Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/201

 number for one year, etching thirty-nine plates. Between 1859 and 1887 he was intermittently regular in his pastime, two years being the longest interval that he allowed to pass without etching a plate. After 1887 no plate is recorded until 1896, and in the next three years, 1896-8, he did eighteen plates, including a considerable number of mezzotints, a process which he chiefly practised at this late period of his activity. His last plate, a sketch of Woodcote Park, done on a pewter plate from the artist's bedroom window, is dated 1901.

Except for the twenty-five etchings which appeared in Paris under the title 'Études à l'eau-forte' in a portfolio with text by Philippe Burty (1865–6), nearly all Haden's etcliings were put into commerce separately by the artist. Pieces of capital importance in the sale-room are the 'Thames Fishermen' (, No. 11); 'By-road in Tipperary' (ib. No. 30); the larger 'Shere Mill Pond' (ib. No. 38); 'Sunset in Ireland' (ib. No. 51); 'La Belle Anglaise' (ib. No. 90); the 'River in Ireland' (ib. No. 91), and, most popular of all, the 'Breaking up of the Agamemnon' (ib. No. 145), a subject repeated in a later plate (ib. No. 229). But these pièces capitales are by no means the best of his work, which is as often found in the plates of less rarity and value. Special praise is due to the series of dry-points done in 1877 near Swanage, e.g. 'Windmill Hill,' No. 1 (H. No. 163); and for breadth and vigour of style in pure etching 'Sawley Abbey' (ib. No. 148); 'By Inveroran' (ib. No. 149); the 'Inn, Purfleet' (ib. No. 139); the ' Essex Farm' (ib. No. 155); and the 'Boat House' (ib. No. 156).

Haden's practical services to British etching include the foundation in 1880 of the Society (now the Royal Society) of Painter-Etchers, whose president he remained until his death. His public service was rewarded in 1894 by a knighthood, and his distinction recognised abroad by honorary membership of the Institut de France in 1905, the Académie des Beaux Arts, and the Société des Artistes Français. He was elected a member of the Athenæum in 1891 under Rule II. Among the medals awarded him at various times for etching were Grands Prix at the Expositions Universelles at Paris in 1889 and 1900. He exhibited etchings in the Royal Academy from 1860 to 1885, using the pseudonym of H. Dean in the exhibitions of 1860 to 1864. He also produced a large number of landscape drawings (now preserved in the collections of Mr. F. Seymour Haden, Dr. H. N. Harrington, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and elsewhere), some of the earliest being in water-colour, but the majority executed in black chalk, characterised by great breadth and vigour of handling; he received a medal for some exhibited at the International Exhibition, Chicago, 1893. Most of Haden's etchings were done direct on the copper without the aid of preliminary studies, but drawings which were used as studies for twenty-seven etchings are known.

The chief collections of his etchings are in the British Museum, the Avery collection in the New York Public Library, the Allbright Art Gallery, Buffalo, and the private collections of Dr. H. N. Harrington (who was one of Haden's executors) and Mr. Harris B. Dick of New York. Special exhibitions of his etchings were held by the Fine Art Society (1878–9), at the Corporation Art Gallery, Derby (1886), by the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers (1889), Wunderlich & Co.. New York (1890), P. & D. Colnaghi (1901), F. Keppel & Co., New York (1901, 1903, 1904, 1906, 1908–9), Grolier Club, New York (1902), at the Salon d'Automne. Paris (1907), by Obach & Co., London (1907), T. & R. Annan & Co., Glasgow (1910), Ernest Brown & Phillips, Leicester Galleries (1911, Dr. H. N. Harrington's collection, with his valuable preface to the catalogue).

As a critic and writer on art, Haden will be chiefly remembered as a pioneer of the scientific criticism of Rembrandt's etchings (of which he had a considerable collection). He was largely responsible for the Rembrandt exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1879, and his introductory remarks to the catalogue gave the chief impetus to the criticism that has divided so much school work from the master's own etching. In addition to this introduction (published separately in 1879 as 'The Etched Work of Rembrandt'; French trans. 1880), his most valuable publications on art include 'About Etching' (1879; 3rd edit. 1581), 'The Relative Claims of Etching and Engraving to rank as Fine Arts and to be represented as such in the Royal Academy' (1883), 'The Art of the Painter-Etchers' (1890), 'The Royal Society of Painter-Etchers' (1891) (this and the preceding reprinted from the 'Nineteenth Century'), 'The Etched Work of Rembrandt, True and False' (a lecture, 1895), his 'Presidential Address to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, 1901' (1902).