"Robert Hartley Cromek (1770–1812) was an English engraver, editor, art dealer and entrepreneur who was most active in the early nineteenth century. He is best known ...
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for having allegedly cheated William Blake out of the potential profits of his engraving depicting Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims.
In the early years of the nineteenth century Cromek had supported Blake, and had engraved Blake's design for Benjamin Heath Malkin's A Father's Memoirs of his Child in 1806. Cromek later commissioned Blake to illustrate Robert Blair's poem The Grave. Blake had produced the designs, but his sample engraving was considered by Cromek to be too crude to attract subscribers. Cromek then gave the lucrative job of engraving Blake's designs to a rival engraver Luigi Schiavonetti." - (en.wikipedia.org 23.05.2021)
