Description
Autograph Letter Signed, to Alaric Watts, agreeing to engrave a plate for him. 1 page 8 x 5 inches, with the integral address leaf, mounted on an old album page, in good condition. 42 Cirencester Place, Fitzroy Square, 15 October 1831. John Pye (1782-1874), landscape engraver. In 1801 John Pye went to London with his cousin, William Radclyffe, and became a paid assistant of James Heath, to whom his elder brother was articled. He was employed on works of natural history and in engraving the backgrounds of book illustrations. Pye made a career of illustrations to popular annuals and pocket-books. In 1830, at the request of John Sheepshanks, he undertook the publication of a series of engravings from pictures in the National Gallery during the 1830s. He retired in 1858.