Artists
William Henry Bartlett
William Henry Bartlett, best known for his numerous steel engravings, was born in Kentish Town, London, of middle class parents, and was apprenticed in 1822 to the architect and antiquarian, John Britton (1771-1857). There he studied and copied architectural drawings of the past and present and, with Britton, visited noted ruins in England from which he made detailed sketches to be engraved for some of Britton's own publications.
In 1829, after his apprenticeship ended, he continued to work for Britton as a journeyman although he also provided sketches for other London publishers. He sent 108 sketches in pen, pencil, and sepia wash to engravers who had been trained by the artist Turner. The sale of thousands of prints made from these plates established his reputation as one of the foremost illustrators of topography of his generation.
Bartlett subsequently travelled extensively which led to illustrations for works on Syria, the Holy Land and Asia Minor, the Mediterranean coast, northern Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium, Scotland, Ireland, the coastal areas of Britain, the Bosphorus, the Danube, the United States, and Canada. Between 1835 and 1852 he made four visits to the United States in order to draw the buildings, towns and scenery of the northeastern states. The finely detailed steel engravings he produced were published uncolored by George Virtue (London) with a text by Nathaniel Parker Willis as American Scenery; or Land, Lake, and River: Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature. His impressions of Canada were collected in Canadian Scenery (1842)
Bartlett's primary concern was to render "lively impressions of actual sights", as he wrote in the preface to The Nile Boat (London, 1849) Many of his views contain some ruin or element of the past including many scenes of churches, abbeys, cathedrals and castles. Depicting landscape and people as they appeared at the time, his works have considerable historical value.
William Henry Bartlett died, aged 45, of fever on board of a French ship off the coast of Malta whilst returning from a trip to Israel. He was buried at sea.
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