A View of Hopping Mill, Ware

  • About the work
    Location
    Country: UK
    City: London
    Place: Snaresbrook Crown Court
  • About the artist
    Thomas Smith of Derby was a topographical and picturesque landscape painter who lived in Bridgegate, Derby. He exhibited at the Society of Artists and the Free Society of Artists from 1760 to 1767. Several examples of his work include groups of elegant tourists admiring views of country estates. He took his art sufficiently seriously to name both his sons after great painters, calling them Thomas Correggio Smith and John Raphael Smith (who continued the tradition by naming his son John Rubens Smith). Both of his sons naturally became artists, as did his daughter, Emma. Smith died on 5 September 1767 in Hotwells, a district of Bristol.
    Francois Vivares was born near Montpellier, France. He was apprenticed to a tailor but made drawings, etchings and engravings in his spare time. He moved to London, aged 18, to study under French engraver and draughtsman Jean-Baptiste-Claude Chatelain and later under Italian painter Jacopo Amigoni. By 1744 he was publishing prints. He opened a print shop near Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square), producing prints after his own work, that of his pupils and ‘of the best Masters’. He became one of the most renowned landscape engravers of his time and is particularly known for engravings after the works of French painter Claude Lorrain. In 1766, he became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists. He died in London, aged 71.
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  • Details
    Title
    A View of Hopping Mill, Ware
    Date
    25 August 1745
    Medium
    Coloured engraving
    Acquisition
    Purchased from Frank T Sabin, July 1974
    GAC number
    11226