LIOTARD (JOHN STEPHEN).
JOHN STEPHEN LIOTARD was born in the year 1702, at Genoa, At first he studied without instruction, but in 1715 he visited Paris, and became a pupil of the celebrated Massé. Here he attracted the notice of the Court painter, Lemoine, who introduced him to the Marquis Puysieux, and he afterwards accompanied that nobleman to Naples. Here he employed himself in painting miniatures on ivory. He afterwards visited Rome and painted portraits of the Pope and the Stuart family. In 1738 he accompanied Lord Duncannon to Constantinople. During his residence here he allowed his beard to grow, and adopted the Turkish costume, which he never afterwards relinquished. In 1742 he was summoned by the Prince of Moldavia to Jassy, and after a short time there, proceeded to Vienna, where he was patronized by the Empress Maria Theresa, who rewarded him richly for his portraits of the imperial family. He again returned to Paris, and his magnificent beard and oriental dress made him for a time the lion of that capital, and procured him the bye-name of “The Turkish Painter.” Among the ladies who entrusted him with their portraits was the celebrated Madame Pompadour, who was by no means satisfied with the likeness, Liotard having followed nature so closely as to reproduce even freckles and other accidental blemishes. From Paris he repaired to London. The best picture he executed in England was that of the Princess of Wales and her sons. Perhaps his most popular painting is that of “The Chocolate Girl,” which is seen on fire-screens, snuff-boxes, articles of porcelain, etc. In 1756 he visited Holland, and sacrificed his long-cherished beard on the altar of Hymen, without, however, laying aside his Turkish dress. In 1772 he returned to England, painting numerous portraits, principally in crayons. His works in enamel, etc., are very numerous, and are to be found in the various private and public collections of almost every country in Europe. He died in the year 1776.
LIVERSEEGE (HENRY).
HENRY LIVERSEEGE was born at Manchester, in September, 1803. Of humble parentage, he was indebted to the benevolent care of an uncle for a liberal education. His career as an artist began with copying fine paintings of old masters. With the exception of a few visits to London, he passed the whole of his life in his native town of Manchester. When in London he received considerable attention from those to whom his genius was known; among others, from Etty, the R.A. Heath, appreciating his genius, gave him a commission to paint twelve subjects for the “Book of Beauty,” which, however, he did not live to commence. His paintings, which appeared at the Society of British Artists in London, attracted general approval and admiration; but in January 1832, before the completion of his twenty-ninth year, this promising artist breathed his last.
A DEAR MODEL.
“Henry Liverseege had the soul and sense to take nature for his everlasting model; when he originated, he originated out of the heart of life; when he illustrated, he made life sit for his illustrations. In his paintings from Shakspeare, Scott, Gay, and Butler, and more especially in the more difficult of them, he always procured living models. Take, for instance, the two subjects of ‘Christopher Sly and the Hostess,’ and ‘The Black Dwarf,’ two of his most admirable paintings: we have it on record that even for these he found life representatives, and the anecdotes that attach to each picture are sufficiently amusing. As regards Christopher Sly, it was long before he could find such a cobbler as he desired. At length he met with a man he thought would suit; and, having placed him in his studio, set down a bottle of gin beside him, saying, ‘Drink whenever you please.’ The spirit of the cobbler, being one of those that must lie in sleep some time, and become half corrupted before it rises, refused to stir; he sat sober as a worshipful judge upon the bench. Another bottle of gin disappeared in the same way as the former, but the son of Crispin sat steady as ever. ‘Begone!’ exclaimed the painter in a passion; ‘it will cost me more to make you drunk than the picture will procure me!’
“‘The Black Dwarf,’ it will readily be believed, was a sort of poser in the way of tumbling upon an original; but notwithstanding the difficulty of procuring a sitter sufficiently hideous or misshapen, he at last discovered a miserable dwarf who afterwards sat to him, and displayed on the completion of his likeness, great wrath and indignation at what he considered the malicious mode in which his person was delineated: he would not believe that it was anything like him, and left the room unpaid, in high dudgeon, grumbling hoarsely as far as he could be heard,—for this fragment of humanity had the voice of a giant.”