Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/247

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became assured, and he produced his best and most important works. Among his earlier works were engravings of Bernini's statues in St. Peter's and elsewhere, and the plates descriptive of the funeral of Queen Christina of Sweden. He engraved many of the principal paintings in the churches at Rome, including the paintings by Ciro Ferri in the cupola of the church of Sta. Agnese in Piazza Navona, ‘St. Peter walking on the Sea,’ after Lanfranco, the ‘Martyrdom of Sta. Petronilla,’ after Guercino, the ‘Trinity,’ after Guido, the ‘Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,’ after Domenichino, and many after Maratta, Cignani, Cigoli, Lamberti, and others. His engravings after Raphael are well known, and include the history of ‘Cupid and Psyche’ in the Farnesina Palace (the plates for which were destroyed in 1824 by order of Leo XII), the series of ‘The Planets’ from the ceiling of the Chigi chapel in Sta. Maria del Popolo, the statue of the prophet Jonah in the same, and the ‘Transfiguration.’ The last named (which was retouched by Sir Robert Strange) was executed in 1705, and with the ‘Deposition from the Cross,’ after Daniele da Volterra, executed in 1710, show the highest point in his art to which Dorigny attained. The success of these works caused Dorigny to be invited to engrave Raphael's tapestries in the Vatican. Being told, however, that seven of the original cartoons were in England, and that Queen Anne was anxious that they should be engraved, he was easily persuaded to come to England. He arrived in this country in 1711, and was given apartments in Hampton Court until he had completed his work, which was to be published at five guineas a set, and was advertised by Addison in the ‘Spectator’ (No. 226). Being over fifty years of age, and feeling his eyesight failing him, Dorigny was obliged to send over to Paris for two assistants, Charles Dupuis and Claude Dubosc [q. v.] The work extended over several years, and Dorigny was continually troubled by expense, though many noblemen lent him money, and by disagreements with his assistants, who eventually left him. In April 1719 he was at last able to present two complete sets to the king, George I, who paid him liberally, and at the suggestion of the Duke of Devonshire, in June 1720, conferred on him the honour of knighthood. The engravings, executed as they were in Dorigny's old age, and with the help of assistants, hardly do justice to his powers, and have been greatly overrated. Dorigny was a member of the academy in Queen Street, and painted some portraits in England; besides the cartoons, he also completed in England two plates, after Albani, of the ‘History of Salmacis and Hermaphrodite,’ which were much admired. On 21 Feb. 1723 he sold his collection of drawings, and on 9 April 1724 left England for Paris. There he was, on 28 Sept. 1725, elected a member of the Academy, and again resumed his original profession of painting. He exhibited paintings at the Salon exhibitions from 1739 to 1743, and died in Paris on 1 Dec. 1746, aged 88. He had been commissioned in England to superintend a series of designs (published in 1741 in London by E. MacSwiney), in memory of the famous Englishmen of the time, which were made by Carle Vanloo and Boucher. Dorigny is stated to have engraved two of the plates himself, after Vanloo, in 1736 and 1737, but these do not appear in a copy of the work in the library of the British Museum.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Dallaway and Wornum; Vertue MSS. (b. rit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 23068–23076); Strutt's Dict. of Engravers; Gilpin's Essay on Prints; Nagler's Künstler-Lexikon; Bellier de la Chavignerie's Dictionnaire des Artistes Français; Dussieux's Les Artistes Français à l'Etranger.]

L. C.

DORIN, JOSEPH ALEXANDER (1802–1872), Indian official, born at Edmonton, 15 Sept. 1802, was the son of a London merchant of French descent. He was educated at Henley, and obtained a nomination to the Bengal branch of the East India Company's service, of which his elder brother, William, was already a member. He left Haileybury with a high reputation as first prizeman of his year, and on his arrival in India in 1821 was made assistant to the accountant-general, and continued during the whole of his Indian career attached to the financial branch of the service. In 1829, being then secretary to the Bank of Bengal, his suspicions were excited by peculiarities in certain government promissory notes, on which the official signature of the secretary to government was so perfectly imitated that the authorities, upon the notes being referred to them as a precaution, pronounced them genuine. Dorin passed them, but adopted similar precautions in other instances; and when at length the notes proved to be forgeries to the amount of seven lacs of rupees the bank claimed to be indemnified, but without success. Many believed that the signatures were genuine, and had been surreptitiously obtained by presenting the papers amid a mass of other documents requiring to be signed. Dorin was subsequently deputy accountant-general, and on his return from furlough in 1842 was entrusted by Lord Ellen-