without blame have moralized on the event in an epistle purely ethic, had he lived to behold its fall and change of masters. Bellucci executed some other works which Vertue does not specify; but being afflicted with the gout, quitted this country, leaving a nephew who went to Ireland, and made a fortune by painting portraits there. BALTHAZAR DENNER, Born 1685, Died 1747. of Hamburgh, one of those laborious artists, whose works surprize rather than please, and who could not be so excellent if they had not more patience than genius, came hither upon encouragement from the King, who had seen of his works at Hanover* and promised to sit to him, but Denner phecy fulfilled. In a future edition, as if anxious to explain away what, upon consideration, he thought might confirm at charge not creditable to his friend, he alters his observation, thus, that "he (Pope) would have seen his general prophecy against all ill-judged magnificence, displayed in a very particular instance." Lyson's Env. of Lond. v. iv. p. 408, n.] * [The admiration which Denner's peculiar talent procured for him in Germany, unequalled by any other painter, of elaborate finishing and exact representation of the human skin, occasioned a rivalship, both with respect to employment and reward, among the princes of that country. His visit to London was shortened, says Descamps, (t. iv. p. 256,) "parce qu'il ne put supporter l'odeur du charbon de terre." The Emperor Charles VI gave him for his head, or rather face of an old woman, and for which he had refused 500l. in London, the succeeding ill in the pictures of two of the favourite German ladies, he lost the footing he had expected at court: his fame however rose very high on his exhibiting the head of an old woman, that he brought over with him, about sixteen inches high, and thirteen wide, in which the grain of the skin, the hairs, the down, the glassy humour of the eyes, were represented with the most exact minuteness. It gained him more applause than custom, for a man could not execute many works who employed so much time to finish them. Nor did he even find a purchaser here; but the emperor bought the picture for six hundred ducats. At Hamburgh he began a companion to it, an old man, which he brought over and finished here in 1726, and sold like the former. He painted himself, his wife and children, with the same circumstantial detail, and a half-length of himself, which was in the possession of one Swarts, a painter, totally unknown to me. He resolved however, says Vertue, to quit this painful practice and turn to a bolder and less finished style; but large sum of 5875 florins, and placed it in a cabinet of which he always kept the key himself. His frequent journeys and migrations are particularised by Descamps, but his great patron was Christian VI. of Denmark. The Empress of Russia offered him 1000 ducats, and to defray the expences of his journey, if he would come to her court-which he refused to accept. His most laboriously minute manner has been frequently imitated by German artists; but in England, his genuine works are most rare.] whether he did or not is uncertain. He left England in 1728. The portrait of John Frederic Weickman of Hamburgh, painted by Denner, is said to be in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.* FRANCIS [PAUL] FERG, Born 1689, Died 1740. born at Vienna in 1689, was a charming painter, who had composed a manner of his own from† various Flemish painters, though resembling Polenburgh most in the enamelled softness and mellowness of his colouring: but his figures are greatly superior; every part of them is sufficiently finished, every action expressive. He painted small landscapes, fairs, and rural meetings, with the most agreeable truth; his horses and cattle are not inferior to Wouvermans, and his buildings and distances seem to owe their respective softness to the intervening air, not to the pencil. * [The portrait is there, but certainly not by Denner.] ↑ Hans Graf, Orient, and lastly Alex. Thiele, painter of the Court of Saxony, who invited him to Dresden, to insert small figures in his landscapes. Ferg thence went into Lower Saxony and painted for the Duke of Brunswick, and for the gallery of Saltzdahl. : [His pictures are scarce and much esteemed in Bishop Newton's Collection, there were four, which he most highly valued, small and upon copper, as are the greater number of his pictures. At Dr. Newton's sale in 1788. "The journey of Our Saviour to Emaus," only 1 foot 2 inches by 1 foot six, was sold for thirty guineas.] More faithful to nature, than Denner, he knew how to omit exactness, when the result of the whole demands a less precision in parts. This pleasing artist passed twenty years here, but little known, and always indigent, unhappy in his domestic, he was sometimes in prison, and never at ease at home, the consequence of which was dissipation. He died suddenly in the street one night, as he was returning from some friends, about the year 1738, having not attained his fiftieth year. He left four children. THOMAS GIBSON, a man of a most amiable character, says Vertue, had for some time great business, but an ill state of health for some years interrupted his application, and about 1730 he disposed of his pictures privately amongst his friends. He not long after removed to Oxford, and I believe practised again in London. He died April 28, 1751, aged about seventy-one. Vertue speaks highly of his integrity and modesty, and says he offended his cotemporary artists by forbearing to raise his prices; and adds, what was not surprising in such conge * [It was asserted that he was found dead at the door of his lodging, exhausted by cold, want and misery, to such a degree that it seemed as if he had wanted strength to open the door of his wretched apartment. Descamps.] † [He corrected the outlines of many of Thornhill's sketches for his large pictures.] nial goodness, that of all the profession Gibson was his most sincere friend. [THOMAS] HILL was born in 1661, and learned to draw of the engraver Faithorne. He painted many portraits, and died at Mitcham in 1734,* P. MONAMY, a good painter of sea-pieces, was born in Jersey, and certainly from his circumstances or the views of his family, had little reason to expect the fame he afterwards acquired, having received his first rudiments of drawing from a sign and housepainter on London-bridge. But when nature gives real talents, they break forth in the homeliest school. The shallow waves that rolled under his window taught young Monamy what his master could not teach him, and fitted him to imitate the turbulence of the ocean. In Painter's-hall is à large piece by him, painted in 1726. He died at his house in Westminster the beginning of 1749. JAMES VAN HUYSUM, brother of John, that exquisite painter of fruit * [Mr. W. had surely not seen one of the most impressive portraits in the Bodleian Gallery, of Humphry Wanley, Lord Oxford's librarian, by Hill.-mezzotinted by Smith.] |