Douglas Cowper (30 May 181728 November 1839) was a British painter.

Life

Born at

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

, he was third son of a merchant there, who later moved to

Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...

. There Cowper copied the pictures that were to be found in the island. He went to London, and, after lessons from Henry Sass, entered the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

schools. He gained the first silver medal, for the best copy of

Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter who was a leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythologic ...

's ''Rinaldo and Armida'' in the

Dulwich Picture Gallery Dulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, south London. It opened to the public in 1817 and was designed by the Regency architect Sir John Soane. His design was recognized for its innovative and influential method of illumination f ...

. He earned a livelihood by portrait painting. In 1838 he began to show signs of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

, which increased in 1839. After a visit to the south of France he returned to Guernsey, and died on 28 November 1839.

Works

In 1837 Cowper exhibited at the Royal Academy ''The Last Interview'', followed in 1838 by ''Shylock, Antonio, and Bassanio''. In 1839 he showed ''Kate Kearney'' (engraved by John Porter), ''Othello relating his Adventures'' (engraved by Edward Finden), and ''A Capuchin Friar''. He also exhibited at the

British Institution The British Institution (in full, the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; founded 1805, disbanded 1867) was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it ...

and the Society of British Artists.

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Cowper, Douglas 1817 births 1839 deaths Guernsey artists British painters Gibraltarian painters