Edward_Luttrell_artist

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Edward Luttrell

Artist/Engraver

b. abt 1650; d. 1737

Edward Luttrell was an English engraver and portrait painter, likely related to

the Luttrell family of Saunton Court, Devon. He received instruction in pastel

portraiture from Edmund Ashfield, shortly after giving up the study of law. He

is perhaps most notable as one of the earliest English pioneers in the art of

mezzotint engraving, a technique he utilized for reproducing his own pastels. (1)

Edward Luttrell seems to have been the son of Edward Luttrell (Sr.) (b. 1616, Braunton, Devon, England – d. 1669, Rose Alley, Holborn, London, England) and Frances (Gorges) Southcote (b. 1580 in Lincolnshire, England – d. 1651 in Braunton, Devon, England).

Edward, the artist, seems to have been born around 1650, presumably in London, where his father was engaged in the practice of law. He appears to have first married Jane Smith at St. James’s Clerkenwell in 1675. He also appears to have married Mary Bland about 1695, although this second marriage is undocumented.

While studying for the practice of law at New Inn London, Edward Luttrell, according to Vertue, had an interest in drawing by crayon and mezzotint engraving “although having no instructor or regular teaching”. Luttrell was “taught pastel by Ashfield. Luttrell’s earliest signed pastel was dated 1674; the next, 1677.” (2)

In 1683, Edward Luttrell produced an unpublished manuscript treatise on painting, mezzotint engraving, and other art techniques titled “An epitome of painting : containing breife directions for drawing, painting, limning, and cryoons : wth. the choicest receipts for preparing the colours for limning and cryoons : likewise directions for painting on glass, as tis now in use amongst all persons of quality : and lastly, how to lay the ground, and work in mezzo tinto”. “The ‘Epitome’ reveals Luttrell to have had a lively mind and a practical approach to his art. Whatever his training, he wrote as an experienced practitioner. He demonstrates a familiarity with drawing, oil painting, miniature and glass painting, as well as the mezzotint method for which he has most widely been noticed, but his sections on pastel are also of great interest.” (2) His notes on the art of the "mezzo tinto" are perhaps the first detailed account in English of the technique of mezzotint engraving. Luttrell probably lived in Westminster and appears to have been one of the 12 founding members of the Academy in Great Queen Street in 1711 (1)

Luttrell had a great admiration for his teacher, Edmund Ashfield, to whom he attributed many of the most significant innovations in pastels of the age. Writing in his unpublished 1683 treatise, An Epitome of Painting, Luttrell referred to him as an artist ‘whose memory will never dye’.

Luttrell ensured that this was so. Just as Ashfield had innovated in his own day, greatly expanding the range of colours and materials used by pastellists, so Luttrell did the same. He developed Ashfield’s palette and tried his hand at techniques such as painting on glass. Most notably, he devised a method for drawing with coloured chalks directly onto copper plates, which he “roughed” with a tool so that the pigments would hold. Luttrell was also skilled in the art of mezzotint, a form of printmaking that had recently been invented. (3)

The manuscript of the ‘Epitome’ was dedicated to his “most Ingenuous Kinswoman Maddam Dorothy Luttrell” who added supplementary entries, presumably under Luttrell’s supervision.(2) Dorothy Luttrell and her brother, Narcissus Luttrell, the noted English diarist, were cousins of Edward.

Luttrell was listed as a director of Kneller’s Academy in 1711, and in 1723 was named in Vertue’s notebooks among “living painters of note in London.” (2)

For reasons unknown, there is a dramatic decline in his output after 1705. In 1711, he was forced to sell 120 framed works by raffle, promising that some ticket-holders would receive fresh works executed by him from the life (they seem to have been disappointed, as only one work by Luttrell from after 1711 is known to exist). (3)

Edward Luttrell and his wife, Mary, left London in 1719, to live at Saunton Court (in the parish of Braunton, Devon). Luttrell died in 1737 and was buried at Braunton. His widow, Mary, died two years later. (2)

1 – Archive Grid, OCLC.org https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/collection/data/775730401#:~:text=Manuscript%20treatise%20on%20painting%2C%20mezzotint%20engraving%2C%20and%20other,a%20later%20addendum%29%2C%20in%20pen%20and%20brown%20ink.

An epitome of painting : containing breife directions for drawing, painting, limning, and cryoons : wth. the choicest receipts for preparing the colours for limning and cryoons : likewise directions for painting on glass, as tis now in use amongst all persons of quality : and lastly, how to lay the ground, and work in mezzo tinto / all by Edward Luttrell, 1683

2 - http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/Lutterell.pdf , Neil Jeffares, “Dictionary of pastellists before 1800”

3 - https://philipmould.com/artists/38-edward-luttrell/