Rudolph Ackermann

English, born Saxony, 1764–1834

Birth placeStollberg, Germany

Death placeLondon, England

BiographyBorn in Saxony and trained as a carriage designer, Ackermann moved to London in 1783. From 1800 he was the leading publisher of colour-plate books, decorative prints and fashionable periodicals. He was a major patron of British artists, designers and watercolourists and gave near permanent employment to Thomas Rowlandson for over thirty years.

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Rudolph Ackerman was a famous bookseller and publisher of fine prints in late 18th century London. However, during his middle-age, Ackerman developed an acute interest in the genre of fashion plates. He made an important contribution to the genre when he began the monthly publication of his Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashions and Politics. The Repository of Arts was not exclusively a fashion magazine, but its fashion plates were true fashion plates, as they were carefully designed and intended to be a guide to ladies and their dressmakers. Begun in 1808, some 450 fashion plates were featured in the magazine over its 21 years of existence. A complete set of Ackerman’s fashion plates is of great rarity and much to be prized. And as the quality of these plates never diminished over the years, some collectors consider the prettiest plates to have appeared from 1825 to 1829 when the magazine ceased. The prints have a charm and grace seldom found in other fashion plates of the period.

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