The Duke of Newcastle’s Return from Shooting

  • About the work
    Location
    Country: UK
    City: London
    Place: Government Art Collection
  • About the artist
    Francis Wheatley was born in London. He studied at Shipley’s Academy before enrolling at the Royal Academy Schools in 1769. He made a number of trips aboard during the 1760s and became influenced by contemporary French painting, particularly the work of Jean-Baptiste Greuze and François Boucher. Wheatley was elected a Fellow of the Society of Artists in 1770 and became a director in 1774. In 1779, he fled to Dublin with the wife of another artist to escape creditors. Having established himself in Ireland, he returned to London in 1783 and produced work for the print publisher John Boydell. His images of itinerant merchants of the early 1790s were published for English and French markets. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1791.
    Francesco Bartolozzi was born in Italy. He became a pupil of the German painter and printmaker Joseph Wagner, then based in Venice. In 1764, he was invited to England by Frederick Augusta Barnard, King George III's Librarian. Although best known for copying Old Master drawings in the stipple technique (such as his reproductions of Guercino’s drawings in the Royal Collection), Bartolozzi also engraved plates after contemporary artists (notably Giovanni Battista Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann). He set up a studio in London, which produced large numbers of ‘furniture prints’ (generally set within a roundel or oval and intended for framing). In 1802 he left England to become Director of the Lisbon Academy in Portugal.
    Samuel Alken was an aquatint engraver of landscapes, topographical views and sporting subjects, after works by contemporary artists. He was born in London; the son of a carver and guilder. Alken studied at the Royal Academy Schools. As well as his aquatints, he produced some painted decorative compositions. His son was sporting artist Henry Thomas Alken.
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  • Details
    Title
    The Duke of Newcastle’s Return from Shooting
    Date
    published 10 January 1792
    Medium
    Engraving
    Acquisition
    Purchased from Colnaghi, April 1952
    GAC number
    1559