Page:Dictionary of Artists of the English School (1878).djvu/254

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voyage the vessel returned to England. He had been arrested by his quondam master on arranging to accompany the embassy, and a long delay arising before only a part of his claim was settled, he was in great difficulties, and he had gained little by his voyage but a knowledge of sailors and ships, which appears in his works from this time. On his return he was for many years a large contributor in oil and water-colours to the exhibitions at the Academy. His works at first were chiefly coast scenes, but later, landscapes, introducing cattle and figures, with rustic incidents.

He found employment in painting for a publisher the animals for the * Cabinet of Quadrupeds,' which are rendered interesting by their characteristic incidents and pic- turesque backgrounds. In 1794 he lost his wife; he had previously lost eight children in succession, and his excessive grief brought on brain fever, on recovering from which he found he had been robbed of everything that could be removed; and, disposing of the little that was left, he put his three re- maining children to school and broke up his household. Then, led into convivial society and increasing embarrassments — driven to seek his amusement in doubtful company, he accepted bills and became surety for payments far beyond his means, and at last, as the only means of escape, left London in 1798 for Liverpool, where an art commission was procured for him, and from thence visiting Westmoreland, Hull, and Edin- burgh, returning to London in 1800.

In June 1801 he married a second time, and a few months later was attacked by his old creditors, whith whom he believed a friend had settled, and he was again plunged into hopeless embarrassments. He had, however, many commissions to execute, and managed to escape to his own quiet native village of Masham, in Yorkshire, where, out of the way both of duns and parasites, who had preyed upon him, he was, by pinching economy, enabled to live. From thence he sent some pictures to the Academy Exhi- bition — his last in 1812; and there he died, from the effects of a cold which settled on the lungs, October 13, 1817, aged 68. He painted both in oil and water- colours. His works possess considerable merit, but did not find purchasers. His manner was clear and firm, his colouring subdued, having a tendency to a clayey hue; his landscape pleasing, with cattle and figures well introduced. He published, in 1803, ' An Accidence or Gamut of Painting in Oil and Water-Colours/ treating solely of the mediums and colours to be used, exem-

Slified by examples; but in a short intro- uction, illustrated by some clever head and tail pieces etched by himself, he shows him- self a humourist and a clever writer. He advises artists to avoid picture-dealers as

serpents; says they are to living painters as "hawks to singing-birds, and he proposes to publish a work; for which he says he has collected a prodigious quantity of materials, to be entitled 41ombuggologia , — anecdotes of picture-dealers, picture cleaning, and pictures; but this, like a promised second part of his * Gamut of Painting,' has never appeared. The boon companion of George Morland, his follies and failings were of the same class.

ILL1DGE, Thomas Henry, portrait painter. Descended from a highly respect- able Cheshire family, he was born at Bir- mingham, September 26, 1799. His father removed to Manchester when he was a child, and dying early left his family with only scanty provision. He was educated at the Manchester Grammar School, and showing a taste for art, was taught ((raw- ing, and afterwards became successively the pupil of Mather Brown and William Bradley. His inclination would have led him to landscape, but he had married early, and with a young family he thought it more prudent to try portraiture. His abili- ties were assisted by many kind friends, and he found full employment in the manufac- turing districts of Lancashire. He was an exhibitor in Liverpool in 1827 ) and from 1842, when he came to reside m London, he was a constant exhibitor at the Royal Academy. On the death of H. P. Briggs, R. A., in 1844, he purchased the lease of his house in Bruton Street. Of a cultivated mind and refined manners, in the middle of a career of great promise, he died there of fever, after a short illness, May 13, 1851. A portrait of Colonel Clayton by nini hangs in the court-house at Preston; of Sir Joshua Walmesley, at the Collegiate Insti- tution, Liverpool, presented by the artist; and one of the late Earl of Derby, in the board-room of the college.

IMBER, Lawrence, master carver. Was employed in that capacity on the erec- tion of Henry VII. 's Chapel, Westminster.

INCE, Joseph Murray, water-colour painter. He was born about 1806. His

Earents resided at Presteign. In Decem- er 1823 he became a pupil of David Cox, and continued with him until early in 1826. He then came to reside in London, and ex- hibited landscapes at the Royal Acacjemy. About 1832 he was living at Cambridge, where he made many drawings of the' archi- tecture of the place, for which he found purchasers there j and then, about 1835, resided for a time at Presteign. He continued an occasional exhibitor at the Academy of landscapes, both in oil and water-colours, up to 1847, and up to 1858 at the Society of Artists. He inherited some property on the death of his parents, and died shortly before 1860? probably at Pres- teign. His small drawings were well and

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