Gerard Vandergucht (or van der Gucht) (1696 or 1697 – 18 March 1776) was an English engraver and

art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationsh ...

Biography

Vandergucht, was born in London, the elder son of the

Flemish Flemish may refer to: * Flemish, adjective for Flanders, Belgium * Flemish region, one of the three regions of Belgium *Flemish Community, one of the three constitutionally defined language communities of Belgium * Flemish dialects, a Dutch dialec ...

engraver

Michael Vandergucht Michael Vandergucht ( Michiel van der Gucht; c. 1660 – 16 October 1725) was a Flemish engraver and painter who worked for most of his career in England.

. He was taught engraving by his father, as was his younger brother Jan Vandergucht (or John) (c.1699-c.1730). Gerard was also taught drawing by Louis Chéron, and studied at

Godfrey Kneller Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet (born Gottfried Kniller; 8 August 1646 – 19 October 1723) was a German-born British painter. The leading Portrait painting, portraitist in England during the late Stuart period, Stuart and early Georgian eras ...

's Great Queen Street Academy. He surpassed the restrained style of engraving favoured by his father, and became one of the leading engravers in London by adopting the French method of combining precise engraving with etched tones.Timothy Clayton, "Vandergucht, Gerard (1696/7–1776)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 10 May 2011
/ref> In 1719, he was commissioned by

James Thornhill Sir James Thornhill (25 July 1675 or 1676 – 4 May 1734) was an English painter of historical subjects working in the Italian baroque tradition. He was responsible for some large-scale schemes of murals, including the "Painted Hall" at the R ...

to engrave four designs for the

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St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Paul the Apostle, is an Anglican cathedral in London, England, the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London in the Church of Engl ...

. He took over his father's house - the Golden Head in Queen Street, Bloomsbury - following his father's death in 1725. He married Mary Liney on 24 August 1725. They had over 30 children, including the painter and picture dealer Benjamin Vandergucht. He became a leading publisher of engraved prints and book illustrations, and taught Robert White and Francis Patton. For example,

William Cheselden William Cheselden (; 19 October 168810 April 1752) was an English surgeon and teacher of anatomy and surgery, who was influential in establishing surgery as a scientific medical profession. Via the medical missionary Benjamin Hobson, his wor ...

commissioned Vandergucht to help work on the ''Osteographia or the Anatomy of Bones'' (1733). In 1735, he took a leading role in the artists' demands for

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

protection which led to an extension of the provisions established by

William Hogarth William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraving, engraver, pictorial social satire, satirist, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from Realism (visual arts), realistic p ...

in the Engraving Copyright Act. The 1735 act only protected original designs. Vandergucht and his supporters successfully lobbied to extend copyright protection to cover all prints.Rose, Mark. Technology and Copyright in 1735: The Engraver's Act. The Information Society, Volume 21, Number 1, January–March 2005. pp. 63–66. He concentrated on art dealing in the last 16 years of his life, selling prints, drawings, paintings and statues. He was a member of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. He moved to Vandyke's Head, Great Brook Street, in 1758, where he died in 1776.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vandergucht, Gerard 1690s births 1776 deaths 18th-century English engravers English people of Flemish descent