The Academicians of the Royal Academy by Richard Earlom 1773

Richard Earlom (bapt. 14 May 17439 October 1822) was an English mezzotinter.

Biography

Earlom was born and died in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. His natural faculty for art appears to have been first called into exercise by his admiration for the lord mayor's state coach, which had just been decorated by

Giovanni Battista Cipriani Giovanni Battista Cipriani (1727 – 14 December 1785) was an Italian painter and engraver, who lived in England from 1755. He is also called Giuseppe Cipriani by some authors. Much of his work consisted of designs for prints, many of whic ...

. He tried to copy the paintings, and was sent to study under Cipriani. He displayed great skill as a draughtsman, and at the same time acquired without assistance the art of

mezzotint Mezzotint is a monochrome printmaking process of the intaglio (printmaking), 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. Mezzo ...

. In 1765, Earlom was employed by

Alderman Boydell An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking membe ...

, a publisher and promoter of the fine arts, to make a series of drawings from the pictures at

Houghton Hall Houghton Hall ( ) is a country house in the parish of Houghton in Norfolk, England. It is the residence of the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley. It was commissioned by the '' de facto'' first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, in 1722, ...

; and these he engraved in mezzotint. His best works are perhaps the fruit and flower pieces after the Dutch artists Van Os and Jan van Huysum. Among his historical and figure subjects are ''Agrippina'', after

Benjamin West Benjamin West (October 10, 1738 – March 11, 1820) was a British-American artist who painted famous historical scenes such as ''The Death of Nelson (West painting), The Death of Nelson'', ''The Death of General Wolfe'', the ''Treaty of Paris ( ...

; ''Love in Bondage'', after

Guido Reni Guido Reni (; 4 November 1575 – 18 August 1642) was an Italian Baroque painter, although his works showed a classical manner, similar to Simon Vouet, Nicolas Poussin, and Philippe de Champaigne. He painted primarily religious works, but al ...

; the ''Royal Academy'', the ''Embassy of Hyderbeck to meet Lord Cornwallis'', '' Colonel Mordant's Cock Fight'' and a ''Tiger Hunt'', all after

Johan Zoffany Johan / Johann Joseph Zoffany (born Johannes Josephus Zaufallij; 13 March 1733 – 11 November 1810) was a German Neoclassicism, neoclassical painter who was active mainly in England, Italy, and India. His works appear in many prominent Briti ...

, and ''Lord Heathfield'', after Sir

Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter who specialised in portraits. The art critic John Russell (art critic), John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century, while Lucy P ...

''Liber Veritatis''

Earlom was commissioned by

John Boydell John Boydell ( ; – 12 December 1804) was an English publisher noted for his reproductions of engravings. He helped alter the trade imbalance between Britain and France in engravings and initiated an English tradition in the art form. A former ...

to copy all 200 drawings of

Claude Lorraine Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in I ...

's record of his paintings as prints, which were published from 1774 to 1777, when a collected edition in two volumes was published as ''

Liber Veritatis The ''Liber Veritatis'', meaning ''Book of Truth'' in Latin, is a book of drawings recording his completed paintings made by Claude Lorrain, known in English as "Claude". Claude was a landscape painter in Rome, who began keeping this record in ...

. Or, A Collection of Two Hundred Prints, After the Original Designs of Claude le Lorrain, in the Collection of His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, Executed by Richard Earlom, in the Manner and Taste of the Drawings....'' with the inscription on the reverses, a "descriptive catalogue of each print" and the current owner, where it was known. A further volume of 100 prints after other Claude drawings from various British collections was added in 1819, also using "Liber Veritas" as its title. The title ''Liber Veritatis'' was invented for these reproductions, but is now used for the originals as well. These were then in a rebound book at

Devonshire House Devonshire House in Piccadilly, was the London townhouse of the Dukes of Devonshire during the 18th and 19th centuries. Following a fire in 1733 it was rebuilt by William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire, in the Palladian style, to designs ...

in London; they are now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. The prints used

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...

for Claude's pen lines, and

for the ink washes, giving a good impression of the originals. All used brown ink on white paper, so disregarding the blue of half the original pages. The prints were a huge success, reprinted and the plates reworked to give increasingly detailed reproductions. They were recommended by drawing teachers as models for copying, and influenced the technique of English watercolour artists in particular, for example

Francis Towne Francis Towne (1739 – 7 July 1816) was a British watercolour painter of landscapes that range from the English Lake District to Naples and Rome. After a long period of obscurity, his work has been increasingly recognised from the early 20th ...

.Wilcox
Later edition
on sale for $19,500 in 2016

Notes

References

* Attribution: *

Biography

''Liber Veritatis''

Notes

References

Further reading