Robert Dighton (1752-1814) - 1810 Etching A View from Trinity College

Description

Condition

Signs of wear consistent with age including some discolouration, dirtying, and light foxing to the paper. Wear around the edges of the page, including some small tears.

Size

27 x 20.5cm (10.6" x 8.1")
Sheet: 34.5 x 28.5cm (13.6" x 11.2")
Plate: 27 x 20.5cm (10.6" x 8.1")

Artist Biography

Robert Dighton (1752-1814) was an English portrait painter, printmaker and caricaturist born in London. He was the son of the London print seller John Dighton. In the 1770s he began acting and singing in plays at the Haymarket Theatre, Covent Garden and Sadler’s Wells while at the same time training and exhibiting at the Royal Academy - he entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1772. As an artist, he was first offered consistent employment by the publisher Carington Bowles. Much of his early work was issued anonymously, but by the early 1790s it became increasingly well known and he began etching and publishing under his own name. In awkward poses and with ruddy faces, Dighton's satirical caricatures included lawyers, military officers, actors and actresses who were seen about town, as well as down-at-heel types. In 1795 he brought out a Book of Heads and thenceforth devoted himself chiefly to caricature. His work is noted as being less savage than that of his contemporaries, James Gilray and George Cruikshank. By the start of the century, his success allowed him to open a shop in Charing Cross, where he sold his own prints and those of others. While living in Oxford he did an amusing series of portraits of academic types and country gentlemen, as well as in Bath and Cambridge. Returning to London in 1810, he reopened his studio, where he worked with his sons until his death in 1814.