Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Law, David
LAW, DAVID (1831–1901), etcher and water-colour painter, son of John Law, was born in Edinburgh on 25 April 1831. Apprenticed at an early age to George Aikman, steel-engraver, he was in 1845, on his master's recommendation, admitted to the Trustees' academy, where he studied under Alexander Christie [q. v.] and Elmslie Dallas [q. v.] until 1850. On the termination of his apprenticeship he obtained an appointment as 'hill' engraver in the ordnance survey office, Southampton, and it was not until twenty years later that he realised his ambition, and, resigning his situation, became a water-colour painter. In this venture he had considerable success, but his early training as an engraver had prepared him to be a pioneer in the revival of etching, and he was one of the founders of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers in 1881. He was perhaps rather an interpreter by etching of other men's work than an original etcher, and his style, while delicate in drawing and sensitive to effects of light, was somewhat mechanical, and more reminiscent of the labours of the steel-engraver than of the spontaneity or incisiveness of the real etcher. But his plates after Turner and Corot and some modern landscape painters had many admirers, and during the time (1875–90) that reproductive etching was in high fashion they were in great demand. Probably, however, his best and most vital etched work was done from water-colours by himself. This was the case with the 'Thames,' the 'Castle,' and the 'Trossachs' sets, all of which were popular. Law, who settled in London in 1876, died at Worthing on 28 Dec. 1901, after some years of declining health. A portrait by Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A., was reproduced in the 'Art Journal' (1902), for which magazine Law had occasionally etched a plate.
[Register of Trustees' academy; The Times, 30 Dec. 1901; Art Journal, March 1902; Bryan's Dict. of Engravers.]