# William Home Lizars artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/william-home-lizars/
Profile generated: 2026-05-24T21:42:09.401Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Nationality: Scottish
- Common media: engraving, painting

## About William Home Lizars

William Home Lizars (1788–1859) was a Scottish painter, engraver, and publisher active in the first half of the nineteenth century. Based in Edinburgh and later active in London by 1841, Lizars built a reputation as a skilled copperplate engraver and printmaker. He operated a publishing house that produced illustrated works, contributing to the era’s growing market for engraved natural history and topographical volumes. As both an artist and a publisher, Lizars occupied a distinctive position in the British print trade, producing original paintings alongside engraved editions that reached a wide audience. His work is recorded in major library and art-history authority files, including the Getty Union List of Artist Names, VIAF, the RKD, and the Library of Congress.

## Common works and media

Lizars is most commonly encountered in auction and appraisal contexts as an engraver of copperplate prints, including natural history illustrations, topographical views, and book plates. He also produced original oil and watercolor paintings. Published engraved editions from his house are the most frequently seen works. Collectors may find individual prints extracted from larger illustrated volumes, as well as bound sets.

## Market and appraisal context

William Home Lizars’s work appears at auction primarily as engraved prints and, less frequently, as original paintings. For collectors, the key valuation factors include whether a print is an original lifetime impression or a later restrike, the quality of the copperplate engraving, paper condition and age, plate dimensions, and documented provenance. Paintings by Lizars are comparatively rare on the market. Attribution should be confirmed through plate signatures, publisher marks, or comparison with documented works in RKD or museum holdings.

## Appraisily data basis

This Appraisily artist page draws on identity data from the Getty Union List of Artist Names, VIAF, the RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, Wikidata, and the Library of Congress authority file. Market context is supplemented by Appraisily’s internal auction-lot records and sale-history data where available. Valuation guidance reflects general factors applicable to the artist’s documented mediums and period, not specific price predictions.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1616131
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Home_Lizars
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500030357
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/284919/
- RKD - Netherlands Institute for Art History: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/50446
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n83232733