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C. W. Cope by PRICE, William Lake (1810-1896)
Price:
$4,800.00
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Book description: London: Published by Lloyd Brothers & Co., circa 1858. Albumin photograph mounted on card as issued. Very good condition apart from some light soiling in the margins. 14 x 9 5/8 inches. 19 1/4 x 14 3/16 inches. A stunning image from the series "Portraits of Eminent British Artists" by one of the leading figures of early Victorian photography. This beautiful photograph pictures the accomplished historical painter Charles West Cope (1811-1890) engaged in the act of sketching. The son of the landscape watercolorist Charles Cope, Charles West attended numerous primary schools before entering the Royal Academy 1828. He accompanied his close friend Cornelius Harrison to Paris in 1832, where he executed copies of works by the Old Masters in the Louvre. After exhibiting his first work at the Royal Academy in 1833, he traveled around Italy for almost two years. Upon returning to London, he continued to paint primarily historical subjects and became an original member of the Etching Club. After winning an initial 1843 design competition for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, Cope was awarded numerous commissions to execute large historical wall frescoes in the House of Lords. He became immersed in the art of fresco painting and traveled to Italy and Munich in 1845 to further familiarize himself with the technical methods of this art. In 1867, he became a professor of painting at the Royal Academy, where he continued to exhibit until 1882. In his later years, Cope penned his autobiography Reminiscences, which was completed in 1889. An architectural and topographical artist by training, William Lake Price was an innovator in the field of mid-nineteenth century photography, who revolutionized the combination printing technique. He was a pupil of the eminent architect Augustus Charles Pugin (1762-1832) and frequently exhibited his paintings and watercolours at the Royal Academy and Old Watercolour Society before taking up photography in 1854. He also published a number of illustrated books such as Interiors and Exteriors in Venice (1843). Despite his success as a painter, Price began to avidly pursue his interest in photography in the mid-1850s and joined the London Photographic Society and Photographic Exchange Club of London. He became active in the field during a key period in the evolution of British photography, which was still a relatively new science, into a commercial art form. He truly exemplified the growing phenomenon of the artist/photographer. His first photographs were primarily genre scenes, one of which appeared in the society's Photographic Album for the Year 1855. He also photographed historical and literary scenes as well as numerous portraits, many of which were published in an ambitious 1858 collection entitled Portraits of Eminent British Artists. That same year, he published Manual of Photographic Manipulation, a practical, instructional work most likely intended for the amateur photographer, another recently developed phenomenon made possible by Frederick Scott Archer's introduction of the easily mastered collodion process in 1851. Price's photographic works were well received by the public, and he soon became a chief proponent of the combination printing technique, which he innovatively used to produce stunning compositions. He also experimented with stereoscopic pictures. His photographs can be found today in many collections, including The Cleveland Museum of Art and The Photographic Collection of the Royal Academy of Art, London. Cf. Dictionary of National Biography.
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