Francis Wheatley was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 portrait

Portrait

thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

 and landscape

Landscape art

Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

.

Life and work

Wheatley was born at Wild Court, Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, the son of a master tailor. He studied at William Shipley

William Shipley

William Shipley was an English drawing master, social reformer and inventor who, in 1754, founded an arts society in London that became The Royal Society of Arts, or Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce, .-Early years, training and career:Shipley was born in...

's drawing school and the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

, and won several prizes from the Society of Arts. He assisted in the decoration of Vauxhall

Vauxhall

-Demography:Many Vauxhall residents live in social housing. There are several gentrified areas, and areas of terraced townhouses on streets such as Fentiman Road and Heyford Avenue have higher property values in the private market, however by far the most common type of housing stock within...

, and aided John Hamilton Mortimer

John Hamilton Mortimer

John Hamilton Mortimer was a British Neoclassical painter known primarily for his romantic paintings and pieces set in Italy and its countryside, various other works depicting conversations between people, and works drawn in the 1770s portraying war scenes, very similar to those of Salvator Rosa...

 in painting a ceiling for Lord Melbourne

Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne

Peniston Lamb, 1st Viscount Melbourne , known as Sir Peniston Lamb, 2nd Baronet, from 1768 to 1770, was a British politician and the father of Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne....

 at Brocket Hall

Brocket Hall

Brocket Hall is a country house in Hertfordshire, England, from London by road. It was built for Sir Matthew Lamb, 1st Baronet, in around 1760 to designs by the architect James Paine. It stands on the site of two predecessors, the first of which was built in 1239 and the second in about 1430. It...

 in Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

.

In his youth, his life was irregular and dissipated. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1778, built up a good practice and was praised by the critics. But he fell in with extravagant company and was forced to flee his creditors: so he eloped to Ireland with Elizabeth Gresse, wife of a fellow artist John Alexander Gresse

John Alexander Gresse

John Alexander Gresse ,was a painter and drawing-master.Gresse was born in London in 1741. His father was a native of Rolle, on the Lake of Geneva, and owned a small property close to Oxford Street, on which the present streets, Stephen Street and Gresse Street, Rathbone Place, were built about 1771...

 (1741-1794).

In the summer of 1779 he was in Dublin with Elizabeth whom he passed off as his wife, and established himself there as a portrait-painter, executing, among other works, the best-known interior of the Irish House of Commons

Irish House of Commons

The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland, that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords...

. He also painted the review of the Dublin regiments of the Irish Volunteers

Irish Volunteers (18th century)

The Irish Volunteers were a militia in late 18th century Ireland. The Volunteers were founded in Belfast in 1778 to defend Ireland from the threat of foreign invasion when regular British soldiers were withdrawn from Ireland to fight across the globe during the American War of Independence...

 in College Green

College Green

College Green is a three-sided "square" in the centre of Dublin. On its northern side is a building known today as the Bank of Ireland which until 1800 was Ireland's Parliament House. To its east stands Trinity College Dublin, the only constituent college of the University of Dublin. To its south...

 in November 1779, the basis for a best-selling print bought by numerous Irish Patriot

Irish Patriot Party

The Irish Patriot Party was the name of a number of different political groupings in Ireland throughout the 18th century. They were primarily supportive of Whig concepts of personal liberty combined with an Irish identity that rejected full independence, but advocated strong self-government within...

 supporters. He was careful to include the grandees of Dublin and also exotic visitors such as Princess Dashkov

Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova

Princess Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova was the closest female friend of Empress Catherine the Great and a major figure of the Russian Enlightenment...

.

The circumstances of his private life were revealed, and he returned to London. He produced small landscapes, portraits, or street scenes, and began to work in imitation of the French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Jean-Baptiste Greuze was a French painter.-Early life:He was born at Tournus, Saône-et-Loire. He is generally said to have formed his own talent; this is, however, true only in the most limited sense, for at an early age his inclinations, though thwarted by his father, were encouraged by a...

.
His scene from the Gordon Riots

Gordon Riots

The Gordon Riots of 1780 were an anti-Catholic protest against the Papists Act 1778.The Popery Act 1698 had imposed a number of penalties and disabilities on Roman Catholics in England; the 1778 act eliminated some of these. An initial peaceful protest led on to widespread rioting and looting and...

 of 1780 was engraved

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

 by James Heath

James Heath (engraver)

James Heath was an English engraver. He enjoyed the patronage of George III and successive monarchs, and was an associate engraver of the Royal Academy.-Life and work:...

; this was noted as one of his best, but was lost to a fire. He painted several subjects for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery

Boydell Shakespeare Gallery

The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery in London, England, was the first stage of a three-part project initiated in November 1786 by engraver and publisher John Boydell in an effort to foster a school of British history painting...

, designed illustrations to Bell's edition of the poets, and practised to some small extent as an etcher

Etching

Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...

 and mezzotint

Mezzotint

Mezzotint is a printmaking process of the intaglio family, technically a drypoint method. It was the first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be produced without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple...

-engraver. It is, however, as a painter, in both oil and water-color, of landscapes and rustic subjects that Wheatley is best remembered. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

 in 1790, and an academician in the following year.

He married in 1787 one of his most popular models, the young Clara Maria Leigh (1768-1838), who was also an artist. They had a daughter, also Clara Maria, born in 1788. After Wheatley died, his widow married the Irish actor Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope (actor)

Alexander Pope was an Irish actor and painter born in Cork, Ireland.He was educated to follow his father's profession of miniature painting. He continued to paint miniatures and exhibit them at the Royal Academy as late as 1821; but at an early date he took the stage, first appearing in London as...

, and as Mrs Pope she was known as a painter of flowers and portraits.

External links

• Francis Wheatley online (ArtCyclopedia)
• Francis Wheatley (Yale Center for British Art
  Yale Center for British Art
  The Yale Center for British Art is an art museum in New Haven, Connecticut at Yale University which houses the most comprehensive collection of British Art outside the United Kingdom...
  
  )
• Wheatley's paintings of Shakespeare scenes (Emory University
  Emory University
  Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
  
  , English department)
• A market scene (Oil on canvas - Sphinx Fine Arts)
• Parlington Hall was the home for the Irish House of Commons until 1905 Now at Lotherton Hall