John Browne (artist)

John Browne, ARA (26 April 1742 – 2 October 1801), was an English landscape engraver.

Life
Hindringham Hall where Browne's ancestor, John Nabbes, once lived[lower-alpha 1], Gentleman of Hindringham in Norfolk who died on 28 February 1665.

Born on the 26 April 1742[1] at Finchingfield, in Essex, the posthumous son of John Browne[lower-alpha 2] (1715–1741), rector of Bayfield near Holt[6] in Norfolk and his wife Mary Pask (1720–1776), daughter of George Pask (1682–1753), vicar of Finchingfield, Essex and granddaughter of Isaac Watlington (died c. 1700), MP for Cambridge. Browne was educated at Norwich, and in 1755 was sent to London by his great-uncle, the physician Messenger Monsey [lower-alpha 3], where he was placed with John Tinney the engraver.

Browne afterwards worked for William Woollett, his fellow apprentice. He quickly distinguished himself in his art, and in 1768 exhibited an engraving of "St. John Preaching in the Wilderness", after Salvator Rosa, which brought him much notice. Two years afterwards he was made an associate engraver of the Royal Academy, and he became distinguished as an excellent engraver of landscapes. Many of his works were published by Boydell. He died at Walworth in 1801. Browne's will was proved on the 29 October 1801.[7]

Browne sat for two portraits, one when he was a boy, by William Woollett, later owned by Browne's family and the other, an exact likeness painted a few years before his death by American artist Gilbert Stuart and afterwards acquired by Misters Boydell, engraver and print-seller, John Boydell mentioned above and his nephew artist and publisher Josiah Boydell.

Family

John Browne eldest son, John Samuel Browne, Esq, late of the East India House died aged 76 on 6 June 1858 at his residence at Walworth, Surrey,[8] Browne was himself an artist and a friend of Rev William Holwell Carr.

A granddaughter of Browne, Frances Ann Browne, and her husband Edward Miller, formerly manager of the Bank of New South Wales, were murdered on 10 November 1879 at their home in Wellington, New Zealand by one of their sons, Clarence Miller, who shortly afterwards took his own life.[9]

Relatives

British classical scholar William Emerton Heitland (1847–1935) was a member of the same family on his mother side (Mary Heitland née Browne).[10]

Works

The following are his principal engravings:

  • St. John Preaching in the Wilderness; after Salvator Rosa.
  • A Landscape, with a Sportsman; after G. Poussin; in the Houghton Collection.
  • A Kitchen; after Teniers.
  • The Cottage; after Hobbema. 1773.
  • The Waggoner; after Rubens. 1776; fine.
  • A Landscape; after the same; from a picture in the collection of the Duke of Montagu.
  • The Market; after the same; from a picture in the Royal Collection.
  • The Milkmaid; after the same.
  • Apollo and the Muses granting Longevity to the Sibyl of Cuma; after Salvator Eosa.
  • Landscape, with a Waterfall; after G. Poussin.
  • Landscape, with Procris and Cephalus; after Claude Lorrain.
  • Landscape, with the Baptism of the Eunuch; after Jan Both.
  • Morning, Evening, after Sunset, and Moonlight; from his own drawings.

Heraldry

The Arms are Browne of Fulmodeston, Gules, two barrulets between three spear heads argent.[11]

Notes
  1. John Nabbes was one of those selected for the ill-fated order of the Knights of the Royal Oak and was also lord of Asteleys alias Nowers Manor in Hindringham.
  2. son of Nabbs Browne[2](died c. 1736), a Norwich weaver, and his wife Elizabeth Monsey. Nabbs Browne was a younger son[3] of John Browne (died c. 1693) of Saxthorpe in Norfolk, a gentleman bearing Arms.[4][5]
  3. Lord Cranworth was his great-grandson.
  1. "Memoirs of John Browne, A.R.A Engraver", The European Magazine, and London Review, Volume 40", October 1801, p. 247.
  2. "Biolgraphical History of Gonville and Caius College 1349–1897", p. 36
  3. "Browne of Mundesley and Fulmodeston", contributed by Arthur Campling, Miscellanea genealogica et heraldica, 5th series volume VIII, part 9 (March 1934), p. 264–65.
  4. "An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk", by Francis Blomefield and Charles Parkin, volume VII, p. 91.
  5. "The Church Heraldry of Norfolk", by Rev. Edmund Farrer, published by Norwich, A.H Goose and Co, 1889, volume II, p. 285.
  6. "Biolgraphical History of Gonville and Caius College 1349–1897", p. 36
  7. "Will of John Browne, Engraver of Walworth, Surrey, proved on the 29 October 1801, PROB 11/1363/290, National Archives
  8. "John Samuel Browne, Esq", (Obituary), The Gentlemans's Magazine, from July to December, 1858, p. 198.
  9. "Details of the New Zealand Tragedy". Warwick Argus. 9 December 1879. p. 3.
  10. "After Many Years, A Tale of Experiences and Impressions Gathered in the Course of an Obscure Life ", by William Emerton Heitland, published by Cambridge University Press, 1926 , p. 1
  11. "The Church Heraldry of Norfolk", by Rev. Edmund Farrer, published by Norwich, A.H Goose and Co, 1889, volume II, p.285

References
  • Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bryan, Michael (1886). "Browne, John". In Graves, Robert Edmund (ed.). Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (A–K). Vol. I (3rd ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.

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