Pencil Sketches of Nature of Sceneries Landscapes of Flowers of Girls of People tumblr of Roses: Pencil Sketch Portrait Of Nature Of Sceneries Landscapes Of Flowers Of Girls Of People Tumblr Of Roses Of Eyes Of Love

Pencil Sketch Portrait Biography

source(google.com.pk)
Thomas Gainsborough sometimes said that while painting portraits was his profession, landscape painting was his pleasure. In this unique self-portrait he has combined both features of his art. Gainsborough has chosen to depict himself seated informally on the ground and sketching directly from nature, which is telling of his close personal affinity with the landscape.

In the portrait, Gainsborough has shown himself as a recently-established young artist. He wears a three-cornered hat, long coat, dark breeches, white stockings and smart buckled shoes.

Like his portraits of this period, described by an early biographer as 'truly drawn, perfectly like, but stiffly painted', the figure of the artist is awkward. This is partly because the figure was first drawn on a separate piece of paper. Gainsborough then cut out his figure and laid it down on the landscape background. The outline of one piece of paper over another is clearly visible.

Gainsborough is shown here drawing with his left hand, although we know that he was right-handed. This indicates that like most self-portraits, this one was made with the use of a mirror.

The British Museum holds the richest collection in existence of Gainsborough's drawings and purchased this, his only known self-portrait drawing, on the bicentenary of Gainsborough's death in 1988.

William Blake ill. 1 was born in London on 28 November 1757 and was christened on 11 December in St. James’s Church. His mother, born Catherine Wright, was married twice. Evidence has recently emerged that she and her first husband, a hosier named Thomas Armitage, were members of the Moravian Church (Davies and Schuchard), and some readers have detected echoes of Moravian hymns in Blake’s poems. After Armitage died, Catherine left the Moravians and married James Blake, also a hosier. The Blakes kept a shop at 28 Broad Street and were in their mid-thirties when William arrived. Of his brothers and sisters, Robert (1762-87) was Blake’s favorite. His eldest brother, James (1753-1827), and a sister, Catherine (1764-1841), also figured prominently in his later life.

As a child, Blake viewed the world in the light of what Wordsworth, in his Ode: Intimations of Immortality, would later call a “visionary gleam.” When he was about nine, he told his parents he had seen “a tree filled with angels” on one of his walks; he later reported a similar vision of “angelic figures walking” in a field among workers as they gathered in the hay (Gilchrist 1: 7). Unlike the child in Wordsworth’s poem, however, Blake never outgrew these visions. He was past fifty when he described seeing the rising sun as “an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty” (Erdman 566).

Blake’s artistic ability also became evident while he was still a child. At age ten he was enrolled in Henry Pars’s drawing school, where he learned to sketch the human figure by copying from plaster casts of ancient statues. His father encouraged his interest and even bought him some casts of his own. The influence of his early exposure to Greek and Roman sculpture can be seen in Blake’s later work. The Farnese Hercules, for example, is the model for the figure of Giant Despair in Christian and Hopeful Escape from Doubting Castle, one of Blake’s illustrations to Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1824-27). In his last illuminated work, Laocoön (c. 1826-27), ill. 2 he surrounds a well-known classical sculpture with his own commentary on art, religion, and commerce.

Besides plaster casts, the young Blake also began to collect inexpensive prints from shops and auctions. His taste ran to Raphael, Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Albrecht Dürer, and Maerten Heemskerck, artists whose work was not widely appreciated at the time. He never wavered in his conviction that they were superior to the more fashionable painters of the Venetian and Flemish schools. In the catalogue for an exhibition of his own work in 1809, he accuses artists “who endeavour to raise up a style against Rafael, Mich. Angelo, and the Antique” of attempting to destroy art (Erdman 538).

In 1772, having left Pars’s school, the fourteen-year-old Blake began his apprenticeship under James Basire, engraver to the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society. Basire was best known for his simple line engravings—a style many of his contemporaries considered outdated, but one that fit well with Blake’s preference for the firm outlines of artists like Albrecht Dürer. Basire’s usual subjects were antiquities and monuments, which he reproduced with austere precision; although he occasionally took on higher-profile projects, such as Benjamin West’s Pylades and Orestes, these were the exception rather than the rule. Prominent artists like West tended to prefer the services of Basire’s rivals, William Woollett (who engraved West’s best-known painting, The Death of General Wolfe) and Robert Strange. Many years later, Blake, remembering the slight to his employer, would call these two men “heavy lumps of Cunning & Ignorance” (Erdman 573).

