Ackermann

From The Library at Hurtfew
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Mr Rudolph Ackerman, a likeness taken by the talented Frenchman Monsieur Mouchet

Rudolph Ackermann's name is so justly famous it may seem superfluous to unfold his varied career to my readers. Who in this day and age can be ignorant of his worth? Rising by his own merits and energy from humble origins to a position of affluence and the highest respectability, his is an example we may all wish to follow.

Born in Saxony and the son of a saddler, Ackermann was at first, despite his native genius, obliged to follow his father into that useful trade. Soon however by application and natural gifts he, by degrees, moved from saddler to coach maker - to designer of the most elegant carriages - to printmaker and lastly to become the veritable Arbiter Elegantiae of the whole fashionable London world.

His talents were so diverse it is hard to follow the zigzag path by which he climbed to eminence, for he was not an engineer merely but also a designer; not only an artisan but a man of business; not merely a man of business but an artist! To these gifts we must add those humane qualities which prompted him to such strenuous efforts in the cause of relieving the suffering in Germany consequent on the late wars.

It is no surprise that it is to Mr Ackerman's famous premises in the Strand that Christopher Drawlight takes Mr Norrell when the latter needs help in furnishing his newly-acquired London home[5]. For anyone uncertain that his own tastes are in tune with Fashion Ackerman's is the surest guide, and the pages of his estimable Repository are the Bible.