Nathaniel Hurd
Nathaniel Hurd | |
---|---|
Born | February 13, 1729 |
Died | December 17, 1777 | (aged 48)
Occupation | engraver and silversmith |
Nathaniel Hurd (13 Feb 1730 – 17 Dec 1777)[1] is widely recognized as the first American engraver and a silversmith in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 18th century.[2] He engraved "bookplates ... heraldic devices, seals, ... paper currency, and business cards" along with die engravers and engravers on copper.[3][4][1]
Early life and family[]
Hurd's grandfather was from England and settles in Charlestown, having died in 1749 at the age of 70.[1]
Hurd's father was Jacob Hurd, a leading Boston silversmith, whose works are in the collections of the Peabody Essex Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Strawbery Banke Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Jacob Hurd married a daughter of John Mason (of Kingston, Jamaica who died in 1758).[1]
Death[]
Hurd died on 17 Dec 1777 and is buried in the old Granary Burial Ground in Boston.[1]
Career[]
An obituary from Amos Doolittle noted Hurd was the first to have engraved copper in the USA.[1]
The lion rampant logo for the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy is taken from a bookplate Hurd designed for John Phillips in 1775.[6] Examples of Hurd's work are in the collections of Harvard University; Yale University; Historic Deerfield;[7] the Lexington Historical Society; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Scientific American. Munn & Company. 1869-05-08. p. 294.
- ^ Charles Dexter Allen (1895), American book-plates, a guide to their study, London: George Bell & Sons, OCLC 1472039, OL 7058457M
- ^ "Portrait of Nathaniel Hurd by Copley." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Mar., 1923)
- ^ American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1
- ^ Cummings, Abbott Lowell. "A Recently Discovered Engraving of the Old State House in Boston," Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 2017. (https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/774) Retrieved August 2018.
- ^ "The Exeter Lion Rampant". The Academy Archives. Trustees of Phillips Exeter Academy. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
- ^ "Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium".
Further reading[]
- William Dunlap (1834), History of the rise and progress of the arts of design in the United States, New York: George P. Scott and Co., Printers, OCLC 812030, OL 6575532M
- Hollis French. Jacob Hurd and his sons Nathaniel & Benjamin, silversmiths, 1702–1781. Walpole Society, 1939.
External links[]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nathaniel Hurd. |
- 1729 births
- 1777 deaths
- Artists from Boston
- American engravers
- 18th century in Boston