In Basire’s shop at 31 Great Queen Street in London, Blake learned the craft of copy engraving as it was practiced in England at the end of the eighteenth century. The standard method of preparing a copperplate for etching or engraving was time-consuming and labor-intensive. The original large sheet of copper had to be cut into appropriate sizes and the edges beveled to facilitate cleaning the ink off the plate and to prevent it from tearing the paper. The plate also had to be squared and its corners rounded, because the pressure of the printing press would leave an impression of the plate’s edges in the paper. Next, the surface had to be polished, cleaned, and covered with an acid-resistant film, or “ground,” which was then darkened with soot to contrast with the copper. Onto this ground the design was then transferred and traced with a needle to expose the plate’s surface to acid, which bit the design into the copper (Viscomi, Blake 48-50). In a shop like Basire’s , most of the tedious preparatory work was carried out by apprentices like Blake.

It is difficult to know which of the works produced in Basire’s shop during this period Blake himself may have engraved, because engravers’ apprentices were discouraged from developing their own individual styles, and their work was usually signed by the master. Among the projects in which modern scholars believe Blake probably had a hand were Jacob Bryant’s A New System, or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1774-76) and Richard Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain, Part I (published 1786). These books represent two subjects—mythology and British history—in which Blake never lost interest.

Bryant was an antiquarian and mythographer who, like many others in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, attempted to reconcile pagan mythology with the biblical account of history. He theorized that the original monotheism of the Old Testament had degenerated after the Flood into various forms of sun worship, from which all the other pagan gods and heroes descended. His work had a lasting influence on Blake, who as late as 1809 cites the authority of “Jacob Bryant, and all antiquaries” in support of his claim that “The antiquities of every Nation under Heaven” are equally sacred (Erdman 543).

The plates for Gough’s Sepulchral Monuments were engraved after pencil sketches Blake made of the tombs of kings and queens in Westminster Abbey. Basire is said to have given him that assignment in order to get him out of the shop and away from the dissension that was brewing among the newer apprentices (Bentley, Blake Records 422). Blake probably engraved a number of the sketches himself, including the portraits of Henry III, Eleanor of Castile, Edward III, and Richard II. ill. 3 ill. 4 Eleanor in particular seems to have appealed to Blake’s imagination, for he returned to her as a subject for the historical print Edward & Elenor ill. 5 and, much later, for one of his Visionary Heads. Edward III, meanwhile, reappears as the protagonist of a dramatic fragment in Blake’s first volume of poetry, Poetical Sketches (1783).

The earliest engraving that scholars can confidently attribute to Blake reflects his interest in early British history and legend. He later reworked and reprinted it with the title Joseph of Arimathea among the Rocks of Albion ill. 6 and dated it 1773, the second year of his apprenticeship. The young Blake’s technique in the first state of this work, though competent, does not reveal much about him as an artist; his distinctive imagination emerges only in the way he combines the compositional elements. He takes the pensive, muscular figure from Michelangelo’s Crucifixion of St. Peter, but places him against a spare, brooding background of sea and rocky coast that evokes a mood reminiscent of the bleak seascapes of Anglo-Saxon verse. On the later state of this engraving, Blake identifies the figure as “One of the Gothic Artists who Built the Cathedrals in what we call the Dark Ages” (Erdman 671)—an allusion to the legend that Joseph of Arimathea traveled to Britain and founded Glastonbury Abbey.

Little is known of the early life of John Faber, other than he was born in the Hague in the Netherlands. He established himself in Amsterdam, producing little portraits in pen and ink on vellum, fine animal skin. Around 1696/8 he came to England, settling in London. Apparently at this time he adopted graphite in place of ink - a technique commonly called 'plumbago' because it was once thought that graphite was lead-based. He also began to experiment with the new and exquisite print technique of mezzotint engraving, and set up his own printselling business at the Two Golden Balls, near the Savoy in the Strand.

