William Taverner - Classical Landscape - Google Art Project

William Taverner (1703 – 20 October 1772) was an English

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

and amateur

landscape art Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compos ...

ist.

Life

Taverner was the son of dramatist William Taverner (d. 1731) and was articled (in the legal sense) to his father (a judge) on 5 April 1720. Like his father, he became a procurator-general of the

Arches Court The Arches Court, presided over by the Dean of Arches, is an ecclesiastical court of the Church of England covering the Province of Canterbury. Its equivalent in the Province of York is the Chancery Court. It takes its name from the street-level ...

- the ecclesiastical court of the

province of Canterbury The Province of Canterbury, or less formally the Southern Province, is one of two ecclesiastical provinces which constitute the Church of England. The other is the Province of York (which consists of 12 dioceses). Overview The Province consist ...

, based in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. He devoted his leisure time to art, and according to Redgrave,

Redgrave, Samuel Samuel Redgrave (3 October 1802, London - 20 March 1876 London) was an English civil servant and writer on art. Life He was eldest son of William Redgrave, and brother of Richard Redgrave, and was born at 9 Upper Eaton Street, Pimlico, London. Whe ...

.
A Dictionary of Artists of the English School
' (G. Bell, 1878) p. 424. 'His drawings are chiefly in body colour, imitating the

Italian masters Since ancient times, Greeks, Etruscans and Celts have inhabited the south, centre and north of the Italian peninsula respectively. The very numerous Rock Drawings in Valcamonica, rock drawings in Valcamonica are as old as 8,000 BC, and there ar ...

, mostly woody scenes, and, though clever, do not by any means maintain the great reputation which he enjoyed in his own day.' He died on 20 October 1772 and a writer in the '

Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term ''magazine'' (from the French ''magazine'' ...

' (p. 496) called him "one of the best landscape-painters England ever produced, but as he painted only for amusement, his paintings are very rare, and will bear a high price". Taverner gave instructions for a will shortly before his death, and on personal evidence the will was proved in November 1772. No relatives are mentioned, but 2,900 pounds was left in trust for his servant, Sarah Davis. Taverner's pictures and books were to be sold. Taverner never publicly exhibited his work and it is possible that, in his lifetime, his paintings circulated only amongst friends and fellow amateurs. His work was, however, highly regarded by

George Vertue George Vertue (1684 – 24 July 1756) was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period. Life Vertue was born in 1684 in St Martin-in-the-Fields, ...

who described his "wonderful genius".

References

* *Hargraves, Matthew.
Great British watercolors: from the Paul Mellon collection at the Yale
' (Yale University Press, 2007) pp. 10–11.

Notes

External links

(ArtCyclopedia)
Works by Taverner
(Tate online)

(handprint.com)

(ArtHistoryReference.com) ;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Taverner, Francis English landscape painters English watercolourists 1772 deaths 1703 births