William Alexander (painter)

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William Alexander (1767—1816), an artist, was the son of a coachmaker at Maidstone. In 1784, he became a student of the Royal Academy, from which time until 1792, when he was appointed one of the draughtsmen to the embassy to China, he assiduously applied himself to the study of his profession, and obtained the notice and approbation of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He proceeded with the earl of Macartney as far as Peking, where he made the drawings for the plates which accompany Sir George Staunton's account of that embassy; and afterwards published also The Costume of China, illustrated by ninety-six coloured engravings, (2 vols. 4to. 1805-1815.) The other principal works of this artist were Views of Headlands, Islands, &c, taken during the Voyage to China, 1798; the drawings from Mr.Daniells's Sketches, for Vancouver's Voyage to the North Pacific Ocean, and the descriptive plates to Mr. Barrow's Travels in China, and Voyage to Cochin China.

In the years 1810, 1812, and 1815, three volumes of engravings from terra cottas and marbles in the British Museum, were published by the trustees of that institution, the drawings for which were executed by him, the descriptive letter-press being from the pen of Mr. Taylor Combe. Before his death, Mr. Alexander had completed drawings for a fourth volume. In 1802, he was appointed professor of drawing at the Military College at Great Marlow, which office he resigned in 1808, upon obtaining that of assistant keeper of the antiquities in the British Museum. The leading characteristics of this artist's works, which were usually executed in water colours, were clearness and harmony of colour, simplicity and taste in composition, grace of outline, and delicacy of execution. Besides his works as a draughtsman, there are several engravings by his hand: the principal one of which is a representation of the Festival given by the Earl of Romney to the Kentish Volunteers, on the 1st of August, 1799, from a drawing made by himself.