Throughout his career he published a large number of engraved portraits, some of which were after his own drawings, and so maintained the traditional links between small plumbago or ink portraits and printmaking (see Wierix q.v.). His focus on portraiture also answered a developing fashion for collecting 'heads' of notable people - something which Bernard Lens also identified. Faber produced a number of engraved 'sets' of portraits of interesting groups, and also worked with George Vertue engraving portraits in the picture gallery of the Bodleian Library. He also produced 45 portraits of the founders of Oxford and Cambridge University colleges, which were republished throughout the 18th century. In later life Faber worked with his son and pupil, also John Faber, and died in Bristol in 1721.

John Field 1771-1848
John Field was one of the most famous of silhouette artists. He was probably born in London (his parents married in St Ann's, Westminster). Field began his career as an assistant to John Miers (q.v.) the most successful profilist of the 18th century. It is not known exactly when he began to work for Miers; possibly by 1791, certainly by 1794. After this date he was certainly responsible for most of the profiles painted at Miers' studio at 111 Strand, London. Field married in 1795 at St Margaret's, Westminster. It is not known where he lived after he was married; when he exhibited at the Royal Academy he used Miers' studio as his address. He seems to have tried around 1815 to set up independently - one of his trade labels reads 'late fourteen years sole profile painter for Mr Miers, of 111 Strand'. But he seems to have gone back to the Miers firm and from about 1823 was in partnership with Miers son, William Miers.

In 1830 the Miers and Field partnership was finally dissolved and Field worked at the same address as his son, also a profile painter, Henry William Field. Field was in his sixties when he finally achieved his independence. About this time he also began to advertise himself as profilist to Queen Adelaide and Princess Augusta, although no official record of this appointment has been traced in Royal Household records. Field always emphasised his time with Miers, advertising himself with such phrases as 'formerly Miers and Field' and 'for the last 40 years… for the late Mr. Miers and Son'. He not only produced silhouettes but filled sketchbooks with landscape drawings and painted landscapes, some of which were unusually on the same plaster surface on which he painted silhouettes. He exhibited extensively at the Royal Academy, both silhouettes and landscapes. He continued to work until the year before his death in 1848.

Thomas Flatman 1635-88
Thomas Flatman was apparently the son of a clerk in the court of chancery. He was born in London and was a scholar at Winchester College from the age of fourteen and entered New College, Oxford at the age of nineteen (though there is no record of his degree). In 1655, at the age of twenty, he paid to be entered at the Inner Temple and in 1662 was called to the bar; he described himself at this time as 'of London, a gent'. In 1666 he was awarded an M.A. from St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and in 1668 was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. As a 'gentleman' and a man of letters, Flatman's miniature painting (then called limning) was more in the amateur tradition of Sir James Palmer, than the professional practice of Samuel Cooper.

His earliest miniature dates from around 1660 when he was starting his career in law. Flatman's friends included the artist Mary Beale, her husband Charles and their son, also Charles, who also painted miniatures. He painted their miniatures, but interestingly, seems to have been paid for his miniature of Charles Beale senior. His other sitters seem, on the basis of costume and traditional identification, to have been fellow lawyers and officials. Interestingly, miniature painting had to take second place to his real passion- writing poetry. He published his own work extensively, translated Ovid's epistles and from 1681 to 1682 published anonymously eighty-two weekly editions of a pro-government pamphlet. He also contributed lines 'On the noble art of painting' to William Sanderson's 'Graphice' published in 1658. In 1672 he married a lady called Suzanna, but the background of his wife's family is unknown. They lived in Three Leg Alley, in the parish of St Bride's, where he died in 1688.

Thomas Forster, about 1676/7 to about 1717
Nothing is known about Thomas Forster's origins. It has been suggested that he had some link with Northumberland, where the name Forster was particularly common at this time. But no definitive link has been made. It is known roughly when he was born because George Vertue, writing in the early 18th century, noted seeing a self-portrait drawing by Forster, aged 31, and dated 1708. Forster is known for his exquisite portrait drawings on vellum in graphite. These are commonly known as 'plumbagos' (black lead) because graphite was long believed to be lead-based. However in the late 18th century the true chemical nature of graphite was discovered and it was named 'graphite' to honour its role in the graphic arts. Traditionally plumbago portraits were linked to the book trade, with engravers primarily producing portrait drawings from which to take printed versions. But unlike David Loggan or John Faber Forster was not an engraver and his plumbagos are also rarely of people who were then famous or are particularly significant historically today. Instead, according to one assessment, his one-off portrait drawings on vellum seem to have had 'a considerable vogue amongst people in a private station of life'.

