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John Dixon (engraver)
John Dixon (1740?–1811) was an Irish mezzotint engraver. Life He was born in Dublin about 1740. His father was Thomas Dixon, a hosier, of Cork Hill. His brother Samuel Dixon, was a watercolourist and printmaker. John Dixon received his art training in the Dublin Society's schools, of which Robert West was then master, and began life as an engraver of silver plate. He moved to London about 1765, and in the following year became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, with whom he exhibited until 1775. Dixon was, in politics, a follower of John Wilkes, and some of his portraits are of other Wilkites. His early publisher was William Wynne Ryland. A handsome man, he married in 1775 Ann, the widow of Nicholas Kempe, one of the owners of Ranelagh Gardens. After that he engraved only as recreation. He later moved to Kensington. Works Dixon's portraits of William Carmichael after Ennis, and of Nicholas Taaffe, 6th Viscount Taaffe, after Robert Hunter, are thought to have bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mezzotint
Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the '' intaglio'' family. It was the first printing process that yielded half-tones without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonality by roughening a metal plate with thousands of little dots made by a metal tool with small teeth, called a "rocker". In printing, the tiny pits in the plate retain the ink when the face of the plate is wiped clean. This technique can achieve a high level of quality and richness in the print. ''Mezzotint'' is often combined with other ''intaglio'' techniques, usually etching and engraving. The process was especially widely used in England from the eighteenth century, to reproduce portraits and other paintings. It was somewhat in competition with the other main tonal technique of the day, aquatint. Since the mid-nineteenth century it has been relatively little used, as lithography and other techniques produced comparable results more ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Alchemist (play)
''The Alchemist'' is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge believed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature. The play's clever fulfilment of the classical unities and vivid depiction of human folly have made it one of the few Renaissance plays (except the works of Shakespeare) with a continuing life on stage, apart from a period of neglect during the Victorian era. Background ''The Alchemist'' premiered 34 years after the first permanent public theatre ( The Theatre) opened in London; it is, then, a product of the early maturity of commercial drama in London. Only one of the University Wits who had transformed drama in the Elizabethan period remained alive (this was Thomas Lodge); in the other direction, the last great playwright to flourish before the Interregnum, James Shirley, was already a teenager. The the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frans Hals
Frans Hals the Elder (, , ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works, who lived and worked in Haarlem. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group portraiture. He is known for his loose painterly brushwork. Biography Hals was born in 1582 or 1583 in Antwerp, then in the Spanish Netherlands, as the son of cloth merchant Franchois Fransz Hals van Mechelen ( 1542–1610) and his second wife Adriaentje van Geertenryck.Frans Hals iat the Like many, Hals's parents fled during the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art and the most important in Dutch art history.Gombrich, p. 420. Unlike most Dutch masters of the 17th century, Rembrandt's works depict a wide range of style and subject matter, from portraits and self-portraits to landscapes, genre scenes, allegorical and historical scenes, biblical and mythological themes and animal studies. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age, when Dutch art (especially Dutch painting), whilst antithetical to the Baroque style that dominated Europe, was prolific and innovative. This era gave rise to important new genres. Like many artists of the Dutch Golden Ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Tigress
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Beckford (politician)
William Beckford (baptised 19 December 1709 – 21 June 1770) was a well-known political figure in 18th-century London, who twice held the office of Lord Mayor of London (1762 and 1769). His vast wealth came largely from his plantations in Jamaica and the large numbers of enslaved Africans working for him and his family. He was, and is, often referred to as Alderman Beckford to distinguish him from his son William Thomas Beckford, author and art collector, and from his nephew William Beckford of Somerley (1744–1799), author and planter. He was a supporter of liberty at home and championed the citizens of London upon being summoned to King George III with the City Remonstrance in 1770. Early life In 1709, William was born in the colony of Jamaica, the son of Peter Beckford, Speaker of the House of Assembly there, and the grandson of Colonel Peter Beckford, sometime Governor of the colony. He was sent to England by his family in 1723 to be educated. He studied at Westm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Falconet
