William Oakley Burgess

Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, engraving from 1840.

Burgess was the son of Mary Oakley and Dr. Joseph Henry Burgess, the surgeon to the parish of St Giles in the Fields, London, where Burgess was baptised on 21 May 1816.[1]

He became a pupil of mezzotint engraver Thomas Goff Lupton and remained under his tuition until the age of 20.[2]

Some of his best productions are plates after the works of Sir Thomas Lawrence, published in the "Lawrence Gallery". He also engraved a large plate after Lawrence's portrait of the Duke of Wellington, remarkable for its admirably graduated tones, and the last works on which he was employed were three other portraits after Lawrence — Sir John Moore, the Duchess of Northumberland, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The extraordinary delicacy which characterizes the work of this artist must have acquired for him the highest reputation in his art, had his life been spared.[2]

His death on 24 December 1844, at the age of 28, was caused by an abscess in the head, said to have arisen from a blow of a skittle-ball some years before.[2]

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Graves, Robert Edmund (1886). "Burgess, William Oakley". In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 7. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

• "Deaths". The Gentleman's Magazine. 177: 447. April 1845.
• "Biographical details". British Museum. Retrieved 25 October 2012.
• "William Oakley Burgess". National Portrait Gallery.