Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/232

Grieve on intimate terms with Hogg, who speaks of his literary advice as well as his material assistance. Hogg's ‘Madoc of the Moor’ is dedicated to him, and he figures as a competing minstrel in the ‘Queen's Wake.’ It was on Grieve's recommendation that the ‘Queen's Wake’ was published, and in regard to the more generous support given him by Grieve and his partner, Hogg says that without this he could never have fought his way in Edinburgh: ‘I was fairly starved into it, and if it had not been for Messrs. Grieve and Scott would in a very short time have been starved out of it again.’ In 1817 Grieve retired from business through ill-health. Until his death he was a well-known figure in Edinburgh literary society. He died unmarried on 4 April 1836, and was buried in St. Mary's, Yarrow.

[Hogg's Reminiscences; Mrs. Garden's Memorials of James Hogg; Rogers's Scottish Minstrel.]  GRIEVE, THOMAS (1799–1882), scene-painter, son of John Henderson Grieve, theatrical scene-painter (1770-1845), was born at Lambeth, London, 11 June 1799, and was a member of a family long associated with Covent Garden as the chief artists employed in the adornment of the dramas, spectacles, and pantomimes brought out under the management of the Kembles and Laporte. When Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mathews became lessees of Covent Garden Theatre in 1839, Thomas Grieve was chosen as the principal scenic artist, and he painted the effective panoramas introduced into their Christmas pantomimes. His services were afterwards transferred to Drury Lane, and in December 1862 he was the artist who pictorially illustrated the famous annual of ‘Goody Two Shoes.’ The diorama of ‘The Overland Mail’ at the Gallery of Illustration, 14 Regent Street, in 1850, and many illustrations of a similar kind were much indebted for their success to his artistic aid. In conjunction with W. Telbin and John Absolon he produced the panorama of the Campaigns of Wellington in 1852, and subsequently other panoramas of the Ocean Mail, the Crimean War, and the Arctic Regions. In partnership with his son, Thomas Walford Grieve, he continued to labour for many years, and the announcement that the scenery for any piece was by Grieve and Son was a sufficient guarantee to the public of the excellence of the work. In the brilliancy of his style, the appearance of reality, and the artistic beauty of his landscape compositions, he has seldom been excelled. He worked on till his death at 1 Palace Road, Lambeth (since known as 47 Lambeth Palace Road), 16 April 1882. He was buried in Norwood cemetery on 20 April. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Goatley of Newbury, by whom he had two children, Thomas Walford Grieve, born 15 Oct. 1841, a well-known scene-painter, and Fanny Elizabeth Grieve, who married P. Hicks of Ramsgate. He was a brother of William Grieve [q. v.]

[Era, 22 April 1882, p. 7; information from T. Walford Grieve.]  GRIEVE, WILLIAM (1800–1844), scene-painter, one of a family connected for several generations with this branch of art, son of John Henderson Grieve, a scene-painter of repute, was born in London in 1800. He was employed as a boy at Covent Garden Theatre, but subsequently gained his chief celebrity as a scene-painter for Drury Lane Theatre and Her Majesty's opera-house. When Clarkson Stanfield and David Roberts abandoned scene-painting, Grieve was left at the head of the profession. His moonlight scenes were especially notable, and in 1832, after a performance of ‘Robert le Diable,’ the audience called him before the curtain, then an unprecedented occurrence. Grieve also attained some success in small pictures and water-colours. He died at South Lambeth on 12 Nov. 1844, leaving a wife and five children. His younger brother, Thomas Grieve [q. v.], was also a scene-painter.

[The Art Union, 1845; Ottley's Dict. of Recent and Living Painters; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]  GRIFFIER, JAN (1656–1718), painter and etcher, born at Amsterdam in 1656, was apprenticed successively to a carpenter, an earthenware manufacturer, and a drunken flower-painter, but eventually became a pupil of Roelant Roghman in landscape-painting. Mixing at Amsterdam in the society of the great painters, such as Rembrandt, Ruysdael, Lingelbach,and others, he became acquainted with their various styles, and traces of their influence may be observed in all his works. Perhaps the influence of Herman Saftleven is the most prominent. Griffier became a skilful copyist of the works of these and other artists. He followed his friend Looten, the landscape-painter, to England, and was here at the time of the great fire of London in 1666. He made a large drawing during the progress of the fire, of which a coloured engraving by W. Birch was published in the ‘Antiquarian Repertory,’ vol. ii. Griffier's pictures were principally compositions, views on the Rhine, Italian ruins and landscapes,