Peter (Pierre-Etienne) Falconet (1741–1791) was a French portrait painter. Life Falconet was born in Paris, the son of the sculptor Etienne Maurice Falconet. His first studies were probably in the French Academy, but his father, who was friendly with Joshua Reynolds, sent his son to England to work under the painter's direction. He came to London about 1766, in which year he obtained a premium of twenty guineas for a painting in ''chiaroscuro''; in 1768 he gained another of twenty-six guineas for an historical composition. He was a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, and contributed to their exhibitions from 1767 to 1773, and occasionally to the Royal Academy, mostly portraits. Some time after 1773 Falconet returned to France, and married Marie-Anne Collot, his father's assistant, and herself a sculptor. He continued to paint, and died in 1791. Works Falconet is best known in England by a set of portraits of eminent artists, drawn in profile in blacklead, with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Exchange, London
The Royal Exchange in London was founded in the 16th century by the merchant Sir Thomas Gresham on the suggestion of his factor Richard Clough to act as a centre of commerce for the City of London. The site was provided by the City of London Corporation and the Worshipful Company of Mercers, who still jointly own the freehold. The original foundation was ceremonially opened by Queen Elizabeth I who granted it its "royal" title. The current building is trapezoidal in floor plan and is flanked by Cornhill and Threadneedle Street, which converge at Bank junction in the heart of the city. It lies in the ward of Cornhill. The exchange building has twice been destroyed by fire and subsequently rebuilt. The present building was designed by Sir William Tite in the 1840s. The site was notably occupied by the Lloyd's insurance market for nearly 150 years. Today the Royal Exchange contains Fortnum & Mason The Bar & Restaurant, luxury shops, and offices. Traditionally, the steps o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes. He is credited (with Richard Wilson) as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy. Youth and training He was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woollen goods, and his wife Mary, the sister of the Reverend Humphry Burroughs. One of Gainsborough's brothers, Humphrey, had a faculty for mechanics and was said to have invented the method of condensing steam in a separate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joshua Kirby
Joshua Kirby (1716, Parham, Suffolk – 1774, Kew), often mistakenly called John Joshua Kirby, was an English 18th-century landscape painter, engraver, writer, draughtsman and architect famed for his publications and teaching on linear perspective based on Brook Taylor's mathematics. Biography Joshua was the second of five sons of topographer John Kirby. In early life he assisted his father in the preparation of his important Survey of Suffolk, which took the form of a volume (1735) entitled ''The Suffolk Traveller'', an extensive gazetteer in which the parishes and towns, and the principal landowners, seats, advowsons, antiquities and industries of the two counties of West and East Suffolk were described, the text counterpart of John Kirby's County Map published in 1736. In 1739 Joshua married Sarah Bull, and his children Sarah (afterwards Mrs. Sarah Trimmer) and William soon followed. From an early age he was very studious, but, showing special aptitude as an artist, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Scott, 3rd Duke Of Buccleuch
Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch and 5th Duke of Queensberry KG FRSE (2 September 174611 January 1812) was a Scottish nobleman and long-time friend of Sir Walter Scott. He is the paternal 3rd great-grandfather of Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, and the maternal 4th great-grandfather of Prince William of Gloucester and Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Much of the family's lands and wealth were accumulated during Henry's tenure as Duke. He integrated the surnames "Montagu" and "Douglas" with the Scott family name to form the unhyphenated compound surname "Montagu Douglas Scott". Early life Henry Scott was the fourth child of five born to Francis Scott, Earl of Dalkeith (son of Francis Scott, 2nd Duke of Buccleuch), and his wife, Caroline Campbell, and the third-born and only surviving male heir. G. E. Cokayne, Vicary Gibbs, H. A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, ''The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William John Kerr, 5th Marquis Of Lothian
William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of England in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era. It is sometimes abbreviated "Wm." Shortened familiar versions in English include Will, Wills, Willy, Willie, Liam, Bill, and Billy. A common Irish form is Liam. Scottish diminutives include Wull, Willie or Wullie (as in Oor Wullie or the play ''Douglas''). Female forms are Willa, Willemina, Wilma and Wilhelmina. Etymology William is related to the German given name ''Wilhelm''. Both ultimately descend from Proto-Germanic ''*Wiljahelmaz'', with a direct cognate also in the Old Norse name ''Vilhjalmr'' and a West Germanic borrowing into Medieval Latin ''Willelmus''. The Proto-Germanic name is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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