Henry Bryan Hall

Who was Henry Bryan Hall?

Henry Bryan Hall, was an English stipple engraver and portrait painter. He was apprenticed to the engravers Benjamin Smith and Henry Meyer. Later he worked for Henry Thomas Ryall who was designated 'Portrait and Historical Engraver to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria'. Hall produced plates for Ryall's Eminent Conservative Statesmen and assisted in the engraving of seventy portraits for Ryall's plate of The Coronation of Queen Victoria after George Hayter. Hall also engraved portraits of English Protestant martyrs for C. Birch and provided plates for John Wilson and Robert Chambers's The Land of Burns, Finden's Gallery of Beauty, John William Carleton's Sporting Sketch-Book, and John Kitto's Gallery of Scripture Engravings.

After settling in New York in 1850, he founded the firm of H. B. Hall and Sons, which grew into a flourishing practice, engraving and publishing portraits. He produced images of celebrities from American colonial and revolutionary history for a private club in New York and for Philadelphia collectors. Hall's talents extended to portrait painting, especially in ivory miniatures work.