Page:Dictionary of Artists of the English School (1878).djvu/409

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8 H A A, Edmund, die-engraver. Was graver to the Mints of London and Calais 2nd Edward IV.

SHAA, John, die-engraver. Was graver of the coining irons of gold and silver within England and Calais 1st Richard III.

SHACKLETON, John, portrait paint- er. Succeeded Kent, as principal painter to George II., in April 1749, with a salary of 2001. He was one of the Artist Committee of 1755, appointed to establish a Royal Academy. In 1766 he exhibited portraits with the Free Society. There are by him portraits of George II. and his Queen in Fishmongers' Hall, and a portrait of the King at the Foundling Hospital. He died March 16, 1767.

SHALDERS, George, water-colour painter. His name first appears as an exhibitor at the Royal Academy in 1848. He was then living at Portsmouth, and was an occasional exhibitor of views in Surrey and Hants, and in 1858 and 1859 of Irish scenery. In 1863 he was elected an asso- ciate, and in 1865 a member, of the Institute of Water-Colour Painters, and from that time contributed to their exhibitions, land- scapes, in which he skilfully introduced cattle, especially sheep. Absorbed in his art, and compelled by his necessities to exert himself above his strength, he was struck with paralysis, and died, after a few days' illness, January 27, 1873, aged 47. His artist friends raised a subscription for his three motherless children, and a col- lection of sketches and pictures they had made with the same object was sold at Christies in 1874.

SHARP, William, enaraver. Was the son of a gun-maker m the Minories, and was born there January 29, 1749. He

received a premium from the Society of Arts, and was apprenticed to Barak Lom?- mate, an engraver on plate, and after his apprenticeship continued to work for him till he married, and set up for himself as a writing engraver. He continued this busi- ness for some time with zood encourage- ment, till aspiring to something better than card-plates and door-plates, lie made a drawing from Hector, the old lion in the Tower, which he engraved on a small quarto plate, and exposed for sale in his window. About 1782 he quitted his shop and went to reside in a private house at Vauxhall. and then commenced the higher branch of his art. He engraved from the old masters, executed some plates for the 'Novelists' Magazine' after Stothard, and about the same time completed the plate of West's ' Landing of Charles II.,' which Woollett had left unfinished at his death. He also engraved some of the illustrations for 'Captain Cook's Voyages,' and Benwell's ' Children in the Wood.' His success in his profession, and some money left him by 388

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his brother, enabled him to remove to a better house in Charles Street, Middlesex Hospital From thence he removed to Tich- field Street, and then, quitting the Metro- polis, to Acton, and finally to Chiswick.

Among his finest works are — after Guide. ' The Doctors of the Church disputing ' ana 1 Ecce Homo ; ' after West, P.R. A., Y King Lear in the Storm ' and ' The Witch of Endor ; ' after Trumball, ' The Sortie from Gibraltar ; ' after Copley, ' The Destruction of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar;' and after Sir Joshua Reynolds, the portrait of John Hunter and two plates of ' The Holy Family,' one of which, to the great discredit of Bartolozzi, was converted by him into the dotted style, but happily not before 100 impressions haa been taken off. Sharp's style of engraving is masterly and entirely original; the half-tints of ms best works rich and full ; the play of his lines marked by taste and genius ; the colour and cha- racter of the master excellently rendered. His works are known throughout Europe, and though he received pressing invitations from the continent, he never left his own country. He was elected honorary member of the Imperial Academy at Vienna, and of the Royal Academy at Munich. But at home he espoused the cause of the en- gravers, who stood aloof from our Academy, of which, by his own choice, he never became a member.

He held very peculiar opinions. In his young days he was a republican, dabbled m the politics of Tom Paine and Horne Tooke, and so loudly expressed his opinions, that he was examined on treasonable charges before the Privy Council ; but in his frank, jolly manners the Council soon saw that there was no danger to the State from the poor deluded artist, who is said to have

gulled out his subscription list for a work e was publishing, and asked the Council to add their names. Though a staunch believer in the Scriptures, he was by turns a convert to the opinions of the self-styled prophets Brothers, Wright and Bryan, and under a portrait of the former, with the title of ' Prince of the Hebrews,' he engraved, ' Fully believing this to be the man whom God has appointed, I engrave his like- ness. — William Sharp, 1 795. Having heard of Joanna Southcott, he suddenly set off to Exeter, where she was gaining her living as a charwoman, sought her out and brought her to London, where he maintained her at his own expense for a long time, and expressed the firmest faith in her divine mission.

After a short residence at Chiswick, he died there, of dropsy on the chest, July 25, 1824, aged 75, and was buried in the parish churchyard. His credulity may account for his dying poor, though industrious and successful in his art