Edward Edwards (painter)

Edward Edwards ARA (7 March 1738 – 19 December 1806) was an English painter.

Edwards, the elder son of a chairmaker and carver, who had come from Shrewsbury, and settled in London, was born in London 7 March 1738. He was a weakly child, with distorted limbs, and remained of very small size all his life. At an early age he went to a French Protestant school, but at fifteen was removed in order to work at his father's business.

He worked up to eighteen with a Mr. Hallet, an upholsterer at the corner of St. Martin's Lane and Long Acre, drawing patterns for furniture. His father then sent him to a drawing school, and in 1759 he was admitted as a student into the Duke of Richmond's gallery. He lost his father in 1760, when the support of his mother and sister devolved upon him. Edwards took lodgings in Compton Street, Soho, and opened an evening school for drawing.

He lost his mother in 1800, but continued to support his sister until his death, at the age of 68. He was buried in St. Pancras churchyard. Edwards was a proficient in etching, and in 1792 published a set of fifty-two etchings. There is a volume in the print room of the British Museum containing others, and also some of his unsuccessful essays in that art. He designed numerous illustrations, wrote verses, and played the violin.

In 1761 he was admitted a student in the academy in St. Martin's Lane, where he studied from the life. In 1763 he was employed by John Boydell to make drawings for engravers, and in the following year succeeded in gaining a premium from the Society of Arts for the best historical picture in chiaroscuro, which he exhibited at the Free Society of Artists in the same year, the subject being The Death of Tatius. He subsequently exhibited with the Incorporated Society of Artists, of which body he became a member, quitting it, however, for the Royal Academy, where he exhibited for the first time in 1771, sending The Angel appearing to Hagar and Ishmael, and a portrait.

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