Henry
Thomas Ryall (August 1811 – 14
September 1867) was an English line, stipple and mixed-method engraver and later used mixed mezzotint. Ryall
was appointed the royal engraver by Queen Victoria. Forty of his works are in the National Portrait Gallery in
London. He was born at Frome, Somerset, in August 1811. He was a
pupil of Samuel William Reynolds,
the mezzotinto engraver, but the style in which he at first
worked was that known as ‘chalk’ or ‘stipple.’ He began his career by engraving
plates for the editions of Edmund Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Personages of
Great Britain, and for the series of Portraits of Eminent
Conservatives and Statesmen, as well as for Charles Heath's Book of Beauty and other
works. In 1861, Ryall was living with his wife Georgina, niece and two servants
at 15 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.
Ryall died at his residence at Cookham, Berkshire, on 14 September 1867. Ryall's larger
plates are a combination of line and stipple. They include The
Coronation of Queen Victoria, after the picture by Sir George Hayter, and The Christening of the Princess
Royal, after Charles Robert Leslie, the
engraving that gained him the honorary appointment of historical engraver to
the queen. He also engraved Christopher Columbus at the Convent of La
Rabida, after Sir David Wilkie; The
Blind Girl at the Holy Well, after Sir Frederick William
Burton, the first publication of the Royal Irish
Art Union; Landais Peasants going to Market and Changing
Pasture, after Rosa Bonheur; The
Death of a Stag, The Combat, The Fight for the Standard, Just
Caught, and Dogs and their Game (a series of six plates),
after Richard Ansdell; The
Halt and The Keeper's Daughter, after Ansdell and William Powell Frith; The
Pursuit of Pleasure and Home! The Return from the Crimea,
after Sir Joseph Noel Paton; Knox
administering the first Protestant Sacrament in Scotland, after William Bonnar; Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales,
after Robert Thorburn; The
Princess Helena and Prince Alfred, after Franz Xaver Winterhalter; Adam
and Eve (The Temptation and the Fall), after Claude Marie Dubufe; Devotion,
after Édouard Frère; A
Duel after a Bal Masqué, after Jean-Léon Gérôme; The
Prayer, after Jean-Baptiste Jules Trayer;
and numerous plates after Sir Edwin Landseer. He
engraved also Sir William Charles Ross's
miniatures of Queen Victoria and the prince consort, and several other
portraits. He painted occasionally in oils, and exhibited in 1846 at the
Society of British Artists Waiting for an Answer, and at the Royal
Academy A Reverie in 1852, and The Crochet Lesson in
1859.