Frederick Christian Lewis (1779–1856) was an English etcher, aquatint and stipple engraver, landscape and portrait painter and the brother of Charles Lewis (1786–1836).

Life

He studied under J. C. Stadler and in the schools of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

and aquatinted most of

Thomas Girtin Thomas Girtin (18 February 17759 November 1802) was an English watercolourist and etcher. A friend and rival of J. M. W. Turner, Girtin played a key role in establishing watercolour as a reputable art form. Life Thomas Girtin was born in Sou ...

's etchings of Paris, 1803. He made transcripts of drawings by the

Old master In art history, "Old Master" (or "old master")Old Masters De ...

s for

William Young Ottley William Young Ottley (6 August 1771 – 26 May 1836) was a British collector of and writer on art, amateur artist, and Keeper of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. He was an early English enthusiast for 14th- and 15t ...

's ''Italian School of Design'' 1808-12 and executed plates for the publisher John Chamberlaine's ''Original Designs of the most celebrated Masters in the Royal Collection'', 1812. He engraved

Sir Thomas Lawrence Sir Thomas Lawrence (13 April 1769 – 7 January 1830) was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at t ...

's crayon portraits and was engraver of drawings to

Princess Charlotte Princess Charlotte may refer to: People * Charlotte Christine of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1694–1715), wife of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich of Russia and mother of Tsar Peter II, Emperor of Russia * Charlotte Aglaé d'Orléans (1700–1761), wife of ...

, Prince Leopold,

George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...

, and

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

. He also painted landscapes, mainly of

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

shire scenery and published several volumes of plates depicting the Devonshire rivers between 1821 and 1843, as well as etchings of the ''Scenery of the Rivers of England and Wales'' 1845–7. Lewis transformed numerous natural history paintings by

Philip Reinagle Philip Reinagle (1749 – 27 November 1833) was an English painter of animals, landscapes, and botanical scenes. The son of a Hungarian musician living in Edinburgh, Reinagle came to London in 1763 and after serving an apprenticeship, later bec ...

into

aquatint Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching that produces areas of tone rather than lines. For this reason it has mostly been used in conjunction with etching, to give both lines and shaded tone. It has also been used h ...

s. His superlative skills as engraver led to frequent commissions from Royalty, and to his contribution to J. M. W. Turner's ''

Liber Studiorum ''Liber Studiorum'' () is a collection of prints by J. M. W. Turner. The collected works included seventy-one prints that he worked on and printed from 1807 to 1819. For the production of the prints, Turner created the etchings for the prints, ...

'', a collection of seventy-one etchings with mezzotint, greatly influencing landscape painting.

Family

Lewis's son,

John Frederick Lewis John Frederick Lewis (1804–1876) was an English Orientalist painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes in detailed watercolour or oils, very often repeating the same composition in a version in each medium. He lived for ...

(1805–1876), was a painter of Italian, Spanish, and Oriental themes. Another son, also named Frederick Christian Lewis (1813–1875), studied under

, went to India, 1834, and painted pictures of durbars for native princes, engraved by his father, and published in England. He died at

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

. A third son Charles George Lewis, was known as an engraver.

References

Sources

* ;Attribution English engravers 18th-century English painters English male painters 19th-century English painters 1779 births 1856 deaths 19th-century English male artists 18th-century English male artists {{England-painter-stub