Luigi Schiavonetti Italian reproductive engraver and etcher, was born at Bassano in Venetia.

After having studied art for several years he was employed by Testolini, an engraver of very indifferent abilities, to execute imitations of Bartolozzi

Francesco Bartolozzi

Francesco Bartolozzi was an Italian engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London.He was born in Florence...

's works, which he passed off as his own. In 1790, Testolini was invited by Bartolozzi to join him in England, and, it having been discovered that Schiavonetti, who accompanied him, had executed the plates in question, he was employed by Bartolozzi and became an eminent engraver in both the line and the stipple manner. Among his early works are four plates of subjects from the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, after Peter Paul Benazech

Peter Paul Benazech

-Life and work:Benazech is said to have been born in London about the year 1744. He was a pupil of François Vivares, and worked as a draughtsman and engraver both in London and in Paris...

.

Schiavonetti engraved a drawing of Maria Cosway

Maria Cosway

Maria Cosway was an Anglo-Italian artist, who exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. She also worked in France, where she cultivated a large circle of friends and clients, and later in Italy. She commissioned the first portrait of Napoleon to be seen in England...

 that her husband, the artist Richard Cosway

Richard Cosway

Richard Cosway was a leading English portrait painter—more accurately a miniaturist—of the Regency era. He was a contemporary of John Smart, George Engleheart, William Wood, and Richard Crosse...

, had drawn. He also engraved a portrait that Maria Cosway had commissioned that was the first portrait of Napoleon seen in Britain.

He also produced a "Mater Dolorosa" after Van Dyck

Anthony van Dyck

Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next...

, and Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

's cartoon

Battle of Cascina (Michelangelo)

The Battle of Cascina is an influential lost artwork by Michelangelo.-Origins:The painting was commissioned from Michelangelo by Piero Soderini, statesman of the Republic of Florence. It was intended to be a fresco painted on a wall of the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio...

 of the Battle of Cascina

Battle of Cascina

The Battle of Càscina was an engagement between Pisan and Florentine troops on 28 July 1364 near Càscina, Italy. Florence's victory followed a recent defeat to Pisan forces that had enabled mercenary John Hawkwood, who was in command of the Pisan army, to travel the Valdinievole, Prato en route to...

 depicting the "Surprise of the Soldiers on the Banks of the Arno." From 1805 to 1808, he was engaged in etching William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

's designs to Blair

Robert Blair (poet)

Robert Blair was a Scottish poet.-Biography:He was the eldest son of the Rev. Robert Blair, one of the king's chaplains, and was born at Edinburgh. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh and in the Netherlands, and in 1731 was appointed to the living of Athelstaneford in East Lothian...

's Grave, which, with a portrait of the artist engraved by Schiavonetti after T Phillips, R.A.

Thomas Phillips

Thomas Phillips was a leading English portrait and subject painter. He painted many of the great men of the day including scientists, artists, writers, poets and explorers.-Life and work:...

, were published in 1808. The etching of Stothard

Thomas Stothard

Thomas Stothard was an English painter, illustrator and engraver.-Life and work:Stothard was born in London, the son of a well-to-do innkeeper in Long Acre, London. A delicate child, he was sent at the age of five to a relative in Yorkshire, and attended school at Acomb, and afterwards at...

's "Canterbury Pilgrims" was one of his latest works, and on his death the plate was taken up by his brother Niccolo, and finally completed by James Heath

James Heath (engraver)

James Heath was an English engraver. He enjoyed the patronage of George III and successive monarchs, and was an associate engraver of the Royal Academy.-Life and work:...

.