Directory of printmakers
Robinson, Robert (active 1674-d. 1706) Robinson was a member of the Painter-Stainers’ Company, and his primary activity was as a decorative artist, specialising in exotic landscape interiors of which examples survive at Sir John Cass’s School in the City of London and Carshalton House, Surrey. In addition, he produced mezzotints, usually also of architectural caprices and other imaginative compositions.
Rogers, William (active c. 1589-1604) ‘The greatest of the English engravers in the Tudor period’ (Hind, Engraving in England, vol. 1, p. 258), Rogers produced a number of important portraits of royalty and others as well as various engraved book illustrations, including the illustrations to Hugh Broughton’s Concent of Scripture (1590). His engraved title-pages include that for the 1600 edition of Camden’s Britannia. His Armada portrait of Elizabeth I, Eliza triumphans, is the earliest signed and dated engraving by an Englishman.
Rupert, Prince
(1619-82) Nephew of Charles I and a military and naval commander in the Civil War, Rupert’s
first etchings date from 1636, and he took a more sustained interest in the technique during
the Interregnum. In 1654, he was shown a novel method of preparing a plate by a military
officer, Ludwig von Siegen, and Rupert refined the technique and thus laid the foundation
for mezzotint.
Ryther, Augustine (active c. 1576-95) Ryther is said to have hailed from Leeds, where he was probably acquainted with Christopher Saxton from his youth, and he engraved various maps for Saxton and others. His most important work was the set of plates illustrating the defeat of the Spanish Armada, two copies of which survive bound with copies of Saxton’s Atlas of England and Wales, with which they may have been issued.