Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Parker, James (1750-1805)
PARKER, JAMES (1750–1805), engraver, born in 1750, was a pupil of the first James Basire (1730–1802) [see Basire, Isaac], having as a fellow-apprentice William Blake [q. v.] In 1784 he and Blake in partnership opened a print-shop in Broad Street, Carnaby Market, but the business failed three years later. Parker's early plates were executed in the stipple style; but he afterwards became an excellent line-engraver, and was much employed upon book illustrations. His stipple work included two subjects from Ossian's ‘Fingal,’ after Barralet; ‘The Pulse,’ 1785; ‘Sterne conducting Maria into Monlines,’ 1786; ‘The Ticket,’ 1787; and ‘The Novel,’ 1787, all after J. Northcote; and some portraits for Harding's ‘Shakespeare Illustrated.’ Parker's most important plates in the line manner are ‘The Revolution of 1688,’ 1790, and ‘The Landing of the Prince of Orange,’ 1801, both after Northcote; and illustrations to ‘Boydell's Shakespeare,’ Sharpe's ‘British Classics,’ Goldsmith's ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ after Stothard, and Le Sage's ‘Gil Blas,’ after Smirke. Parker was a governor of the Society of Engravers established in 1803. He died on 26 May 1805, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes, London.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists, Dodd's manuscript Hist. of Engravers in Brit. Mus. (Addit. MS. 33403); Gilchrist's Life of W. Blake, i. 55; Gent. Mag., 1805, pt. i. p. 586.]