New Facts about James Walker in Russia

Abstract

The English mezzotint engraver James Walker (c. 1760 – c. 1823), a pupil of the famous Valentine Green, was invited to Russia by Empress Catherine the Great and spent nearly twenty years at her court, from 1784 to 1802. A number of English engravers – most of them mediocre – emigrated because of the fierce competition in Britain and the demand for their art on the Continent. Walker, however, was a notable exeption: one of the most eminent masters of mezzotint, he chose to link his destiny with Russia. The present article reports some new facts about Walker’s print production and life, gleaned from two unpublished mnuscripts on Russian-English artistic links compiled by Alexandra Müller in the 1920s or 1930s, preserved in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian national library, St Petersburg, and from entries in a contemporary Russian newspaper. An updated version of Anthony Cross’s 1993 list of Walker’s plates made in Russia is provided in the Appendix.