John Roffe (1769-1850)

John Roffe (1769-1850)

John Roffe belonged to a London family highly active as engravers over a number of generations. He specialized in architectural engraving, his most acclaimed works being the plates for Marbles in the British Museum (1812) and Murphy's The Arabian Antiquities of Spain. It is likely that part of his work has been confused with that of an identically named engraver, possibly a son, active between 1820 and 1861. The John Roffe who engraved Raeburn's 1808 portrait of Scott was also responsible for portraits of Byron and Thomas Campbell.

Bibliography

Bryan, Michael. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers: Biographical and Critical. New ed., rev. and enl., ed. Robert Edmund Graves (London: G. Bell, 1886-1889)
Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (London: Printed by order of the Trustees, 1908-25)
Hunnisett, Basil. A Dictionary of British Steel Engravers (Leigh-on-Sea: F. Lewis, 1980)
Redgrave, Samuel. A Dictionary of Artists of the English School: Painters, Sculptors, Architects with Notices of their Lives and Work (London: G. Bell, 1878)
Russell, Francis. Portraits of Sir Walter Scott: A Study of Romantic Portraiture (London: The Author, 1987)
The Scott Exhibition, MDCCCLXXI: Catalogue of the Exhibition Held at Edinburgh, in July and August 1871, on Occasion of the Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of Sir Walter Scott (Edinburgh: [s.n.], 1872)
Thieme, Ulrich, and Felix Becker (eds). Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler: von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig: Seemann, 1907-50)
Todd, William. B., and Ann Bowden. Sir Walter Scott: A Bibliographical History, 1796-1832 (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 1998)

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