Background
John Cheney was born on October 20, 1801 at South Manchester, Connecticut, United States. He was the second son of George and Electa (Woodbridge) Cheney, and brother of Seth and Ward Cheney.
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John Cheney
Edit ProfileEducation
Cheney attended school and helped with the work on the farm and at the mill. He was interested in drawing and learned engraving from books; his first engraving was made on a piece of copper cut from an old kettle. He also constructed his own press.
Career
About 1820 Cheney went to Hartford where he worked with the engraver Willard but did not think that he learned anything. In 1826 he was in Boston, working at Pendleton’s lithographic shop, but it is not until 1827 that his first engraving was published as the frontispiece of The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell; it was entitled “Or lisps with holy look his evening prayer”. All his finished engravings are small; probably if his whole output were averaged up, the longest dimension would not be over four inches.
In 1829, he moved to New York where his brother Seth Wells joined him, studying drawing. In 1830, through the kindness of Joseph Howard of Providence, he was enabled to go to England, where he stayed for two years. The following year Seth joined him in Paris but fell ill, and the brothers thereupon returned to America. During his stay abroad John had made engravings for his publishers in Boston and Philadelphia.
On his return he settled in Boston, 1834-1837; in the following years he was in New York, in Philadelphia or, when tired of engraving, back at the old homestead. He continued to engrave until 1857, when the demand for fine small engravings was about over. The remainder of his life was spent at the old home or in travel, with a little time devoted to drawing and to his collection of engravings.
Rendered financially independent by his share in the silk-mill of his brothers at South Manchester, he passed his years calmly and serenely with little excitement or adventure. He liked to travel, and visited the upper Mississippi in 1837, Europe again in 1854, California in 1872-1874 and in 1882. He died in the house in which he was born.
S. R. Koehler said of Cheney's engraving works that they “are unexcelled of their kind—in delicacy where needed, in force and in suggestion of color where these are called for, in nobility and simplicity of workmanship always . .. he stands at the head of the engravers of his time in this country, and shoulder to shoulder with those of Europe. ” His work was undoubtedly of very high quality and if he had lived in the sixteenth century he would have been one of the “Little Masters, ” but living in the nineteenth century when line engraving was on the down grade he has been almost forgotten. A memorial exhibition of the work of John and Seth Wells Cheney was held in the Museum of Art, Boston, in 1893. This museum also owns a large collection of John Cheney’s engravings; other collections are in the United States National Museum and in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Achievements
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Cheney produced a few over a hundred finished plates and lithographs and with his brother Seth, twenty-one, after the outlines and sketches of Washington Allston, these being the largest plates which he worked on. Some of these were photographed by the daguerreotype method on to the engraver’s plate and there fixed by tracing the line through the silver. Among his best engraved works are such plates as “The Guardian Angels, ” “The Young Princess, ” “Lesbia, ” “The Orphans, ” “The Torn Hat, ” “Egeria, ” “Martha Washington, ” “Mrs. Blodgett, ” and many others.
Membership
In 1833, Cheney was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician.
Connections
Cheney never married.
References
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Born
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Died
August 20, 1885 (aged 84) -
Nationality
American