1712-1787 English By 1728 he had left Preston, and the following year he was working in London for the Flemish topographical and sporting painter Peter Tillemans. There he specialized in landscape painting and copying various works in Tillemans studio after Marco Ricci, Giovanni Paolo Panini and Jan van Bloemen. Devis earliest known commission, Hoghton Towers from Duxon Hill, Lancashire (1735; priv. col., see 1983 exh. cat., no. 3), painted for Sir Henry Hoghton during a trip to Preston in 1734-5, shows Tillemans influence in its attention to detail and the use of thin, transparent paint. Thomas Lister with his Family (c. 1738; Chicago, IL, A. Inst.) demonstrates a similar interest in landscape, featuring the family group in Gisburn Park, Lancs. Devis had returned to London by 1742 and established himself as a painter of conversation pieces, with a studio in Great Queen Street. Roger Hesketh with his Family is typical of his work at this time; it shows how Devis transformed the intimacy of a Dutch 17th-century genre scene into an elegant interior with the group of sitters connected by formal, schematic gestures. Roger Hesketh stands apart, in a tastefully contrived pose, his legs crossed and right arm thrust inside his waistcoat. His son, Fleetwood, stands with his hand resting on a dog next to his wife, who is seated with an infant on her lap. The adjacent telescope, globe and marine paintings are intended to advertise Hesketh interest in astronomy and travel.  Related Paintings of Arthur Devis :. | The Nativity | The Young Poet | Nelson-s death-bed | Fair Rosamund | The Annunciation |
Related Artists:
GIRARDON, Francois
French Baroque Era Sculptor, 1628-1715 François Girardon was born at Troyes on March 17, 1628. He studied in Rome for an undetermined period of time between 1645 and 1650. He then studied at the Royal Academy in Paris and was admitted to the academy as a member in 1657. Much of Girardon's most important work was executed for King Louis XIV and consisted of major commissions for the palace and gardens of Versailles. One of Girardon's most famous productions is Apollo and the Nymphs of Thetis in Versailles (1666-1672), originally designed for a grotto there. This elaborate project of seven separate marble statues depicts the god Apollo surrounded by nymphs, and it exemplifies with exceptional clarity the French interpretation of the baroque style in sculpture, an interpretation that rejected the fluid, dramatic, and emotional Italian baroque in favor of a cooler, more sober approach based upon the sculpture of antiquity. The Apollo group is filled with references to Hellenistic and Roman sculpture, and while Girardon was working on the commission he made a second trip to Rome for inspiration from antique sources. The ancient world, however, had never attempted to assemble several large pieces of free-standing sculpture into one unified composition, and in solving this problem Girardon had recourse to the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, the great French baroque classicist. The classicism of the Apollo group conformed fully to the official style of the French Academy and the personal taste of Louis XIV, but the composition has many baroque elements. The vigor and variety in the movement of the figures, the rich textural contrasts, the grand scale of the project, and the dramatic use of space are all stylistic qualities that firmly link the work to the international baroque style. One of Girardon's most important works is the tomb of Cardinal Richelieu in the church of the Sorbonne, Paris (1675-1677). This monument shows the dying prelate in a semireclining position, his vestments falling in broad curves that are echoed in the draperies of the allegorical figures at the head and foot of the tomb. As originally placed in the church, the monument was freestanding so that the spectator was compelled to enter into the action of the work - a typical baroque compositional device. Girardon's most significant late work was a majestic bronze equestrian statue of Louis XIV (1683-1692) executed for the Place Vendôme in Paris and based upon the famous Roman equestrian monument of the emperor Marcus Aurelius.
J.Thornthwaite
British.fl.late eighteenth century
Workshop of Anton von Maron
Anton von Maron (January 8, 1733 - March 3, 1808) was an Austrian painter, active in Rome. Von Maron was born in Vienna, but moved at a young age to Rome. There, he studied under Anton Raphael Mengs, and became an accomplished portrait painter. He married a sister of Mengs, Therese Maron, who was a painter in her own right. He lived the rest of his life in Rome, and died there in 1808.