WOOLLETT, William (1735-1785), engraver, was born at Maidstone, of a family which came originally from Holland, on August 15, 1735. He was apprenticed to John Tinney, an engraver in Fleet Street, London, and he also studied in the St Martin’s Lane academy. His first important plate was from the Niobe of Richard Wilson, published by Boydell in 1761, which was followed in 1763 by a companion engraving from the Phaethon of the same painter. After West he engraved his fine plate of the Battle of La Hogue (1781), and the Death of General Wolfe (1776), which is usually considered Woollett’s masterpiece. In 1775 he was appointed engraver-in-ordinary to George III.; and he was a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, of which for several years he acted as secretary. He died in London May 23, 1785.

In his plates, which unite work with the etching-needle, the dry-point, and the graver, Woollett shows the greatest richness and variety of execution. In his landscapes the foregrounds are distinguished by depth and vigour, the distances by the utmost tenderness; and his rendering of water is particularly excellent. In his portraits and historical subjects the textures are varied and well discriminated, and the rendering of flesh is characterized by great softness and delicacy. His works rank among the great productions of the English school of engraving. Louis Fagan, in his Catalogue Raisonné of the Engraved Works of William Woollett (1885), has enumerated 123 plates by this engraver.