Samuel Hieronymus Grimm was an 18th century Swiss topographical artist who worked in oils

Oil painting

Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...

 (until 1764), watercolours, and pen and ink media.

Life and work

Grimm was born in Burgdorf, in Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, and studied under Johann Ludwig Aberli

Johann Ludwig Aberli

Johann Ludwig Aberli was a Swiss painter and etcher.He is primarily known for his landscapes of Switzerland, first etched in contours then painted or colorized. This style is later to be known as the Aberli manner and found many imitators, such as Heinrich Rieter Senior, Franz Niklaus König or...

 in Bern. He then travelled in France until 1768 before moving to England. There he produced etchings, pen and ink drawings, and watercolours, but before his arrival he had already supplied the illustrations for Friedrich von Hagedorn

Friedrich von Hagedorn

Friedrich von Hagedorn , German poet, was born at Hamburg, where his father, a man of scientific and literary taste, was Danish minister....

's "Poetische Werke" which was published between 1769 and 1772.

Critics of his time remarked that Grimm was a "man of genius". He was adopted as a travelling companion of the Rev. Sir Richard Kaye who became Rector of Kirkby in Ashfield in 1765 - his role was to record "anything curious". In 1775 Grimm was known to be in Derbyshire

Derbyshire

Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...

 and Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, and by 1778 was working in 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...

.

Samuel died in Tavistock Street

Tavistock Street

Tavistock Street is a street in the Covent Garden area of London which runs parallel to the Strand between Drury Lane and Southampton Street just south of the market piazza.-History:...

 in London on 14 April 1794, and left his money to a niece in Switzerland. He was buried at St Paul's church

St Paul's, Covent Garden

St Paul's Church, also commonly known as the Actors' Church, is a church designed by Inigo Jones as part of a commission by Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford in 1631 to create "houses and buildings fitt for the habitacons of Gentlemen and men of ability" in Covent Garden, London, England.As well...

 in 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...

 in a service taken by his erstwhile benefactor, the Rev. Sir Richard Kaye, Dean of Lincoln.

Role as a recording historian

Grimm's speciality was recording historical events in the kind of detail that might otherwise have gone unreported. For example, the British Library credits him with producing the only surviving scene of the coronation

Coronation

A coronation is a ceremony marking the formal investiture of a monarch and/or their consort with regal power, usually involving the placement of a crown upon their head and the presentation of other items of regalia...

 of Edward VI. Another example of a unique artistic recording is the 1790 ink-wash drawing he produced of the chapel at Calcot Manor

Calcot Manor

Calcot Manor is a historic building 3 miles west of Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England, near the junction of the A46 and A4135 roads . The original building was established in approximately 1300 AD by Henry of Kingswood as a tithe barn annex of Kingswood Abbey. The estate was expanded to include...

 in Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

, long since ruined, and a drawing of Samuel Pegge

Samuel Pegge

Samuel Pegge the elder was an antiquary.Born at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, he was the son of Christopher Pegge and his wife Gertrude, daughter of Francis Stephenson of Unstone, near Chesterfield...

's church which was later rebuilt after a fire.

The British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

 possesses 2,662 drawings in twelve volumes by this artist, covering many of the counties of England and a further 886 watercolours, in seven volumes, dedicated to the county of Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

.

Patronage

Grimm's leading patron was Sir Richard Kaye, but this was not his only income. He also undertook work for the naturalist Gilbert White

Gilbert White

Gilbert White FRS was a pioneering English naturalist and ornithologist.-Life:White was born in his grandfather's vicarage at Selborne in Hampshire. He was educated at the Holy Ghost School and by a private tutor in Basingstoke before going to Oriel College, Oxford...

 and William Burrell. William Burrell gave Grimm's Sussex collection in 1796 whilst Sir Richard bequeathed his collection of Grimm's art to the British Museum in 1810. Luckily they valued his work more than Samuel who had left instructions for his papers to be destroyed after his death.

Further reading

• Clay, Rotha Mary. Samuel Hieronymus Grimm of Burgdorf in Switzerland (Faber, 1941).
• Dolman, Brett. 'Everything Curious':Samuel Hieronymus Grimm and Sir Richard Kaye.
• Plaideux, Hugues. « Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (1733-1794) : ses oeuvres en Normandie et l'iconographie authentique de l'abbaye de Cherbourg », in Les Anglais en Normandie, Actes du 45e Congrès des Sociétés historiques et archéologiques de Normandie (Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, octobre 2010), vol. 16, 2011, p. 373-384.

External links

• S H Grimm online (ArtCyclopedia)
• Biography of S H Grimm ("London Atelier of Representational Art")
• South-east view of St Lawrence Church, Whitwell, Derbyshire (Christie's
  Christie's
  Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
  
  )