Thomas Frye 1710-62
Thomas Frye was born in Edenderry, King's Country, Ireland. His grandfather was a dragoon officer who had fought at the battle of the Boyne on the side of William III. It is not known what education he had or when he came to London. He married around 1735 and had five children. Frye is typical of many of the artists who painted portrait miniatures in the early 18th century - he would not have identified himself primarily as a miniature painter, and did not learn the art as an apprentice under a master. Miniature painting, working in watercolour on ivory, was an established genteel pastime, and many artists felt able to teach themselves, and have it as simply as another string to their bow.

Frye was involved in a wide variety of artistic activities, including oils, mezzotint prints, crayons (also called pastels), 'plumbago' portraits (small drawings in graphite on vellum), miniatures in watercolour on ivory, enamels and even oil 'miniatures' painted on metal. He was also a founder partner and first manager of the bow porcelain 'manufactory' in London. He devoted so much time to the factory that he became ill in 1759 and had to go to Wales for his health; unfortunately the factory did not survive his absence. As a result of this activity miniatures on ivory by Frye are rare. Frye had some important commissions as a portrait painter in oil - Frederick , Prince of Wales sat to Frye for an oil portrait for the Saddlers' Company. He was also particularly famous for his striking mezzotints. Frye died of consumption in 1762.

The Monogrammist 'GI', worked about 1640
The artist who signed miniatures 'GI' has not been identified. Only two other miniatures have so far been recorded as having this monogram. One is of Francis Holles, the third son of the First Earl of Clare, which is in the collection held at Welbeck Abbey. Holles died in 1622 and this miniature has been dated to just before his death. The second was exhibited at the 1865 exhibition of portrait miniatures held at the Victoria and Albert Museum (then called the South Kensington Museum), exhibition number 330. The miniature was supposedly of 'William Duke of Hamilton' and was lent by a 'Miss Webb'. Another miniature in the V&A was noted as being by the monogrammist 'GI', in John Murdoch, 'Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum' (1997), page 289. However this is actually signed only with the initial 'G'.

Richard Gibson 1615-90
Little is known of Richard Gibson's early life. But unlike Samuel Cooper it is clear that he did not train within the highly competitive professional London art world. Gibson was also known as 'Dick' and 'Dwarf' Gibson, and indeed signed his early miniatures (then called limnings) 'DG'. Standing at only three feet ten inches, he was to work as a 'page' well into his thirties, despite this role being associated with boys. He first worked for 'a Lady at Mortlake' who apparently noticed his talent for drawing. She arranged for him to have instruction from Francis Cleyn at the prestigious Mortlake tapestry works. In the 1630s he entered the service of Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, the Lord Chamberlain, where he met his future wife, Anne Sheppard, who worked in the Earl's household. Their marriage in 1640 was a celebrated court event, the marriage register recording that the couple were 'boethe Dowarfes'.

Gibson worked as a 'Page of the Back-Stairs' to Charles I, but when the king abandoned London during the civil war, Gibson went with Pembroke to the sanctuary of his country house, Wilton. Pembroke died the same year that Charles I was executed, but secured Gibson's future by granting him an annuity. After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 Gibson set up as a professional miniature painter in London, now signing himself confidently 'RG'. When Samuel Cooper died in 1672, Gibson was briefly kings limner (miniature painter). His ease in court circles undoubtedly recommended him as drawing master to the daughters of the Duke of York, the princesses Mary and Anne, and Gibson accompanied Mary to Holland on her marriage to Prince William of Orange in 1677. Richard and Anne Gibson had five surviving children, one of whom Susannah-Penelope Rosse was also a miniature painter. When Gibson returned to London in 1688 on the accession of William and Mary, he lived with his daughter until his death in 1690.

