Description
Autograph Letter Signed ‘Francis Holl’, to J.D.Tomlinson, saying that “my price for engraving portraits similar to my Richmond heads is from sixty to seventy guineas according to the original, which price would include the cost of steel plate.” 2 pp., 7 x 4 inches, fine, one small marginal tear. 40 Gloucester Road, Regents Park, 25 July, watermark 1860. Francis Holl (1815-1884), the fourth son of the prominent engraver William Holl the Elder (c.1771-1838), to whom he was apprenticed. The engraver William Holl the Younger was his brother. He was both successful and fashionable, producing work for book and print publishers. He spent 25 years engraving Queen Victoria’s pictures during which period he executed commissions of other royal portraits. Often working from paintings by fashionable artists, he exhibited 20 engravings at the Royal Academy between 1856 and 1883, and was elected an associate engraver in 1883.