His father, Daniel Valentine Riviere (1780–1854), who was a drawing-master of considerable celebrity and a gold medallist of the Royal Academy, married, in 1800, Henrietta Thunder, by whom he had a family of five sons and six daughters.
Robert, the second son, was educated at an academy at Hornsey kept by Mr. Grant, and on leaving school, in 1824, was apprenticed to Messrs. Allman, the booksellers, of Princes Street, Hanover Square, London.
But not finding sufficient scope for his talents in that city, he came in 1840 to London, where he commenced business as a bookbinder at 28 Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, afterwards removing to 196 Piccadilly.
The excellent workmanship and good taste displayed in his bindings gradually won for them the appreciation of connoisseurs, and he was largely employed by the Duke of Devonshire, Samuel Christie-Miller, Captain Francis Capper Brooke[2] and other great collectors.
[3] While the binding of Riviere, like that of his equally celebrated fellow-craftsman, Francis Bedford, is deficient in originality, it is in all other respects—in the quality of the materials, the forwarding, and in the finish and delicacy of the tooling—deserving of almost unqualified commendation.