Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Armstrong, Cosmo
ARMSTRONG, COSMO (fl. 1800–1836), line-engraver, was a pupil of Thomas Milton, the landscape-engraver. He was a governor of the Society of Engravers, and he exhibited with the Associated Engravers in 1821. He engraved some plates for Cooke's edition of the British Poets, Sharpe's edition of the British Classics, Kearsley's edition of Shakespeare, Suttaby's edition of the British Classics, Allason's 'Picturesque Views of the Antiquities of Pola,' 1819, and the 'Ancient Marbles in the British Museum.' Among his other works may be noticed 'Camaralzaman and Badoura' and 'The Sleeper awakened,' after Robert Smirke, for Miller's edition of the 'Arabian Nights,' published in 1802; 'Don Quixote's Combat with the Giant Malumbruno,' also after Smirke, for Cadell's edition of 'Don Quixote,' issued in 1818; and small portraits of Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Charles I., after Van Dyck, Lord Byron, after Thomas Phillips, and George IV, after Sir Thomas Lawrence. Cosmo Armstrong possessed much power of execution, but was too irregular in his application and too eccentric in character to take the rank in his profession that he might otherwise have done. He was still living in 1836.
[Raimbach's Memoirs and Recollections, 1843, p. 36; Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists of the English School, 1878.]