Charles Hayter 1761-1835
Hayter was the son of an architect and builder, and first trained with his father. However, he showed an inclination for drawing by producing some small pencil portraits, and so he was entered in the Royal Academy Schools in London in 1786 at the late age of about 25. He exhibited at the Royal Academy exhibitions from the same year and until 1832, a few years before his death. From 1786 he worked as a miniature painter in London, and also Essex, and in 1832 in Winchester. He married in 1788 and his two sons and daughter all worked as artists; Sir George Hayter, John Hayter, and Anne Hayter who, like her father, was a miniature painter. Hayter held the position of professor of perspective and drawing to Charlotte, Princess of Wales, and he dedicated to her his 'An Introduction to perspective, adapted to the capacities of youth, in a series of pleasing and familiar dialogues' (1813). He also wrote 'A New Practical Treatise on the Three Primitive Colours' (1828). An album containing 443 studies for miniature portraits is in the V&A. Hayter noted inside the cover that these were sketches which he 'placed behind the Ivory, which being transparent, gave the artist the aid in making his outline on the ivory'. He could also make further copies if required.

Thomas Hazlehurst, about 1740 - about 1821
Hazlehurst was born in Liverpool. His mother, Grace, was the adopted daughter of John (or James) Hardman of Allerton Hall estate, Liverpool. But she was disinherited on her marriage to Thomas Hazlehurst's father. Almost no detail is known of Hazlehurst's life, including when he was born, his education or his training as a miniature painter. When he exhibited at the Society for Promoting Painting and Design in Liverpool in 1787 he described himself as a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, but the truth of this statement is unknown. He first exhibited with that society in 1760 and continued until 1818. Between 1810 and 1812 he additionally exhibited at the Liverpool Academy. He was very successful commercially as a fashionable Liverpool painter, making over £20,000. But he lost heavily in bad investments and died in poverty. He also painted flower studies and an notable collection of 387 paintings of Lancashire flora is in the City of Liverpool Library. He married Martha Bentley who died in 1840, and had thirteen children. One of his sons, Joseph B Hazlehurst also became a miniature painter.

Nellie Hepburn-Edmunds About 1895- 1954
The most recent major dictionary of 'British Miniature Painters', by Daphne Foskett (published 1972) covers the years 1520 to 1910. This means that artists working at the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century are rarely noted. Consequently biographical information is not readily accessible. Although Nellie Hepburn-Edmunds is noted by Foskett, she gives little biographical information. Other dictionaries note that Hepburn-Edmunds studied at Slade School, University College, London and Westminster School of Art. From 1896-1940 she exhibited at various venues, such as the Royal Academy (at which she showed 87 exhibits), from addresses in London. From 1914 she was also Vice-President of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, which was founded in 1896. She is not however included in the anniversary publication of that society 'The Royal Society of Miniature Painters Sculptors and Gravers, One Hundred Years', (Lucas Art,1995).

Diana Hill, born Dietz, other married name Harriott, About 1760-1844
It is not known who the parents of Diana Dietz were or where she was born. In 1775 she won a silver palette and five guineas for drawings of flowers from the 'Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce' (Society of Arts). She learnt the art of miniature painting from Jeremiah Meyer and in 1775 exhibited miniatures at the Society of Artists. Between 1777 and 1780 she exhibited miniatures at the Royal Academy as Diana Dietz. In 1781 she married Haydock Hill, and seems to have stopped painting professionally. When in 1785 she exhibited one last time at the Royal Academy it was as an 'Honorary Exhibitor' using her married name of Mrs Hill; two of her exhibited works at this exhibition were flower pieces (it has been said she exhibited until 1798, but this was the miniature painter Amelia Mary Dietz).

Evidently widowed around 1785, Mrs Hill was given permission by the court of directors of the East India Company to work in India as a portrait painter. On her arrival in Calcutta in 1786 the miniaturist Ozias Humphry noted despondently that 'a pretty widow' had arrived to compete with him, and that she had 'great merit' as a miniaturist. In 1788 Mrs Hill married an officer in the East India company's service, Lieutenant Thomas Harriott of the 1st native infantry. The couple moved back to England with their family in 1806, and Diana Harriott died at Twickenham, Middlesex in 1844.

