Explore: Charles Joseph Hullmandel

(1789 - 1850)

Charles Joseph Hullmandel was born in London; the son of a German composer and musician. He trained as an artist in Paris, before travelling on the continent. In 1817 he met J. A. Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, in Munich and changed the course of his career. His earliest published lithographs were ‘Twenty-Four Views of Italy’ (1818) and soon after this project he set up a lithographic press at his home in Great Marlborough Street. From then he worked as a lithographic draughtsman and printer. Most major improvements to lithography in Britain of the 1820s and ‘30s are attributed to him and he became the finest lithographer and most prolific printer. In 1827 he married flower painter Valentine Bartholomew. He died in London aged 61.