Stephen Alonzo Schoff (1818-1904) - Historic Engraver

Stephen A. Schoff was my great-great-grandfather. He engraved and etched portraits, illustrations and bank note vignettes, almost always copied from paintings, drawings or photographs. I thought it would be interesting to show his work next to the original art, (or at least in the vicinity of the original; Pinterest always reshuffles the images a bit). He's little known today, but have a look at the artists and writers he had associations with, and in many cases knew personally.
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a painting of a woman in white dress
MAG Collection - Anne Mumford Palmer
"Anne Mumford Palmer," Abbott Handerson Thayer, 1879, oil on canvas, 24 x 19 1/2", Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester.
an old portrait of a man wearing a bow tie
Portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne at age thirty-six, etched by S.A. Schoff, after an 1840 portrait painted by Charles Osgood, published in "Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife, a Biography", Hawthorne, Julian. (Vol. 2), 1884.
an oil painting of a young man wearing a black shirt with his head turned to the side
Portrait of a Young Woman, etched by S.A. Schoff, after a painting by Abbott Handerson Thayer, published in "American Art", Koehler, S.R., Cassell & Co., NY, 1886, 7 15/16 x 6 1/2", Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The young woman's parents requested that the etching be published without her name, but we now know her identity: Anne Mumford Palmer.
a painting of a man in a black suit and white shirt
"Daniel Webster," Chester Harding, ca. 1828, oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
a painting of a woman sitting in a chair
Photo Gallery (U.S. National Park Service)
"Portrait of Abigail Brooks Adams (wife of Charles Francis Adams)," William Morris Hunt, 1872. oil, Adams National Historical Park, National Park Service.
a painting of a woman sitting in a chair
The Turquoise Ring (Edmund Tarbell - )
"The Turquoise Ring," or "The Opal Ring," Edmund Tarbell, 1894, oil on canvas, 30 x 25", private collection.
an old photo of a woman in black and white, with her hair pulled back
Mrs. Asa William Clapp (née Julia Margaretta Dearborn, 1808-1867)
"Mrs. Asa William Clapp (née Julia Margaretta Dearborn," Stephen Alonzo Schoff, engraving, 8 3/8 x 5 3/8", Portland Museum of Art.
an old black and white photo of a man
"Daniel Webster," engraved by S.A. Schoff, after a painting by Chester Harding, published in Webster Works, (vol. 4), 1851.
an image of a painting of people in the woods with one woman cooking food and another man standing next to her
"Sugaring Off," Tompkins H. Matteson,, oil on canvas, 31 x 42", Carnagie Museum of Art.
an old painting with people in the water
Sketch for the State Capitol at Albany (Discoverer), William Morris Hunt, oil and graphite on paperboard mounted on Masonite, 15 x 35 5/8", Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. One of Hunt's many preparatory sketches for the murals he painted in the Albany State House, which were lost due to shoddy construction of the building.
an old black and white photo of a woman
Stephen Alonzo Schoff etching ''Portrait of Mrs Adams''
"Portrait of Mrs Adams," Stephen Alonzo Schoff, after William Morris Hunt, 1880, etching, 7 1/2 x 6", Affordable Art. Published in 1880 by the American Art Review.
an old photo of a woman sitting in a chair
"The Opal Ring," Stephen Alonzo Schoff, after Edmund C. Tarbell, 1890s, etching, private collection.
a painting of a woman wearing a green dress and fur stole around her shoulders, in front of a curtained window
Julia Margaretta Dearborn (1808-1867) (Mrs. Asa William Henry Clapp)
"Julia Margaretta Dearborn (1808-1867) (Mrs. Asa William Henry Clapp," Thomas Badger, ca. 1840, oil on canvas, 30 x 25 1/4", Portland Museum of Ar.
an old black and white drawing of people gathered around a campfire in the woods
"Sugaring Off," S.A. Schoff engraver, after T.H. Matteson, published by the American Art-Union, collection of the American Antiquarian Society. The arm of the central figure is different than the painting in the Carnagie Museum, which might mean this was copied from a different version.