Nicholas Hilliard 1547-1619
Hilliard was the son of the Exeter goldsmith, Richard Hilliard. His father was a notable Protestant and during the reign of the Catholic Mary Tudor sent Nicholas to the safety of Protestant Geneva with the Bodley family. In 1562, aged around 15, Nicholas Hilliard was apprenticed in London to Queen Elizabeth I's goldsmith, Robert Brandon, for the traditional seven years. In 1569 he completed his apprenticeship, becoming a Freeman of the Goldsmith Company, entitled to open his own workshop and employ apprentices. In 1576 he married the daughter of his former master, Alice Brandon. The earliest known miniature (then called a limning) by Hilliard dates from 1571, and in 1572 he had his first sitting with the queen. Apart from a three year period between 1576 and about 1579 when Hilliard was in France, he lived and worked in Gutter Lane, London.

To his abiding disappointment Elizabeth I did not pay him an annuity as a member of her court, but employed him only when she required his services (he was only granted an annuity in 1599). This meant that Hilliard could not live by miniature painting alone, but continued working as a goldsmith, probably painted some oils, designed jewellery, woodcuts and even the Great Seal. Hillard worked for James I from the King's accession in 1603 until Hilliard's death in 1619. But by this time he had been eclipsed by his pupil, Isaac Oliver. Nicholas Hilliard established the art of miniature painting firmly at the heart of court culture and his miniatures today seem to epitomise the reign of Elizabeth I. Additionally, through his treatise on miniature painting, written about 1599, we have an insight not only into his working methods but also into the character of this important English artist.

Hans Holbein the younger 1497-1543
Holbein was German, born in Augsburg, the son of the religious painter Hans Holbein the Elder. He became an internationally renowned portrait painter and most of his career was spent in Switzerland and England. All his miniature paintings (paintings in watercolour on vellum, fine animal skin), date from his second stay in England from 1532. It is generally assumed that he learned the very particular techniques of miniature painting from Lucas Horenbout who also worked for Henry VIII. But Holbein's miniatures reflect his superior skill as a portrait painter, and bring to the small format of this watercolour art the more monumental quality of his portraits painted in oil on canvas. Sixteen miniatures survive today that are attributed to Holbein, and nearly all are portraits of members of the English court. One of his most famous miniatures however is of Jane Small, the wife of a prosperous London merchant, possibly a neighbour of Holbein's. Although it is not known where Holbein lived prior to 1541, he almost certainly did not live at court. Holbein died in London in 1543.

Nathaniel Hone 1718-84
Nathaniel Hone was born in Dublin, the son of a merchant of the same name. Hone was possibly self-taught but may have studied with Robert West, a painter who set up a drawing school in Dublin in the 1730s. It is not known when Hone came to England, but once there he worked as a portrait painter, moving around the country to find clients. In 1742 he married Mary Earle, who had a small fortune. It is possible that this allowed him to settle down as an artist, and he set up in business in St James's Place, London. He painted oils and miniatures on ivory, as well as painting enamels. He never travelled to Italy, but his brother was elected a member of the Academy in Florence in 1752 and arranged for Nathaniel to be elected in 1753 'in absentia'. Hone took advantage immediately of the first exhibiting society which opened in London in 1760, and showed works at the Society of Artists at their annual exhibitions until 1768.

He was then a founder member of the new Royal Academy that held its first exhibition in 1769 - he exhibited 69 oil paintings and miniatures there until his death in 1784. Like Richard Cosway Hone was not content to be identified as a miniature painter and concentrated more and more on his oil paintings. Unlike Cosway, he gradually gave up painting miniatures, and also became increasingly satirical and controversial in his subject matter. He famously painted 'The Conjuror' which was an open attack on the reputation of the first president of the Royal Academy, Sir Joshua Reynolds. He also painted many genre paintings and pictures with biblical, mythological, and theatrical themes. His two sons, Horace Hone and John Camillus Hone, both became well known miniature painters.

Lucas Horenbout, about 1490/5-1544
Lucas Horenbout was Flemish, the son of Gerard Horenbout, who headed a renowned workshop of illuminators in Ghent in modern-day Belgium. But no documents relating to Lucas Horenbout's early years or his training are known today. The first record relating to Lucas Horenbout is in the accounts of Henry VIII, for September 1525. He was probably employed by Henry as a painter primarily since he was described as a 'pictor maker', rather than an illuminator of books. In 1534 he received a formal grant of the office of King's Painter, though there is little evidence of the work he carried out for the court. Henry VIII's records also show payments to Lucas's sister Susannah Horenbout, who, according to the famous German painter and engraver Albrecht Durer, painted illuminations. Indeed Susannah was possibly the first of her family to come to England to work for Henry.

