James Thornhill

Sir James Thornhill ( born July 25, 1675 Melcombe Regis, Dorset, † May 13 1734 in Weymouth ) was an English painter.

He studied under Thomas Highmore and was then particularly in the field of decorative history painting under the influence of the French school operates. He decorated among others, the dome of Saint Paul 's Cathedral, the great hall of Blenheim Palace, the chapel at Wimpole, the great hall of the Royal Naval College, and also Hampton Court Palace and Easton Neston with paintings and painted portraits and landscapes.

Design for a ceiling painting by Greenwich Hospital

In the twenties of the 18th century Thornhill taught in his private London home a painting and drawing school one in which, inter alia, William Hogarth was his pupil. This burned in 1729 by the daughter of his teacher and married her secretly.

In his last years, the star Thornhill increasingly faded. There were hardly any jobs for him because other artists were favored by the nobility.

Selections

  • Ezekiel Spanheim canvas, 124 × 102 cm Cambridge, Trinity College.
  • Assembly of the gods on Olympus, canvas, 46 × 52 cm London, Tate Gallery.
  • Heracles, canvas, 107 × 71 cm Oxford, All Souls College.
  • Odysseus, canvas, 107 × 71 cm Oxford, All Souls College.
  • Pallas Athene with the allegories of peace and prosperity, canvas, 183 × 287 cmLondon, Guildhall Art Gallery.
  • Sir Isaac Newton, canvas, 127 × 99 cm Cambridge, Trinity College.
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