Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/269

 his elevation to the bench in January 1861. In 1858 he was elected a bencher of King's Inns, Dublin, and became third serjeant-at-law. Being a sound lawyer, as well as a liberal and a Roman catholic, he was appointed solicitor-general for Ireland in Lord Palmerston's administration in July 1859. In 1860 he succeeded the present Lord Fitzgerald as attorney-general for Ireland, and was sworn a member of the Irish privy council. Upon the resignation of Baron Greene in 1861 Deasy was made a baron of the court of exchequer in Ireland, and in 1878 was promoted by the conservative government to the post of lord justice of appeal. In 1861 Deasy married Monica, younger daughter of Hugh O'Connor of Sackville Street, Dublin, by whom he had several children. He died at No. 41 Merrion Square East, Dublin, on 6 May 1883, in the seventy-first year of his age, and was buried in the family vault in Dean's Grange cemetery, Blackrock, near Dublin, where his wife had been interred but five weeks previously. Deasy was an accomplished lawyer, and a patient and impartial judge. He was described by Chief-justice Morris as the Bayard of the Irish bench. Owing to his exertions the Landlord and Tenant Law Amendment Act, Ireland, 1860 (23 & 24 Vict. c. cliv.), was passed, in which a successful attempt was made to codify the great mass of law relating to the duties of landlord and tenant; while his fairness to his political adversaries in debate, his conciseness of speech, and businesslike habits made him a general favourite in the House of Commons.

[Wills's Irish Nation (1875), iv. 168–9; O'Flanagan's Munster Circuit (1880), pp. 254, 376–80; Men of the Time (1879), p. 307; Ward's Men of the Reign (1885), p. 250; Annual Register (1883), pp. 146–7; Irish Law Times, 12 May 1883, pp. 257–8; Law Times, same date, p. 35; Times, 7, 8, 10 May 1883; Freeman's Journal, 7, 8, 9, 10 May 1883; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 428, 442, 459; Catalogue of Graduates of Dublin University (1869), p. 150.]  DE BAAN or DE BAEN, JOHANNES (1633–1702), painter, was born at Haarlem in 1633, and losing his parents when only three years old, was placed under the care of his uncle, Piemans, a painter of the school of old Brueghel. On the death of his uncle, he went, being thirteen years old, to Amsterdam, and worked under Jacobus de Backer, with whom he remained about five years. He studied particularly the styles of Vandyck and Rembrandt, and soon evinced a strong predilection for the former. In 1652 he executed a large and important etching representing the burning of the old town hall at Amsterdam. He then went to the Hague, and we find him in 1660 a member of the Painters' Guild of St. Luke in that town, of which he eventually became director. Here he began to gain repute as a portrait-painter, and painted portraits of Henri de la Tremouille, prince of Tarentum (painted 1664 and engraved by Philippe), the Count d'Horn, and other notabilities. Owing to his increasing reputation, he was summoned by Charles II to England, where he executed portraits of the king, the queen, Catherine of Braganza, the Duke of York, and other court celebrities. His success is said to have aroused the jealousy of Sir Peter Lely; but De Baan soon returned to his own country. Here he painted various portraits of the celebrated brothers, John and Cornelius De Witt; one of these, a large picture representing the two brothers as the victors over England at Chatham, was in the town hall at Dordrecht, and was torn to pieces by the mob after the fall and murder of the De Witts. Portraits of the two brothers are in the Amsterdam Gallery; also a painting by De Baan of their bodies (etched by Rogman); two others were engraved in mezzotint by Blooteling. In 1672 De Baan was invited by the Duke of Luxembourg to paint a portrait of Louis XIV at Utrecht. Being a devoted patriot, he declined, for the sake of his fellow-countrymen, to execute for his own profit the portrait of his country's invader. Louis XIV was so much struck by his conduct that he employed De Baan as one of his principal agents in selecting a collection of the best works of Dutch masters to be taken to Paris. De Baan also declined the position of chief painter to Frederick William, elector of Brandenburg, whose portrait he had painted. He was invited to the court of Friesland to paint the portraits of the prince and princess there, and here his success again brought on him the jealousy and hatred of his rivals, and nearly cost him his life, since after his return to the Hague he three times narrowly escaped assassination. In 1692 his enemies spread a report that he had lost his sight; hearing this, the Prince of Ansbach-Brandenburg had his portrait painted by De Baan as a conclusive proof to the contrary. De Baan painted numerous portraits of the leading members of the house of Nassau; that of John Maurice, prince of Nassau, governor of Brazil, is in the museum at the Hague; and that of the Prince of Nassau-Ziegen at Berlin is usually considered as his masterpiece. He painted some pictures for the Grand