William Holl the Younger (February 1807 Plaistow, Essex – 30 January 1871) was an English portrait and figure engraver, noted for his book illustrations. The eldest of four sons of William Holl the Elder (c1771-1838), he was taught engraving by his father – at first stipple and later line on steel. The first portrait engraving produced on his own was that of Thomas Cranmer

Thomas Cranmer

Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...

 in May 1829 for inclusion in Edmund Lodge

Edmund Lodge

Sir Edmund Lodge, KH , herald, was a long-serving English officer of arms, a writer on heraldic subjects, and a painstaking supplier of short, accurate biographies.-Life and career:...

's Portraits of Illustrious Personages. He contributed further work to this publication between 1829 and 1835 after artists such as van Loo

Van Loo

The French Van Loo family included a number of notable painters:*Jacob van Loo *Jean-Baptiste van Loo .*Charles-André van Loo , brother of Jean-Baptiste....

, Holbein

Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...

, 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...

, Lely

Peter Lely

Sir Peter Lely was a painter of Dutch origin, whose career was nearly all spent in England, where he became the dominant portrait painter to the court.-Life:...

, Godfrey Kneller

Godfrey Kneller

Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet was the leading portrait painter in England during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and was court painter to British monarchs from Charles II to George I...

 and Daniel Mytens.

He also produced portraits for William Jerdan

William Jerdan

William Jerdan , Scottish journalist, was born at Kelso, Scotland.During the years between 1799 and 1806, he spent short periods in a country lawyer's office, a London West India merchant's counting house, an Edinburgh solicitor's chambers, and held the position of surgeon's mate on board H.M...

's National Portrait Gallery (1830–34) and for the 1834 Chambers's Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. Working with his brother Francis Holl (1815–84), he provided engraved illustrations to Finden

William Finden

William Finden was an English line engraver.He served his apprenticeship to one James Mitan, but appears to have owed far more to the influence of James Heath, whose works he privately and earnestly studied...

's 1837 Tableaux of National Character and Gallery of Beauty of 1841 and to the 1840 edition of The Land of Burns. The third brother Charles Holl (c1810-1882) aided William throughout his career. The youngest brother Benjamin (1808–1884) also achieved notable success as a portrait and figure engraver and later emigrated to the USA.

In the 1840s his major works were engravings after William Powell Frith

William Powell Frith

William Powell Frith , was an English painter specialising in genre subjects and panoramic narrative works of life in the Victorian era. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1852...

, illustrating the poems of Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore

Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of The Minstrel Boy and The Last Rose of Summer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death...

 "Beauties of Moore" (1840) and scriptural engravings after various artists such as Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

, Rembrandt, Benjamin West

Benjamin West

Benjamin West, RA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence...

 and James Northcote

James Northcote

James Northcote RA , was an English painter.-Biography:He was born at Plymouth, and was apprenticed to his father, a poor watchmaker. In his spare time, he drew and painted. In 1769 he left his father and set up as a portrait painter. Four years later he went to London and was admitted as a pupil...

 for inclusion in Blackie & Sons' Imperial Family Bible (1844) and John Kitto

John Kitto

John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.-Biography:Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three...

's Gallery of Scripture Engravings (1846–49). He also produced portraits for the Imperial Dictionary (1861) and Thomas Baines

Thomas Baines

Thomas Baines was an English artist and explorer of British colonial southern Africa and Australia. Born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, Baines was apprenticed to a coach painter at an early age...

's Yorkshire Past and Present (1871–77).