I have an etching done by R. de los Rios.  There are two dates on it,
one for 1806 another for 1893.  The etching is a scene of a 
Napoleon like figure and other soldiers on horses.    I would like to
have some information about the artist and the etching.

Hi!

Ricardo de los Ríos (1846-1929) was an artist, he was born in Spain.
He did a lot of work while he lived in Paris, France.

You say you have two alternate dates (1806 and 1893) in the etching.
Since De Los Ríos was born in 1846, the first date you have might been
written afterwords, and the other one might be the right one.

He was involved in the buying of some Goya’s printings in Paris.
Tooking them back to Spain and printing a national edition. Those
prints where taken back to France after that.
http://www.bne.es/Goya/es_tauromaquia.html

You can find some of his etchings in some literature books:

1) The Novels of Honoré de Balzac now for the first time completely
translated into English ... with ten etchings by Frédéric-Emile
Jeannin and Ricardo de Los Rios, after paintings by Gaston Bussière.
London : Printed only for subscribers by Leonard Smithers, 1897-1899.
22 vols.
Spine title: La Comédie Humaine of Honoré de Balzac. Limited edition
of 250 copies. Vols 12-22 1899
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/services/library/collections/archives/int/harcat.html

2) Historical Romances [First State, Library Edition] Philadelphia
Printed Only for Subscribers by George Barrie & Son 1900. Stories by:
AINSWORTH, William Harrison CAIN, Georges. CHAMPOLLION, Eugène-André.
CORET, A.. DECISY, Eugène. DITZLER, Hugh W.. FERRIS, Gerome. JEANNIN,
Frédéric-Émile. LE SUEUR, Xavier. LOS RIOS, Ricardo De. ROY,
Pierre-Marcel. WAGREZ, Jacques. Limited to 1,000 numbered copies
printed on Japanese vellum paper. Etched frontispieces and plates by
Ricardo de los Ríos and others.
The original site is no longer online, but you can check the Google
cache version at:
://www.google.com.ar/search?q=cache:DIT_fXX0ucwC:www.polybiblio.com/heritage/27085.html+%22ricardo+de+los+rios%22+&hl=es&ie=UTF8

3) Honoré de Balzac
The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans 
Etchings by Frédric-Emil Jeannin and Ricardo de los Rios, after
paintings by Gaston Bussière
(London: L. Smithers, 1897).
http://www.usfca.edu/library/rarebook/heart/checklist.html

You can take a look at an etching of his, The Shepherdess, painted by
Charles Sprague Pearce (United States), etched by Ricardo De Los Ríos
at:
http://columbus.gl.iit.edu/artarch/00184035.html

Other etchings from De Los Ríos are mentioned at the Spanish national
library (no images available here):

Comedor de caridad 
[S.l : s.n] , 1891
http://www.bne.es/cgi-bin/wsirtex?FOR=WBNBIBT4&VIS=W05BINP&FMT=WBNARIA4&ITE=0007100053632&ISN=00078129&TOT=012&NUM=003

Gallinas comiendo 
[S.l : s.n] , 1879
http://www.bne.es/cgi-bin/wsirtex?FOR=WBNBIBT4&VIS=W05BINP&FMT=WBNARIA4&ITE=0007100053630&ISN=00078129&TOT=012&NUM=004

La Espigadora 
[S.l : s.n. , 17--]
http://www.bne.es/cgi-bin/wsirtex?FOR=WBNBIBT4&VIS=W05BINP&FMT=WBNARIA4&ITE=0007100053640&ISN=00078129&TOT=012&NUM=005

La Hilandera 
[S.l : s.n. , 17--]
http://www.bne.es/cgi-bin/wsirtex?FOR=WBNBIBT4&VIS=W05BINP&FMT=WBNARIA4&ITE=0007100053639&ISN=00078129&TOT=012&NUM=006

Matrimonio de la Virgen 
[S.l : s.n. , 17--]
http://www.bne.es/cgi-bin/wsirtex?FOR=WBNBIBT4&VIS=W05BINP&FMT=WBNARIA4&ITE=0007100053635&ISN=00078129&TOT=012&NUM=007

