A Self-taught Artist—Exhibits at the British Institution and the Royal Academy—Marriage with John Linnell's Daughter—Visits Italy—His Sketches of Italian Scenery—Elected an Associate, and afterwards a Member, of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours—An Etcher and Draughtsman on Wood—His Designs for "Pictures from Italy"—A Letter from Dickens—The Artist's Method of Work—The Villa D'Este—His Drawings Difficult to Reproduce—Elaborate Instructions to Engravers—Literature a Favourite Amusement—Fondness for Reading Aloud—Admires the Novels of Dickens—Illness and Death.
During Charles Dickens's very brief connection with the Daily News, at the time of its foundation in 1846, he contributed to its columns a series of "Travelling Sketches," descriptive of his experiences in Italy, and of his impressions concerning the scenery, institutions, and social aspects of the people in that beautiful country. Shortly after the publication of the concluding paper, these "Sketches" were re-issued in book form, under the title of "Pictures from Italy," with vignette illustrations on wood by Samuel Palmer.
Plate LIV
F. W. TOPHAM
From a Photograph by
Messrs. ELLIOTT & FRY
Lent by Mr. F. W. W. Topham.
SAMUEL PALMER
From a Photograph
Lent by Mr. A. H. Palmer.
Samuel Palmer, who was born in Newington, London, in 1805, was to a great extent a self-taught artist, his first successes dating from his fourteenth year, when he was represented by two pictures at the British Institution and three at the Royal Academy, his work from that time being frequently seen at one or the other gallery. In 1837 (that is, while "Pickwick" was in course of publication) he married the eldest daughter of John Linnell, the famous portrait and landscape painter, leaving England soon afterwards with his young wife for Italy. Here they stayed two years—years of such persistent and enthusiastic study that the sketches and elaborate drawings of some of the finest Italian scenery which the artist brought back, very numerous though they were, are no measure of the influence which the sojourn in the land of his favourite poet, Virgil, had upon his after-life and upon his artistic labours.