishers, both on singly issued sporting prints and on illustrated books, notably for David Cox's Treatise of Landscape Painting (London, 1813-14) and William Henry Pyne's The History of the Royal Residences (London, 1816-19). He appears to have stopped engraving about 1820. His son Richard Gilson Reeve (1803-89) began to sign plates from about 1826, at first as "Reeve Junr" but thereafter as "R. G. Reeve", and most authorities have failed to distinguish between their work. The younger man worked on illustrated books such as William Westall's and S. Owen's (1769-1857) A Picturesque Tour of the River Thames (London, 1828). Richard Gilson Reeve's brother, Augustus William Reeve (c1807-1880), also worked in aquatint.