Some of his etchings were donated to the Spanish national library
between 1899 y 1905, as it said in a document by BARCIA, A. Mª,
written between 1901 y 1905.
http://www.bne.es/grabados/madrid.htm
  
Searching strategy:
Keywords:
Ricardo de los Ríos
Calcografía
Grabados
Etchings
Carlos Haes
Carlos Verger Fioretti
Biblioteca Nacional de España
Museo del Prado

Good luck in your research!
Runix-ga

Lynnieb,

Apparently the artist's full name is Ricardo de los Rios. He's from
Spain and lived from 1846 to 1929. His work includes:

"Élégante au citron" (61 x 50 cm)
http://www.chenu-scrive.com/1101/gd/071.jpg

"Holland Canal" (81.3 x 58.4 cm)
http://www.dargate.com/os/archives/213-5855.jpg

There were also some etchings that turned up. Unfortunately I could
not find biographical information, or the etching in question.


Images taken from:
http://www.chenu-scrive.com/1101/5.htm
http://www.dargate.com/archivecats/art.htm

Perhaps your de los Rios work is an etched reproduction of a work by
another artist?

de los Rios appears to have been a somewhat prolific
etcher/illustrator - a google search <grin> revealed several obscurish
references to his work.  Information regarding de los Rios himself is
rather lacking, both online and in several reference works I quickly
consulted.

Etching and engraving as methods of creating *original* artworks
(rather than to create facsimile of/reproduce works) underwent a major
revival around the period that de los Rios seems to have been at his
most prolific, yet his name does not appear in texts alongside those
producing orginal works at the time - Whistler, Millet, Legros et al.,
something one would reasonably expect, given the significance of the
literature his etchings were illustrating.

It is largely supposition on my part, but my "gut" feel (from some
small clues in the links below) is that de los Rios was an artist who
reproduced other artist's works (very legitimately), to illustrate
various literary works (by Hugo, Balzac etc) - which is why the terms
"after" and "from a painting by" are applied to his work. This could
also explain the lack of biographical information "out there".


This Geocities site (
http://www.geocities.com/gavroche42/vhugo/vhpoetry/illustrations.html
)
links to three etchings by de los Rios - illustrations of Victor
Hugo's poetry:

1. The Terrible Year(1)
   http://www.geocities.com/gavroche42/vhugo/vhpoetry/trrblyr.jpg

2. Jeanne Asleep(1)
   http://www.geocities.com/gavroche42/vhugo/vhpoetry/asleep.jpg

3. The Ass(1)
   http://www.geocities.com/gavroche42/vhugo/vhpoetry/ass.jpg

Footnote 1 in particular is interesting: "(1) An etching from a
drawing by Francois Flameng"


This site ( http://www.usfca.edu/library/rarebook/heart/checklist.html
) refers to more of de los Rios' work

  "Honoré de Balzac
  The Splendors and Miseries of Courtesans 
  Etchings by Frédric-Emil Jeannin and Ricardo de los Rios, *after*
  paintings by Gaston Bussière
  (London: L. Smithers, 1897)"


Other "rare book" sites mention de los Rios, for example:

http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:6FXom6jjRp4C:www.nleditions.com/LUS.html+photogravures+rios&hl=en&lr=lang_en
  "F52609 LeSAGE,Alain Rene, The Bachelor of Salamance. trans.
Townsend.
   with 4 original etchings by de los Rios. London, n.d. (c.1900)
35.50"


I google searched "los Rios" + etching:
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22los+Rios%22+etching

and photogravures + Rios:
://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=lang_en&q=photogravures+Rios
==========================================================================

But back to *your* etching.....this site (
http://napoleonicgallery.com/portraits1a.html
 ) has *loads* of Napoleon portraits - might your de los Rios be
similar to one of those?

==========================================================================
not to discount j_philipp's comments at all, but the signatures on
"Élégante au citron" and "Holland Canal" appear *quite* different -
one is "Ricardo", the other "de los Rios" - i would be rather
surprised if the artist was the same (given that artists tend not to
normally alter their signatures).
but i could be *waaaaayyyyy* wrong with that call :)


Cheers and hope it helped :)