Edward Rooker

Edward Rooker (c. 1712 – 22 November 1774) was an English engraver, draughtsman and actor.

Rooker was born in Towcester in Northamptonshire around 1712, to Michael and Ann Rooker, and was a pupil of Henry Roberts, a landscape engraver. He became celebrated for his architectural plates, which he executed in an extremely rich and artistic style. Art historian Horace Walpole termed him the "Marc Antonio" of architecture.

Among Rooker's early works are a view on the Thames from Somerset House (1750), and a view of Vauxhall Gardens (1751), both after Canaletto; a view of the Parthenon for Dalton's 'Views of Sicily and Greece' (1751), and a section of St. Paul's Cathedral, decorated according to the original intention of Sir Christopher Wren, from a drawing by J. Gwyn and S. Wale (1755).

Rooker also contributed plates to Sir William Chambers' 'Civil Architecture' (1759) and 'Kew Gardens' (1763), James Stuart's 'The Antiquities of Athens and Other Monuments of Greece' (1762), and Robert Adam's 'Ruins of the Palace of Diocletian at Spalatro' (1764).

Perhaps Rooker's finest work is a set of six views of London, engraved in the manner of Piranesi from drawings by Paul and Thomas Sandby, which he published himself in 1766. In that year he also drew and engraved a large view of Blackfriars Bridge, then in course of construction. He engraved many landscapes after William Pars, Paul Sandby, Richard Wilson, and others. He also etched, in conjunction with Sandby, three of the set of six large plates of subjects from Tasso's "Gerusalemme Liberata" (painted by John Collins [c. 1725 - c. 1759]).

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