Richard Earlom, the son of William Earlom and his wife Margaret. He is said to have been introduced to the painter G. B. Cipriani through a neighbour in Cow Lane, Smithfield, a coach-maker who mended the Lord Mayor's coach (decorated by the Italian artist). He studied with Cipriani and at the St Martin's Lane Academy, as well as the Duke of Richmond's gallery of casts. From 1757 to 1766 he frequently won premiums and prizes for drawing and for engraving at the Society of Arts, including in 1765, a premium for an original drawing of Numa Pompilius refusing the Roman Sovereignty. He exhibited his prize-winning drawing of The Dancing Faun with the Free Society of Artists in 1762 and in 1767 exhibited the drawing after West of his Story of Pyrrhus (engraved by John Hall and published by Boydell in 1769).
In 1773 he went to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, with George and Joseph Farington and Josiah Boydell to copy works in the collection, published by Boydell as The Houghton Gallery (1774-88). His outstanding achievements for Boydell were the 51 plates after Cipriani intended for use by art students and the 300 plates after Claude, published as the Liber Veritatis (1777-1819). He was paid the unusually high rate of £420 for the single large engraving he created for the Shakespeare Gallery of Fuseli's Lear. Earlom is estimated to have produced more than 500 engravings, 70 portraits, 60 mezzotints, and many illustrations, including mezzotints to Thornton's The Temple of Flora (1799/1807) and Woodburn's Portraits of Characters Illustrated in British History (1810).
His engravings after Wilson included various impressions of E23 Meleager and Atalanta and E24 Apollo and the Nymphs.
