John Scarlett Davis (1 September 1804 – 29 September 1845), or Davies, was an English landscape,

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this r ...

and architectural painter, and

lithographer Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

.Tony Hobbs, ''John Scarlett Davis: A Biography'', Almeley, Herefordshire, Logaston Press, 2004.

Life and work

Davis was born in

Leominster Leominster ( ) is a market town in Herefordshire, England, at the confluence of the River Lugg and its tributary the River Kenwater. The town is north of Hereford and south of Ludlow in Shropshire. With a population of 11,700, Leominster i ...

(the building, 2 High Street, survives), the second of five children of James Davis, a silversmith and watchmaker. Scarlett was his mother's maiden name; she was a distant relation of James Scarlett, 1st Baron Abinger. At the age of eleven, Davis won an award from the local society for the encouragement of the arts. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools in London, and began exhibiting his works at the annual Royal Academy shows in 1825 (with the painting "My Den"). He last exhibited in London in 1844. He was influenced by the work of his contemporary,

Richard Parkes Bonington Richard Parkes Bonington (25 October 1802 – 23 September 1828) was an English Romantic landscape painter, who moved to France at the age of 14 and can also be considered as a French artist, and an intermediary bringing aspects of English sty ...

. Davis painted portraits, landscapes, and church interiors, and developed a distinctive speciality in painting the interiors of art galleries. His picture ''The Interior of the British Institution Gallery'' (1829) records a collection of Old Masters. He lithographed and published twelve heads from studies by Rubens, and in 1832 some views of

Bolton Abbey Bolton Abbey in Wharfedale, North Yorkshire, England, takes its name from the ruins of the 12th-century Augustinian monastery now known as Bolton Priory. The priory, closed in the 1539 Dissolution of the Monasteries ordered by King He ...

, drawn from nature on stone. His watercolor of the collection of Benjamin Godfrey Windus (1835) shows the

Turner Turner may refer to: People and fictional characters *Turner (surname), a common surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Turner (given name), a list of people with the given name *One who uses a lathe for turni ...

pictures on the walls. (

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

studied those Turners while writing his ''

Modern Painters ''Modern Painters'' (1843–1860) is a five-volume work by the Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, begun when he was 24 years old based on material collected in Switzerland in 1842. Ruskin argues that recent painters emerging from the tradition of ...

''.)Lionel Lambourne, ''Victorian Painting'', London, Phaidon Press, 1999; p. 27. Davis painted the interiors of the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

as well. Between 1842 and 1845 he was commissioned to draw copies of the paintings in the collections of the British royal palaces. Davis painted scenes on the Continent during his travels there. In 1831 he had a commission from Lord Farnborough to paint an interior of the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

and of the Escurial. He was in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

in 1834, where he painted the interior of the

Uffizi The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...

Gallery, and in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

in 1841 (sending the picture "Jack after a successful cruise, visiting his old comrades at Greenwich"). He died of

pulmonary tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

on 29 September 1845, at his London home, 11, Bedford Street, in

Bedford Square Bedford Square is a garden square in the Bloomsbury district of the Borough of Camden in London, England. History Built between 1775 and 1783 as an upper middle class residential area, the square has had many distinguished residents, inclu ...

and was buried at All Souls, Kensal Green. He was aged just 41 years. He is commemorated by a blue plaque, erected in September 2002, on his birthplace in Leominster. His works are in a number of public and private collections, with several in each of the

National Museum Cardiff National Museum Cardiff ( cy, Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd) is a museum and art gallery in Cardiff, Wales. The museum is part of the wider network of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Entry is kept free by a grant from the Welsh Gov ...

, the National Portrait Gallery,

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

Hereford Museum and Art Gallery The Hereford Museum and Art Gallery is a local museum in the cathedral city of Hereford, Herefordshire, England. The museum is housed in a Victorian Gothic building. Through the generosity of James Rankin, President of the Woolhope Naturalists ...

, Leominster Museum, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, and the

Yale Center for British Art Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...

. A major exhibition of his work was held at Hereford in 1937. A number of his letters are held by Herefordshire Libraries and Information Service.

References

External links

*
J S Davis online
(ArtCyclopedia)
Davis's watercolor of the Windus collection.

A self-portrait.Main Gallery at the Louvre
(1831, oil on Canvas -

Government Art Collection The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in t ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, John Scarlett 19th-century English painters English male painters English watercolourists English portrait painters Landscape artists 1804 births 1845 deaths People from Leominster 19th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in England 19th-century English male artists