Robert Burford (1791 - 30 January 1861) was an English painter of panoramas.

Life

Burford was born in 1791 and first exhibited at 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 ...

in 1812 with ''A View of Westminster Hall''. In conjunction with fellow artist

Henry Aston Barker Henry Aston Barker (1774 – 19 July 1856) was a Scottish landscape and panorama painter and exhibitor, the son of Robert Barker whose business he continued. Life and works Barker was born in Glasgow, the younger son of Robert Barker, the panor ...

, he opened a panorama on a site later occupied by the Strand Theatre. It was then moved to

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester ...

, where for many years it formed one of the chief attractions of London. Burford exhibited a succession of panoramas of the chief places of interest in Europe, all of which he visited himself in order to obtain accurate drawings.

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...

visited the exhibition as a boy, and spoke in high praise of Burford's abilities in his autobiography ''Praeterita'' (1885, p200). Burford died at his home, 35 Camden Road Villas, Camden, London, on 30 January 1861, just after finishing a view of

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...

Works

Amongst the panoramas he exhibited were ''Battle of Waterloo'', ''Cabool'', ''Baden'', ''The Embarkation of the Queen at Treport'', ''Athens'', ''Constantinople'', ''Grand Cairo'', ''Ruins of Pompeii'', ''The Polar Regions'', ''The Battle of the Alma'', ''Siege of Sebastopol'', ''Venice'', ''Rome'' and ''Rio Janeiro''.

References

Attribution: * {{DEFAULTSORT:Burford, Robert 1792 births 1861 deaths English landscape painters