Excerpt from Report of the Proceedings at the Memorial Meeting in Honor of the Late Mr. Joseph Andrew: Held at the Rooms of the Boston Art Club, on the Evening of May 17, 1873

Looking over the work executed by our friend during his long artistic career, we Shall at first perhaps incline to be surprised that there are to be found among it so few works of any pretension. But we must not allow ourselves to judge him from this fact. His ambition, as I have already remarked, soared higher, but the hard task of life chained him to the clay, and fettered the pinions of his genius. Of all artistic careers, that of a line engraver in modern times is perhaps the most thankless. And it was upon line engraving especially that he had set his heart. More popular and more expeditious methods of reproduction have almost succeeded in supplanting this difficult and severe art, and even in Europe it is only sup ported in its struggle for existence by artificial means, such as the aid of governments and princes, and of societies especially formed to encourage its practice. How much more difficult, then, must it be to bear aloft its standard in America, where the love of this art is restricted to still fewer persons, and where such artificial means of support are not to be found. N 0 one, certainly, felt this more keenly than Joseph Andrews, and his life was in a measure embittered by the unsatisfied cravings of higher aspira tions and the perverseness of circumstances, which condemned him to devote most of his time to the execution of small portraits from lifeless photographs, a task which he especially disliked. And surely, when we examine his work carefully, even aside from the leading plates, such as the head of Franklin, the Duke of Urbino, the Washington, and the John Quincy Adams, we shall readily share his regrets, and shall mourn with him that the opportunities which he sighed for were denied to him. For even in many of his smaller plates, and especially in those executed from paintings, and not from photographs, notably in the Sparks, the Amos Lawrence, and the poet Sprague, there is a delicacy and tenderness which is not often to be met with in plates of this kind, and which make even these small works gems in their way. It is no criticism upon him to say that his portraits were his best work, for he Shares this peculiarity with some of the most renowned masters of by-gone times, and it is upon these portraits that his claim will rest to a prominent place in the front ranks of those whom future generations will term the early engravers of America.

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