Lady Cockburn and family, from Old English Masters
1897, printed 1902
Medium
Wood engraving on chine paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 43.5 × 34.5 cm (17 3/16 × 13 5/8 in.)
Classification
wood engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
77295
Art Historical Context
Step into the refined world of 18th-century British portraiture with *Lady Cockburn and Family*, a masterful 1897 wood engraving by Timothy Cole, printed in 1902. This faithfully reproduces Sir Joshua Reynolds' celebrated 1774-75 oil painting, capturing Lady Cockburn, wife of a prominent Scottish judge, tenderly cradling her young sons amid lush drapery and symbolic flora. Featured in Cole's *Old English Masters* series it celebrates the elegance of Georgian aristocracy and maternal devotion, evoking the grandeur of Reynolds' Grand Manner style. Cole, a leading American wood engraver of his e...
About the Artist
Timothy Cole
Timothy Cole (1852–1931) was one of the most celebrated wood engravers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, renowned for his extraordinary ability to translate the tonal richness of Old Master paintings into the exacting medium of engraved wood. Born in London, England, Cole emigrated with his family to the United States in 1858. He began his career as a wood engraver in Chicago, but t...