// Workers AI · dad joke modeWho did Richard Houston draw to? A fine artist.
Richard Houston (1721?–1775) was an Irish mezzotint engraver, whose career was mostly in London.
Life
[edit]Born in Dublin about 1721, he became a pupil of John Brooks, who was also the master of James McArdell and Charles Spooner.[1] He came to London about 1747, and some of his early plates bear the address "near Drummond's at Charing Cross".
In debt to Robert Sayer the print-seller, he was arrested and confined to the Fleet prison; according to Sayer this in order that he might know where to find the dissipated Houston. He was released in 1760, on the accession of George III. As a free agent he was commissioned by Henry Carrington Bowles.
Houston died in Hetton Street, London, on 4 August 1775, aged 54.
Works
[edit]
Houston's major works are engravings after Sir Joshua Reynolds, which include portraits of:
- Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, full-length;
- Caroline, Duchess of Marlborough, and child;
- Mary, Duchess of Ancaster;
- Maria, Countess Waldegrave, later Duchess of Gloucester, with her daughter;
- Elisabeth, Duchess of Argyll, and her son;
- Lady Selina Hastings;
- Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough;
- Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield; and
- Richard Robinson, archbishop of Armagh.
He engraved also:
- seven portraits of George III, of which four were after Zoffany;
- six of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, after Mary Benwell, Thomas Frye, Zoffany, and others;
- two, after Antoine Pesne, of Frederick II, King of Prussia, one full-length, the other on horseback;
- John Manners, Marquess of Granby, on horseback, after Edward Penny; and full-lengths of
- General Wolfe, after Schaak;
- Pasquale Paoli, after Pietro Gherardi;
- Voltaire, after Sen;
- Julines Beckford, after Nathaniel Dance; and
- Catharine Wodhull and master James Sayer, both after Zoffany.
A series of portraits by him is in Richard Rolt's Lives of the Principal Reformers, London, 1759. Besides portraits, he executed a number of subject plates, such as:
- 'The Virgin and Child,' after Raphael;
- 'The Temptation of St. Anthony,' after Teniers;
- 'The Death of General Wolfe,' after Edward Penny;
- 'The Senses,' five plates after Francis Hayman;
- 'The Sciences,' six plates after Jacopo Amiconi;
- 'Avarice' and 'Innocence,' after Philip Mercier;
- 'The Elements,' four plates, and 'The Times of the Day,' two different sets of four plates, also after Mercier;
- the 'Miraculous Onyx Stone;' and
- plates of running horses, in which he excelled.
Houston's early work included his series of portraits of politicians after William Hoare,[2] as well as plates after Rembrandt.[3] For Bowles he engraved religious figures.[4] He painted a few miniatures.
References
[edit]- . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
Notes
[edit]- ↑ De Breffny, Brian (1983). Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopedia. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 84.
- ↑ Among them Earl Temple, George Grenville, William Pitt the elder, Henry Pelham, and Henry Bilson Legge.
- ↑ They comprise 'The Burgomaster Six,' 'The Syndics,' 'Haman's Condemnation,' 'An old Woman plucking a Fowl,' 'A Man holding a Knife, 'The Pen-maker,' and some others. Houston also etched two small plates of an old man and an old woman, after Rembrandt.
- ↑ John Bunyan, William Romaine, Martin Madan, Andrew Gifford, Samuel Brewer, and others.
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Houston, Richard". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
