Page:Dictionary of Artists of the English School (1878).djvu/104

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CHR

plctare of the Evangelical Alliance. He left six orphan children.

CHRISMAS, Gerard, architect and carver. He enjoyed a reputation in the reign of James I. He designed Alders- gate (pulled down in 1761), and carved on it in bas-relief the figure of James I. on horseback. He designed also the facade of Northumberland House, and had much ingenuity in his inventions for pageants. CHRISM AS, John, J modellers and CHRISMAS. Gerard, j carvers. Sons of the above, who continued his business. They executed a fine tomb at Ampton, in Suffolk ; another at Ruislip, Middlesex ; and the carved decorations for the great ship built at Woolwich by Peter Pett in

1637.

CHRISTIE. Alexander, A.R.S.A., portrait and subject painter. Was born at Edinburgh 1807. Served an apprentice- ship to a writer to the signet, and was for some time engaged in the business of the law ; but he had from his youth indulged a great feeling for art, to pursue which he at last gave up the law. He entered as a pupil in the Trustees' Academy in 1833, and afterwards studied a short time in London. He then returned and settled in Edinburgh, and was in 1843 appointed an assistant, and in 1845 director of the ornamental department of the Trustees' School. In 1848 he wa ^selected an asso- ciate of the Scottish Academy. He exhi- bited at the Royal Academy in London only once, sending in 1853 r A Window- seat at Wittenburgh, 1526, Luther, the married Priest.' He died May 5, 1860.

CHURCHMAN, John, architect. He built the first custom-house for the port of London, which stood upon the site of the present building. He was sheriff for the City 1385.

CHURCHMAN, John, miniature painter. He was of some anility. Died in Russell Street, Bloomsbury, August 5, 1780.

CIBBER, Caitjs Gabriel, sculptor. Born at Flensburgh, in Holstein, 1630; son of the cabinet-maker to the Danish Court. He evinced an early talent for modelling, and was sent at the expense of his sovereign to Rome to pursue his studies. Shortly before the Restoration he came to England and found employment under John Stone, and was afterwards largely engaged in monumental art and the pro- duction, or rather manufacture, of gods and goddesses for the decoration of groves and gardens. He carved most of the statues of the kings round the old Royal Exchange ; the figures of ' Faith 1 and 'Hope' in the chapel at Chatsworth, where he was much employed, both on the mansion and in the gardens ; the large bas-relief in the western front of the pedestal of the Monument;

CIP

the ' Phoenix ' in bas-relief over the southe rn door of St. Paul's; and a fine vase at Hampton Court. But he is popularly known by his figures of ' Melancholy Mad- ness' and ( Raving Madness,' which in 1680 were placed over the entrance-gate of Bethlehem Hospital, at that time in Moorfields. These figures, though original and characteristic, attained: a notoriety be- yond their art merits. They are said to have been the portraits of two remarkable patients then in Bethlehem, one of whom had been the porter to Ohver Cromwell. Pope says of them in his 'Dunciad,' re-

ferring to Gibber's Laureate —

son, the well-known

' Where o'er the gates, by his famed

father's hand. Great Gibber's brazen brainless brothers stand'

But they neither stood, nor were brazen. They are recumbent and carved in Port-* land stone ; were repaired by Bacon, R. A., in 1815, and were placed in the South Kensington Museum. Cibber was ap- pointed ' carver to the king's closet,' what- ever that office may be. He was twice married; his second wife, a Miss Colley, of a Rutlandshire family, bringing him a fortune of 6000/. He died in 1700, at the age of 70, and was buried in the Danish Church, Wellclose Square, of which, in 1696, he was the architect. • CIPRIANI, John Baptist, R.A., his- torical painter. Was born in Florence in 1727, of an ancient Tuscan family of Pis- toja. His first instruction was by an Eng- lish painter named Heckford, who was settled in Florence. In 1750 he went to Rome, where he studied three years, and was then induced by Sir William Chambers and Wilton, the sculptor, to accompany them to England in 1755. His reputation had preceded him. He found here his countryman Bartolozzi, whose engravings from his works gave him at once a wide- spread reputation. He was appointed in 1758 one of the visitors to the Duke of Richmond's gallery at Whitehall, was a member of the St.. Martin's Lane Academ}', and in 1768 one of the foundation mem- bers of the Royal Academy, and an exhi- bitor of classic subjects from that year up to 1779. He painted a few large pictures in oil, some of them at Houghton, but they were feeble and gaudy, wantingin expres- sion, colour, and chiaroscuro. His art is to be found in his drawings, full of graceful invention and fancy ; ms females exqui- sitely elegant, his children unrivalled. Fuseli praises his invention, his graceful compositions and elegant forms, and also his simple manners and unaffected benevo- lence. The English school is indebted to him f or the improved drawing of the figure