Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fisher, Edward (1730-1785?)
FISHER, EDWARD (1730–1785?), mezzotint engraver, born in Ireland in 1730, was at first a hatter, but took to engraving, went to London, and became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1766, where he exhibited fourteen times between 1761 and 1776. His earliest dated print is 1758, and his latest 1781. He resided in 1761 in Leicester Square, and moved to Ludgate Street in 1778. It is said that Reynolds called him 'injudiciously exact' for finishing too highly the unimportant parts of the plate. After his death, about 1785, most of his coppers were dispersed among several print-sellers, and in some cases tampered with. He engraved over sixty plates of portraits, including George, earl of Albemarle, after Reynolds; Robert Brown, after Chamberlin; William Pitt, earl of Chatham, after Brompton; Colley Gibber, after Vanloo; Christian VII of Denmark, after Dance; David Garrick, after Reynolds; Simon, earl Harcourt, after Hunter; Roger Long, after B. Wilson; Hugh, earl of Northumberland, and Elizabeth, countess of Northumberland, after Reynolds; Paul Sandby, after F. Cotes; Laurence Sterne, after Reynolds; and the following fancy subjects: 'Lady in Flowered Dress,' after Hoare; 'Hope Nursing Love,' or, according to Bromley, Theophila Palmer, afterwards Mrs. Gwatkin, after Reynolds; and 'Heads from "Vicar of Wakefield,"' ten plates engraved from his own designs and published in 1776.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; J. Chaloner Smith's Descriptive Catalogue of British Mezzo-tints, pt. ii. p. 485.]