Edward William Cooke, RA,  British 1811-1880-  A collection

Lot description

Edward William Cooke, RA, British 1811-1880- A collection of 61 drawings, including maritime and architectural studies; pencil on paper, one pen and ink on paper, one watercolour on paper, variously signed and inscribed, some on shared mounts; together with seven prints engraved by Cooke of 'Views of London and its Vicinity', sixty-eight (68), (unframed). Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: Edward William Cooke was born into an artistic family, the son of the engraver George Cooke (1781-1834). He was a talented child artist and by the age of nine was already executing wood engravings of plants for publication. At the age of fourteen he met Clarkson Stanfield, RA (1793-1867) and began a lifelong interest in sketching boats. He also began to study architecture under Augustus Pugin (1812-1852), but did not pursue this as he preferred marine subjects. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1851 and a full member in 1864. The other great interests in his life were botany and geology, and he was elected a Fellow of the Linnaean Society in 1857, Fellow of the Geological Society in 1862, and Fellow of the Royal Society (an unusual accolade for a painter) in 1863. Cooke was an inveterate traveller, visiting Europe on many occasions between 1824 and 1879 (for further details see J. Munday, 'E.W. Cooke 1811-1880 A Man of his Time', Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1996, p.364, appendix 4) and a dedicated diarist, beginning when he was 17 and continuing until a few weeks before his death.