Their father Gerard appears in Henry's accounts from 1528. Lucas Horenbout is credited with painting the first portrait miniatures in England at the court of Henry VIII. The earliest datable English portrait miniature is of Henry VIII, inscribed 'anno XXXV' and is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. This shows Henry aged between 34 and 36, which coincides with Horenbout's first appearance in court records. Over twenty miniatures have been attributed to Horenbout based on their technical and stylistic similarity to this miniature. According to a later writer a 'Master Lucas' also taught the oil painter Hans Holbein the Younger, the techniques of this delicate watercolour art. In 1534 he was granted English denizenship. He died in 1544 and his will expressed the wish to be buried in London, his adopted home, at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

John Hoskins, about 1590-1664/5
John Hoskins was possibly born in Wells, but few details of his life are known. Two portraits in oil by him show that he first trained as an oil painter, while his earliest miniatures (then called limnings), dating from 1615, show the influence of Nicholas Hilliard. After Hilliard's death in 1619 Hoskins became the leading miniature painter, working throughout the 1620s and 1630s for the Court. Increasingly Hoskins moved away from Hilliard's literal use of silver and gold pigments to create three dimensional jewels. In their place he used ordinary pigments two dimensionally to paint the simpler jewels favoured by Charles I's queen, Henrietta Maria. He also abandoned Hilliard's flat blue or red 'curtain' backgrounds, and pioneered the landscape background that featured in many 17th century miniatures.

The arrival at the English Court in 1632 of the internationally renowned oil portraitist, Anthony Van Dyck, confirmed Hoskins in this more modern style. Indeed Hoskins' workshop seems to have worked directly with Van Dyck's on versions in miniature of Van Dyck's oils. Hoskins was the uncle of Alexander and Samuel Cooper and, although it is not know why or when, the two boys lived with Hoskins rather than their parents. Indeed Samuel was trained by Hoskins in the art of miniature painting. Eventually Samuel Cooper was to eclipse his uncle having set up independently in 1642. Hoskins also had a son, John Hoskins Junior, who seems to have worked in Hoskins' workshop. Consequently it is sometimes difficult to separate the work of father and son in the 1640s. Hoskins' was granted an annuity by Charles I, but tragically this was cut off after the King's execution in 1649 and Hoskins was to die impoverished.

Ozias Humphry RA 1742-1810
Humphry was born in Honiton, Devon, the son of a peruke-maker and mercer. While he was at grammar school his mother apparently saw an advertisement in the local Barnstaple newspaper for William Shipley's new drawing school in London. His mother was a lace maker and in 1757 Humphry was sent to London to learn drawing and make contacts with lace makers to provide her with new patterns. Humphry lodged with family friends and joined John Smart , Richard Cosway and Richard Crosse who were also at Shipley's to be trained in drawing 'heads, figures, flowers &c', at a cost of half a guinea entrance and one guinea a month for two days a week. Humphry realised there was a good living to be made as a portrait painter and persuaded his mother to apprentice him to the miniature painter Samuel Collins in Bath.

When Collins absconded to Ireland in debt a judge excused Humphry from his three-year apprenticeship and further fees, and Humphry inherited the practice. He met Joshua Reynolds in Bath and was encouraged to return to London, although he was disappointed not to be helped further by Reynolds once in London. Nonetheless, he soon had a large clientele as a miniature painter. But Humphry's career was marred by such feelings of disappointment. He longed to paint oil paintings not miniatures. But despite 4 years in Italy from 1773-7 imbibing the art of the old masters, he never succeeded in this field. He felt that he could not earn enough as a miniature painter in London and from 1785 to 1787 he was in India. But he returned without having made a fortune painting the British community and local Indian aristocrats. Ultimately he was also to suffer from failing eye-sight and had to abandon miniature painting in favour of pastel painting. He died in London leaving behind his papers and letters that he had kept throughout his life (now in the Royal Academy).

