Coloured Plates: Scenes of Bombay in 1826

• Ackermann, Rudolph - Rudolph Ackermann (1764 - 1834) was born in Saxony and is best known as a publisher of decorative coloured prints in London.
  
  His early career demonstrated an entrepreneurial bent that was to lead to his success as a businessman in London.
  
  At the age of 15 he was apprenticed to a saddler, and three years later moved to Dresden to train as a (horse-driven) carriage designer.
  
  He later lived in Switzerland, France and Belgium for short periods, before moving to London in 1787.
  
  He set up a successful business as a coach designer and decorator and in 1795 diversified his interest to include publishing and bookselling. His first decorative hand-coloured prints appeared in 1797. His output included political and social caricatures by leading artists of the day.
  
  From 1809-1829 he published "Ackermann's Repository of Arts", an illustrated annual British periodical which covered arts, literature, commerce, manufactures, fashions, and politics, and had great influence on English taste in fashion, architecture, and literature.
  
  His most ambitious venture was "The Microcosm of London". Which was completed in 1810 in collaboration with leading artists of the day, and contained 104 large folio hand-coloured aquatints.
  
  In the following years he published further volumes, again working with artists such as William Pyne, established branches of his business in several Central and South American cities, and set up a publishing business for his son, also called Rudolph, one of his nine children in Regent Street, London. This business was taken over by Rudolph Junior's son Arthur, and was later renamed Arthur Ackermann Ltd. and was trading as fine art dealers until 2011.
  
  His death in 1834 was preceded by a stroke in 1833 which left him partly paralysed.

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