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- Arthur Tooker
- Also known as
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Arthur Tooker
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primary name: Tooker, Arthur
- Details
- individual; publisher/printer; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1664 active-1687/8 died
- Address
- before 1664 - Old Bailey (previous address given on following trade-card)
1664 - the Picktuer Shop..... at the Globe in the Strand over against Salisbury hous (trade-card designed by Gaywood, 1900,1019.233)
1665 - neere the Savoy (publication line on a print by Hollar, P.1095)
1675 - the Globe over against Salisbury House in the Strand
1675 and 3 March 1680 - over aginst Ivy-Bridge in the Strand (possibly the same premises as the three former addresses)
1680 - the Royal Hand and Globe at Charing Cross
23 June 1681 - at the corner of St Martin's Lane (over against Northumberland House, corner of St Martin's Lane)
- Biography
- Tooker was one of the main publishers of good-quality prints in London in the years immediately after the Restoration. The first sign of his activity is a trade card, etched by Gaywood, dated 1664 (referred to in Pennington under no. 2450a; see 1900,1019.233; an impression is in the BL copy of the 1669 edition of Browne's 'Ars Pictoriae'). Tooker was one of the publishers of both the 1669 and 1675 editions of Browne's book, and in the 1675 edition he bound in at the back a sheet catalogue, which gives invaluable information about his publications at that time (see 'The Print in Stuart Britain' BM 1998 cat.146).
It reads: 'A catalogue of plates, the prints whereof are useful for gentlemen, artists, and gentlewomen, and school-mistresses works, sold by Arthur Tooker, stationer at the Globe over against Salisbury House in the Strand, where you may have choice of maps, and also Italian, German, and Low Countrey prints, Indian ink, abortive skins [ie.rubbers], all sorts of paintings, and all stationary wares'. The list that follows is divided into four sections: plates by Arnold de Jode; plates etched by Gaywood after Barlow and others; etchings by Gaywood, Place and Hollar; and 'several sorts of plates by divers authors' (the sheet is reproduced in Griffiths p.216). He was also the publisher of the undated 'Quaker's Meeting' (BMSat 156).
In 1675 Tooker dedicated his edition of Zeeman's set of etchings of shipping to Samuel Pepys (Bartsch V 141.107-118, fourth state), although he is not mentioned in Pepys's Diary. (He might be in Robert Hooke's Diary on 9 November 1674: 'returned print to the seller at Old Bayly'.) On 3 March 1680 he advertised in Mercurius Anglicus a travelling map of England, giving an address 'over aginst Ivy-Bridge in the Strand'. He also printed the second state of Vandrebanc's head of Charles II after Gascar in 1680 (Griffiths cat.148), describing himself in the lettering as 'seller of paper, prints, mapps and paintings at the Royal Hand and Globe at Charing Cross. This move from the Globe was announced at length in the London Gazette of 23 June 1681, which adds the detail that the new shop was at the corner of St Martin's Lane. Various advertisements dated between 1680 and 1681 give further information. In the London Gazette for 14 November 1681 he was selling tickets for a dinner in aid of the sons of the clergy at Merchant Taylors' Hall. It is not known who acquired his plates. In the Heal Collection is a photograph of Tooker's 1664 trade card (Heal,111.150). Heal's annotations on mount as follows: "The engraved date 1664 on this card is the same year as on that of Wm. Thorp, bookseller of Chester, which has commonly been quoted as 'the earliest trade-card known.' Thorp's card is now in A.H. collection. Plomer's 'Dictionary of Booksellers 1668-1725' gives Arthur Tooker at the Globe & Half Moon, Strand, from 1669 to 1680."
- Bibliography
- Inventory of 1687/8 published by Giles Mandelbrote in Bib. Soc. c.2000
