Joseph Andrews

Background

Joseph Andrews was born ca. 1805 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Ephraim and Lucy (Lane) Andrews, and a descendant in the eighth generation of Thomas Andrews who settled in Hingham prior to 1635.

Education

He was apprenticed at an early age (1821) to Abel Bowen, a Boston engraver, from whom he learned to engrave upon wood.

His instructions in intaglio or copperplate engraving were received from William Hoogland, one of the early American bank-note engravers, who, at that time, was working with Abel Bowen.

Career

In 1827 (or 1829) he became a member of the firm of Carter, Andrews & Company of Lancaster, Massachussets. This firm did a very prosperous engraving, printing, and publishing business, as many as fourteen engravers being employed at one time, most of whom were engravers on wood.

The firm failed as a result of the panic of 1833. "The Wicked Flee Where No Man Pursueth" is the title of what is said to have been Andrews's first steel plate. This he engraved in 1829, after the painting by Alvan Fisher.

Six years later, in 1835, he went to London, where he received instructions from the engraver, Joseph Goodyear. During the nine months he was thus engaged, he engraved, among other works, "Annette de l'Arbre, " after W. E. West. He went to Paris with his instructor and while there engraved a head of Benjamin Franklin from the Duplessis portrait now in the Boston Public Library, for the Works of Franklin, edited by Jared Sparks.

He returned to the United States, but again visited Europe in 1840. During this absence, which lasted two years, he engraved six portrait plates, for the Galerie Historique de Versailles, published in Paris under the auspices of Louis Philippe. One of these portraits was that of Cardinal Tencin.

At Florence he began the "Duke of Urbino, " after Titian, which he finished in the United States. In 1853 he went to Paris for the third time. In 1855 he commenced his chief plate, "Plymouth Rock, 1620, " engraved after the painting by Peter Frederick Rothermel. This plate occupied nearly half of his time for fourteen years. His other works include portraits of George Washington, after Gilbert Stuart; Oliver Wolcott, after Trumbull; John Quincy Adams; Zachary Taylor; Jared Sparks, after Stuart; Amos Lawrence, after Harding; Abbot Lawrence, engraved in conjunction with Thomas Kelly for the Whig Review, and James Graham, both after G. P. A. Healy; Charles Sprague; Thomas Dowse, after M. Wright; "Crossing the Ford, " after Alvan Fisher; "The Panther Scene, " after George Loring Brown; "Bargaining for a Horse, " after William S. Mount; "Parson Wells and His Wife"; "Christiana and Her Children in the Valley of Death, " after Daniel Huntington; "Saul and the Witch of Endor, " after Washington Allston; and "Pilgrim's Progress, " after Billings.

The place of his death is given as Boston, Massachussets, by one authority, and as Hingham, Massachussets, by another.

Achievements

• Andrews is classed among the best American line-engravers and excelled especially in portrait work. From his signed plates it is apparent that he had various business associates during his career in the United States, such as Thomas Kelly, Stephen A. Schoff, H. Wright Smith, W. H. Tappan, and C. E. Wagstaff.

Connections

He was twice married.

Father:

Ephraim Andrews

Mother:

Lucy (Lane) Andrews

Friend:

Sylvester R. Koehler