Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jeens, Charles Henry
JEENS, CHARLES HENRY (1827–1879), engraver, son of Henry and Matilda Jeens, was born at Uley in Gloucestershire on 19 Oct. 1827. He was instructed in engraving by John Brain and William Greatbach, and some of his earliest independent employment was on postage-stamps for the English colonies. Jeens was one of the engravers engaged on the ‘Royal Gallery of Art,’ edited by S. C. Hall, 1854, and executed a number of plates for the ‘Art Journal.’ About 1860 he became associated with Messrs. Macmillan & Co., for whose ‘Golden Treasury’ series and other publications he produced many beautiful vignettes and portraits, among the latter a series of ‘Scientific Worthies,’ issued in the periodical ‘Nature.’ In 1863 he completed for the Art Union of London the plate commenced by Shenton from Dicksee's ‘A Labour of Love,’ and one of his latest works was ‘Joseph and Mary,’ after Armitage, published by the same society in 1877. Other noteworthy plates were Romney's ‘Lady Hamilton with the Spinning-wheel;’ Millais' ‘Reverie;’ the ‘Head of a Girl,’ after L. da Vinci, prefixed to Mr. W. H. Pater's ‘Studies in the History of the Renaissance;’ and ‘The Queen and Prince Consort fording the Poll Tarff,’ after C. Haag, engraved for the queen's ‘Journal of our Life in the Highlands,’ 1868. Jeens' small plates are finished with admirable care and delicacy, but his larger works lack breadth and colour. He died, after a long illness, on 22 Oct. 1879. A volume of proofs of his vignettes is in the print room of the British Museum.
[Art Journal, 1880; Athenæum, 1 Nov. 1879; Men of the Reign, 1887; information kindly furnished by the rector of Uley; Bryan's Dictionary, ed. Graves, 1886.]