Edward Luttrell

A somewhat unknown artist, Luttrell was a practitioner of early mezzotints. Although nothing is known of his birth and parentage, he began studying law in about 1670 at New Inn, London. However, he soon gave this up to pursue a career as an artist and became a pupil of the crayon and pastel portrait painter, Edmund Ashfield. Luttrell developed the use of drawing with crayons on copper-plates and expanded the spectrum of colours which could be used. He wrote a manuscript in 1683 on the processes involved in this and early mezzotints. Luttrell was predominantly based in Westminster, London.