Gaywood, Richard

Richard Gaywood (fl. 1650–1680) was an English engraver and printmaker who became the most prolific etcher working for the London print trade during the tumultuous years between the English Civil Wars and the Restoration. A pupil of the renowned Wenceslaus Hollar, Gaywood mastered his teacher's distinctive style while developing a thriving practice creating portraits and book frontispieces for London's burgeoning publishing industry. Though noted more for quantity than quality, his extensive output made him an essential figure in mid-17th-century English printmaking. Gaywood maintained a close professional relationship with animal painter Francis Barlow, engraving many of Barlow's designs and becoming particularly noted for his etchings of birds and animals. This collaboration produced some of his finest work, demonstrating greater artistic merit than his more commercial portrait commissions. Much of Gaywood's work was produced for publisher Peter Stent, one of London's most active print dealers, ensuring wide distribution of his prints across England. The bulk of Gaywood's enormous output consisted of portraits and frontispieces for books, for which London publishers employed him extensively. His portrait subjects ranged across the political and cultural spectrum of Civil War and Restoration England, including Oliver Cromwell, James Shirley, George Monck (Duke of Albemarle), and William Drummond of Hawthornden, among many others. The National Portrait Gallery associates him with 102 portraits in their collection, testament to his productivity. While individual prints may lack the refinement of masters like Hollar, Gaywood's comprehensive visual documentation of mid-17th-century English society provides invaluable historical testimony. His active period from 1650–1680 places him at the heart of English printmaking during a transformative period in the nation's history.