Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Stewart, James (1791-1863)
STEWART, JAMES (1791–1863), engraver, was born at Edinburgh in October or November 1791. He was articled to Robert Scott [q. v.] the engraver, and had as his fellow pupil John Burnet [q. v.], from whom he received much assistance; he also studied drawing in the Trustees' Academy, and became a very able line engraver. Stewart's first independent plate was from Sir William Allan's ‘Tartar Robbers dividing the Spoil,’ which was followed by ‘Circassian Captives,’ 1820; ‘The Murder of Archbishop Sharpe,’ 1824; and ‘Queen Mary signing her Abdication,’ all from paintings by Allan. He then became associated with David Wilkie, for whom he executed, with several minor works, an admirable plate of the ‘Penny Wedding.’ On the foundation of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1826 he became an original member. In 1830 Stewart removed to London, where he engraved ‘The Pedlar,’ after Wilkie, and ‘Hide and Seek,’ from a picture painted by himself in the style of Wilkie, which was exhibited at the British Institution in 1829. In 1833 he was induced by financial embarrassment to abandon his profession and emigrate to Cape Colony; there he settled as a farmer, but within a year lost everything through the outbreak of the Kaffir war. He then went to reside in the town of Somerset, where, by teaching and portrait-painting, he earned the means of purchasing another property. He subsequently became a magistrate and a member of the legislature, and died in the colony in May 1863.
[Art Journal, August 1863; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]