NOLLEKENS, JOSEPH FRANCIS (1702–1748), painter, commonly called ‘Old Nollekens,’ was born at Antwerp on 10 June 1702 and baptised as Corneille François Nollekens. His father, Jean Baptiste, a painter of no importance, practised for a time in England, but eventually settled in France. There, it is said, the son studied under Watteau, whose style and choice of subject he to some extent imitated. He certainly studied for a time under Giovanni Paolo Panini. He came to England in 1733, and married one Mary Anne Le Sacq, by whom he had five children, viz. John Joseph, Joseph (the sculptor), Maria Joanna Sophia, Jacobus, and Thomas Charles. Of these only Joseph, the sculptor, settled in England.
On his first arrival in this country Old Nollekens was much employed in making copies from Watteau and Panini. He also carried out decorative works at Stowe for Lord Cobham, and painted several pictures for the Marquis of Stafford at Trentham. His chief patron, however, was Sir Richard Child, earl Tylney, for whom he painted a number of conversation pieces, fêtes champêtres, and the like, the scenes being laid as a rule in the gardens of Wanstead House. Several of these were included in the sale held at Wanstead in 1822, one, an ‘Interior of the Saloon at Wanstead, with an assemblage of ladies and gentlemen,’ fetching the comparatively high price of 127l. 1s. At Windsor there is a picture by him in which portraits of Frederick, prince of Wales, and his sisters are introduced.
According to Northcote, whose authority is said to have been Thomas Banks the sculptor, Old Nollekens owed his death to his nervous terrors for his property. The fact that he was a Roman catholic, and reputed to be a miser, contributed to increase his anxiety. Dread of robbery finally threw the artist into a nervous illness; he lingered, however, until 21 Jan. 1748, when he died at his house in Dean Street, Soho. He was buried at Paddington.
[Walpole's Anecd. of Painting in England; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the British School; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers; J. T. Smith's Nollekens and his Times, 1829 and 1894.]
NON Fendigaid, i.e. the Blessed (fl. 550?), mother of St. David, was, according to the oldest extant life of that saint (that by Ricemarchus [q. v.], printed in Cambro-British Saints, ed. Rees, 1853), a nun of Dyfed or West Wales, who was violated by Sant, king of Ceredigion (i.e. Cardiganshire). Various genealogies of the saints make her the daughter of Cynyr of Caer Gawch, who was apparently a chieftain of Pebidiog, the region in which St. David's now stands, and Rees (Welsh Saints) assumes that Sant (or Sandde) and she were husband and wife. All that is certainly known of her is that her memory came in time to be revered together with that of her son. Four churches in South-West Wales are dedicated to her: Llannon and Llanuwchaeron in Cardiganshire, Llannon in Carmarthenshire, and a chapel (near which is St. Non's Well) in the vicinity of St. David's. She was also honoured at Alternon in Cornwall and Dirinon in Brittany; a Breton mystery, entitled ‘Butez Santez Nonn,’ found at the latter place and published in 1837 (Paris, ed. Sionnet), gives her legend much as Ricemarchus does. Her festival was 3 March.
[Rees's Welsh Saints, 1836; Cambro-British Saints, ed. W. J. Rees; Myvyrian Archaiology, 2nd ed. 415, 423; Iolo MSS. 101, 110, 124, 152.]
NONANT, HUGH de (d. 1198), bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, or Chester, was of a noble Norman family of Nonant, a bourg between Argentan and Seez. A Hugh de Nonant, who may have been the bishop's grandfather, and whom Ordericus Vitalis describes as ‘pauper oppidanus,’ was a prominent opponent of Robert de Bellesme early in the twelfth century (Hist. Eccl. iii. 423, iv. 181, Soc. de l'Hist. de France). A Roger de Nonant occurs as holding land in Devonshire between 1159 and 1170 (Pipe Rolls, sub annis), but there is no evidence as to his relationship to the bishop. Hugh's mother was sister of the famous Arnulf, bishop of Lisieux, a see which had been held by Arnulf's uncle John before him (ib. iv. 161, ‘Annales Uticenses’). Arnulf says that he brought up Hugh from a boy, had him well instructed, and gave him five livings in the bishopric of Lisieux, worth 100l., as well as a prebend of Lisieux at Vassy, and the archdeaconry. Afterwards, about 1182, Arnulf found occasion to complain to Henry II of Hugh's ingratitude (Epistola, 127). Hugh is alleged by Bale to have been educated at Oxford; this is not likely, but he was one of the scholars in the service of Thomas Becket before 1164. He was already archdeacon of Lisieux, for William Fitz-Stephen and Herbert de Bosham distinctly describe him as holding this office when in the archbishop's service (Materials for Hist. of Becket, Rolls Ser., iii. 57, 525). It would appear that he had resigned the archdeaconry of Lisieux before 1181 (Arnulf, Epistola, 121). Hugh was with Becket at Northampton on 13 Oct. 1164, when
