Robert Charles Bell (1806-72)

Robert Charles Bell (1806-72)

The landscape, historical, and portrait engraver Robert Charles Bell was born in Edinburgh on 5 September 1806. He was apprenticed to the painter and engraver John Beugo and attended classes at the Trustees' Academy School of Art under Sir William Allan. His first major commission was for a series of Scottish views published in the 1830s by Joseph Swan of Glasgow. In the following decade he produced plates for the Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland, the Art Union of Scotland, and the National Art-Union for Ireland. Between 1850 and 1874, Bell published ten plates in the Art Journal after some of the most important historical and genre artists of the day, including Sir David Wilkie, Charles Robert Leslie, William Mulready, and John and Thomas Faed. He devoted many years of work to his largest and most significant plate, The Battle of Prestonpans after Sir William Allan, which was only completed shortly before his death in 1872.

Bell's commissions for the Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland included a number of illustrations to the works of Scott. Between 1865 and 1882 the Association brought out annual volumes for its own members, each devoted to a particular work by Scott and featuring six to eight engravings of scenes by leading historical genre artists. For the volume dedicated to Waverley (1865), Bell engraved The Hold of a Highland Robber after J. B. Macdonald and Bailie Macwheeble at Breakfast after James Eckford Lauder. For Guy Mannering (1866), he engraved The Capture of Dirk Hatteraick after Macdonald. For The Antiquary (1867), he engraved The Antiquary and Lovel Entering the Sanctum after Robert Herdman. For Rob Roy (1868), he engraved Diana Vernon and Frank Osbaldistone in the Library: The Glove Scene after Herdman. For Old Mortality (1869), he engraved Morton Awaiting his Death at the Hands of the Cameronians in the Farm-house of Drumshinnel after William Dougas. Finally, for The Pirate (1871), he engraved Sir Walter Scott in his Study at Castle Street after Sir John Watson Gordon. He had earlier contributed an engraving to another of the Association's annual publications, J. Noel Paton's illustrated edition (1860) of the traditional ballad 'The Dowie Dens of Yarrow' anthologized by Scott in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

Click on the thumbnails to see R. C. Bell's engravings after Robert Herdman for The Antiquary (left) and Rob Roy (right).

Bibliography

Engen, Rodney K. Dictionary of Victorian Engravers, Print Publishers and their Works (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey, c1979)
Graves. R. E. ‘Bell, Robert Charles (1806–1872)’, rev. Greg Smith, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2025, accessed 16 March 2009]
Guy, John C. Edinburgh Engravers, Book of the Old Edinburgh Club, vol. IX (Edinburgh: Old Edinburgh Club, 1916)
Hunnisett, Basil. A Dictionary of British Steel Engravers (Leigh-on-Sea: F. Lewis, 1980)
Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland. Eight Engravings in Illustration of 'Waverley': For the Members of the Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland ([Edinburgh: The Association], 1865)
Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland. Portrait of Sir Walter Scott: And Five Engravings in Illustration of 'The Pirate' ([Edinburgh: the Association], 1871)
Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland. Six Engravings in Illustration of 'Guy Mannering': For the Members of the Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland ([Edinburgh: the Association], 1866)
Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland. Six Engravings in Illustration of 'Old Mortality': For the Members of the Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland ([Edinburgh: the Association], 1869)
Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland. Six Engravings in Illustration of 'Rob Roy': For the Members of the Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland ([Edinburgh: the Association], 1868)
Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland. Six Engravings in Illustration of 'The Antiquary': For the Members of the Royal Association for Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland ([Edinburgh: the Association], 1867)
Thieme, Ulrich, and Felix Becker (eds). Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler: von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig: Seemann, 1907-50)

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