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Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/William Tassie

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2668005Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, Volume XXIII — William TassieJohn Miller Gray

TASSIE, William (1777–1860), gem-engraver and modeller, nephew of the above, was born in London on the 4th of December 1777. He succeeded to the business of his uncle, to whose collection of casts and medallions he added largely. His portrait of Pitt, in particular, was very popular, and circulated widely. When the Shakespeare Gallery, formed by Alderman Boydell, was disposed of by lottery in 1805, William Tassie was the winner of the prize, and in the same year he sold the pictures by auction for a sum of over £6000. He died at Kensington on the 26th of October 1860, and bequeathed to the Board of Manufactures, Edinburgh, an extensive and valuable collection of casts and medallions by his uncle and himself, along with portraits of James Tassie and his wife by David Allan, and a series of water-colour studies by George Sanders from pictures of the Dutch and Flemish schools. (j. m. g.)