George Keating, Engraver

(d. 1842)

Engraver

From A Dictionary of Irish Artists 1913

Was born, it is said, in Ireland, the son of Patrick Keating, a bookseller in Air Street, Piccadilly. He was brought up as an engraver under William Dickinson, and in 1775 and 1776 he exhibited three chalk drawings with the Free Society. His address appears in the catalogues as "Master George Keating, at Mr. Keating's, Air Street, Piccadilly." His first known engraving was a mezzotint portrait of the "Rev. Arthur O'Leary," after a drawing by J. Murphy (q.v.), published by himself in 1784 at No. 4 Air Street, which was also the address where Murphy published many of his prints. Of the eleven mezzotints done by him the best are, perhaps, "Kemble as Richard III," after Stuart, and "Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire," after Reynolds. He also produced a number of works in stipple after Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lawrence and others, which are of good quality, though his stippling is often coarse, and he does not seem to have understood how to suit his work to the requirements of the colour-printer. His prints range in date from 1784 to 1797.

About 1790 he joined his father in business in Warwick Street, Golden Square, and in 1800 they took over the business of J. P. Coghlan, the leading Catholic bookseller, and, with one Brown, carried it on in Duke Street, Grosvenor Square. The elder Keating died in 1816, and Brown in 1837, when the business was continued by George Keating and Brown's widow, a partnership dissolved in 1840. Keating then opened a shop in George Street, Manchester Square, but did not succeed. He died in Crawford Street, Marylebone, on 3rd September, 1842. Keating was a man of good education and possessed considerable literary attainments. Besides publishing a number or books he edited several Catholic periodicals: "The Laity's Directory," 1801-1839; "The Publicist, or the Catholicon," 1815-1818; and "The Catholic Spectator," 1823-1826.

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