Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Benazech, Charles
BENAZECH, CHARLES (1767?–1794), portrait and historical painter, the son of Peter Paul Benazech [q. v.], was born in London about 1767. In 1782, at the age of fifteen, he went to Rome, and on his way home stayed for a time in Paris, where he studied under Greuze, and witnessed the Outbreak of the French Revolution. This eventful period furnished him with the subjects of four pictures by which he became known: 'The Address of Louis XVI at the Bar of the National Convention.' 'The Separation of Louis XVI from his Family,' 'The Last Interview between Louis XVI and his Family,' and 'Louis XVI ascending the Scaffold.' These have been engraved by Luigi Schiavonetti. He (minted also 'The Last Interview between Charles I and his Children,' engraved by T. Gaugein, as well as some subjects from the poets and several good portraits. He was a member of the Florentine Academy, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in the years 1790 and 1791. He likewise engraved a few plates in aquatint, including the 'Couronnement de la Rosière,' in which he attempted to imitate the manner of Debucourt;, and also some portraits after himself, as well as two of Henry IV, king of France, and Sully, after Pourbus, which are signed with the fictitious name of Frieselheim. He died in London in the summer of 1794, in the twenty-seventh year of his age.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878; Meyer's Allgemaines Künstler-Lexikon, 1872, &c., iii. 501; Portalis and Béraldi's Graveure du Dix-huitième Siècle. 1880-2, i. 158.]