Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cockson, Thomas
COCKSON or COXON, THOMAS (fl. 1609–1636), one of the earliest English engravers, left a large number of portraits engraved in a dry, but neatly finished manner. Among them are James I sitting in parliament, Princess Elizabeth, Charles I sitting in parliament, Charles Howard, earl of Nottingham, on horseback, George Clifford, earl of Cumberland, on horseback, Louis XIII, Marie de Médicis, Mathias I, emperor of Germany, Demetrius, emperor of Russia, Concini, marquis d'Ancre (1617), Henri Bourbon, prince de Condé, Francis White, dean of Carlisle (1624), Samuel Daniel (1609), John Taylor (title-page to his poems, 1630), Thomas Coryat, and others. He also engraved a plate called 'The Revells of Christendome' (1609), some sea pieces with shipping, and (in 1636) a large folding plate, with explanatory letterpress, of various postures for musketeers and pikemen, invented by Lieutenant Clarke; on either side of this remarkable print are the coats of arms of various captains of the time. Cockson often signed his prints with his initials interlaced; hence it is difficult to distinguish them from those of Thomas Cross [q.v.] or Thomas Cecil (fl. 1630) [q. v.], who each used a similar monogram.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painters, ed. Dallaway and Wornum; Leblanc's Manuel de l'amateur d'estampes; Nagler's Monogrammisten, v.]