Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/290

268 immoral ideas, and hatred to the Spaniards. Duran was seized by the Inquisition, and his property, which consisted only of books, was also seized. Among them were found two magnificent works, which had been overlooked by the inquisitors, and the authorities, hearing of the existence of similar works among the Indians, caused Duran to be sub- jected to the most cruel torments in order that he should reveal where he had obtained them ; but their cruelty was met by the Indian friar with great courage, and he revealed nothing. The torment lasted for several days, and at last Duran was burned alive, on suspicion of being a heretic.

DURAND, Cyrus, engraver, b. in Jefferson vil- lage, N. J., 27 Feb., 1787 ; d. in Irvington, N. J., 18 Sept., 1868. He was descended from Huguenots who came to this country after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and his father was a watch-maker. Cyrus received a common-school education in liis native village, and was for a time occupied in the con- struction of machinery. In this lie was eminently successful, and when, in consequence of the non- intercourse acts passed by England, factories sprang up everywhere, his services were in great demand. In 1814 he settled in Newark, N. J., where he worked as a silversmith, and in the autumn of that year volunteered as a drummer, and served for three months at Sandy Hook. A year later he was em- ployed in the Taurino factory in Rah way, N. J., making machines for spinning and carding hair for the manufacture of carpets. His attention was then directed to bank-note engraving, and he made for Peter Maverick, of New York, a machine for ruling straight and wave-lines for bank-notes. During the nest year he made two other machines, one for drawing water-lines, and the other for mak- ing plain ovals. These machines, of his own in- vention, may be regarded as the beginning of that series of geometrical lathes by which machine- work on bank-notes has been carried to a degi'ee of excellence that rivals the rich effects of the burin and pencil. After this Durand devoted himself to bank-note engraving, and his inventions include many appliances, the principal of which, beside the geometrical lathe, are machines for engine- turning and transfer presses. He was a skilled workman of unusual ability, and was considered capable of working in twenty-two occupations. — His brother, Aslier Brown, artist, b. in Jefferson, K J., 21 Aug., 1790; d. in South Orange, 17 Sept., 1886, acquired in his father's work- shop some knowledge of the elementary processes of engrav- ing. At first he con- fined his attention to cutting initials on spoons and similar objects. His earliest attempts at engrav- ing prints were made on plates rolled out of copper coins and with gravers of his own make. The suc- cess of these efforts led to a commission to copy a portrait on the lid of a snuff- box. In 1812 he was apprenticed to Peter Maverick, an engraver in New York city, and five years later he was ad- mitted into partnership with his master. His first original work was a "Beggar," after a painting by Samuel Waldo, and when John Trumbull painted the " Declaration of Independence," Charles Heath, of London, was to have engraved it, but, business complications having arisen, the picture was given to Durand. He worked stead- ily at it for three years, and the best-known en- graving in the United States was the result. His reputation was at once established and his work grew in demand. " Musidora," engraved in 1825, and " General Jackson," in 1828, are prominent plates of this period. Mr. Durand contributed ex- tensively to the " annuals," which were then fash- ionable, and some of his best work appears in these, including "The Wife," by S. F. B. Morse, "A Gypsying Party," after Charles R. Leslie, and the " White Plume," by Charles C. Ingham. Many of the heads engraved for the " National Portrait Gal- lery " were executed by him, and " Ariadne," after John Vanderlyn's painting, was his work. Mr. Durand, who was an admirable draughtsman and possessed an instinctive sense of color, became dis- satisfied with the limits of engraving, and aspired for a wider field of art. He studied nature dili- gently, and became most proficient in landscape painting, which from 1836 became his chosen oc- cupation. Prof. Robert W. Weir speaks of him as one of " the fathers of American landscape." A few portraits are among his earlier productions in oil, such as heads of Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, James Madison, and Edward Everett, while those of William Cullen Bryant, James Kent, and Gouverneur Kemble are among his latest works in this line ; and he also executed several figure-paint- ings, among which are " Harvey Birch and Wash- ington," " The Capture of Andre," " The Dance on the Battery," *' The Wrath of Peter Stuyvesant," and " God's Judgment on Gog." His landscapes include " The Catskills from Hillsdale," " The Franconia Mountains," " The Rainbow," " Sunday Morning," " Primeval Forest," " Franconia Notch," and several views of Lake George. His largest canvas, " A Mountain Forest " (1869), now hangs in the Corcoran gallery, Washington. Of his recent works, " Studies from Nature," " II Pappagallo," and " Kauterskill Clove," were sent to the Phila- delphia exhibition in 1876. He was one of the founders of the National academy of design in 1826, and after the resignation of Samuel F. B. Morse, in 1845, was its president till 1861. — His son, John, art critic, b. in New York city, 6 May, 1822, edited for several years a monthly publica- tion called " The Crayon." devoted especially to the interests of the -fine arts. He has also trans- lated several of Taine's works, including '• Ideal in Art" (New York. 1868); "Italy, Rome, and Naples" (1868); " Italv, Florence, and Venice" (1869); "Philosophv of Art: Art in the Nether- lands" (1870); and" Art in Greece" (1871).

DURAND, Elias, botanist, b. in Mentz, France (now Germany), 25 Jan., 1794; d. in Philadelphia, Pa., 15 Aug., 1873. He studied medicine in Paris, and on his graduation joined the medical corps of Napoleon's army. Dr. Durand was present at the battles of Lutzen, Bautzen, Hanau. Katzbach. and Leipzig, but after the downfall of the emperor he left France and came to the United States. He settled at first in Baltimore and then in Philadelphia, where he established a drug-store which became the resort of many of the most eminent physicians of the day. He also devoted himself to botany, and became thoroughly familiar with the flora of North America, collecting an herbarium that included ten thousand species of North American plants. This, the work of nearly forty years, he presented to the museum of the Jardin des