Mrs M. Lane Kelfe, worked 1778-94
Little is known about M Lane Kelfe, who also advertised herself as 'Mrs Kelfe'. The earliest known work is a profile with her trade label and dating from about 1778, taken in Southampton. The last datable work is signed and dated by Mrs. Kelfe at Fowey, Cornwall, in 1794. In the intervening sixteen years Mrs Kelfe worked also in Bath, Oxford and London. Two advertisements for her are known. One was in the 'Bath Chronicle' for 17 April 1784; '…Profiles taken with the greatest accuracy by Mrs. Kelfe, who has been favoured with the encouragement of the company in Bath several preceding seasons…'.

On this occasion Mrs Kelfe claimed to exhibit 'in her apartment at Mr. Young.., confectioner, bottom of Bond Street' around 1400 profiles that she has already executed, and she reminded previous customers that she can easily make extra copies. It seems that in the 1780s Mrs Kelfe tended to visit Bath in about April and then when the Bath season was flagging, to go to Oxford at the time the summer term at the university began. In 1785 she also placed an advertisement announcing that examples of her work could be seen in London at her apartments in Duke Street, St. James. Interestingly she referred to herself as 'M.L.Kelfe (From Bond Street, Bath)'. Despite her advertisements, no works today are attributable to her which are painted on glass or on enamel, nor are there any surviving painted on or backed with satin.

Bernard Lens III 1682-1740
Bernard Lens was the son of Bernard Lens II, a mezzotint engraver and drawing master. Lens II, together with another engraver, John Sturt, set up one of the first drawing schools in England, near St Pauls in London. Bernard Lens III was formally apprenticed to 'Sturt' of the Goldsmiths' Company (presumably his father's partner), but almost certainly never trained as a goldsmith - by this date registration with a guild simply established a right to work in the City of London. Like his father Lens III became a drawing master, but additionally learned miniature painting (often still called limning at this date). Miniature painting was an established amateur art and it is likely that Lens was self-taught. He in turn taught miniature painting to his pupils who included elite members of society such as Princess Mary, the daughter of George II. His first known dated miniature (1707) is on ivory, rather than the traditional vellum, and he is credited with introducing this new support in Britain.

The use of ivory in place of vellum was probably the innovation of the Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera, and it possible that a pupil of Lens who had travelled to Italy informed him of this development. Despite having no family background in miniature painting he also worked on the traditional vellum support, and acted as a curator advising his aristocratic patrons on their collections of traditional family miniatures. He also provided new frames to safeguard such old miniatures - pearwood frames stained black, which are still called 'Lens Frames' today. He also offered fashionable collectors of so-called 'heads' (portraits of famous historical figures) up-market versions in miniature of the more usual engraved 'heads'. He was appointed 'Enameller' rather than 'limner' or 'miniature painter' to George I and George II - a mistake that arose from the previous incumbent, the enameller Charles Boit , having the title changed. Lens himself once signed a miniature 'Painter in Minatura [sic] in Ordinary to his Majesty King George'. He married in 1706 and had at least three sons, two of whom were also miniature painters.

David Loggan 1634-1692
David Loggan was born in Danzig, Poland, the son of a merchant of Scottish descent. Loggan apparently learned engraving from Willem Hondius, who had settled in Danzig in 1636, and from Crispin van de Passe in Amsterdam. Loggan moved from Amsterdam to London some time between 1656 and 1658, and established himself as an engraver working for various publishers. At the same time he caught the attention of London patrons with a portrait in graphite (what we would call pencil) of Oliver Cromwell, just before Cromwell died. Loggan soon became known for his so-called 'plumbago' portraits, which are actually not in black lead, but drawn with graphite on vellum, a fine animal skin.

Loggan seems to have had sittings with leading courtiers and men of the church, and a number of his portraits were engraved. In 1663 he married and in 1665 he and his wife left London because of the plague and settled in Oxfordshire. Here Loggan established a thriving portrait practice especially amongst members of Oxford University. He is mentioned in the diaries of Anthony Wood, who introduced him to such leading lights as Elias Ashmole, whose collection was the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. He was also to become engraver to the university, with an annual salary, and a member of the university. In 1675 he was finally naturalized as an Englishman, and the same year returned to London, living in Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square). Loggan was assisted by Robert White, who was also to become a well known 'plumbago' portraitist, and died in his home in Leicester Fields in 1692.

Pencil Sketch Portrait Of Nature Of Sceneries Landscapes Of Flowers Of Girls Of People Tumblr Of Roses Of Eyes Of Love