Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/341

 the famous Domesday Book, now preserved in the Record Office, an excellent piece of work.

While the binding of Riviere, like that of his equally celebrated fellow-craftsman, Francis Bedford, is deficient in originality, it is in all other respects—in the quality of the materials, the forwarding, and in the finish and delicacy of the tooling—deserving of almost unqualified commendation. Taking into consideration the fact that he was entirely self-taught, his bindings are wonderful specimens of artistic taste, skill, and perseverance. He died at his residence, 47 Gloucester Road, Regent's Park, on 12 April 1882, and was buried in the churchyard at East End, Finchley.

Riviere married, in 1830, Eliza Sarah Pegler, by whom he had two daughters. He bequeathed his business to the eldest son of the second daughter, Mr. Percival Calkin, who had been taken into partnership by his grandfather in 1880, when the style of the firm was altered to Robert Riviere & Son.

[Bibliographer, ii. 22; Bookseller, 1882, p. 418; Bookbinder, i. 150; Great Exhibition of 1851, Reports of Juries, pp. 425, 453; information from the family.] 

RIVIERE, WILLIAM (1806–1876), painter, born in the parish of St. Marylebone, London, on 22 Oct. 1806, was son of Daniel Valentine Riviere, a drawing-master, and brother of Henry Parsons Riviere [q. v.] and of Robert Riviere [q. v.] After receiving instruction from his father, William became a student of the Royal Academy, and distinguished himself by his powers as a draughtsman, and by his passionate devotion to the study of the old masters, especially of Michael Angelo and the artists of the Roman and Florentine schools. He exhibited first in 1826, when he sent to the Royal Academy a portrait and a scene from Shakespeare's ‘King John,’ and he continued to exhibit at intervals during the next few years portraits, domestic subjects, and landscapes, both at the academy and at the British Institution. In 1843 he sent to the Westminster Hall competition a cartoon, the subject of which was a ‘Council of Ancient Britons,’ and in 1844 a fresco of ‘An Act of Mercy,’ and a painting in oils of a ‘Council of Ancient Britons.’ In 1845 he sent to Westminster Hall a sketch representing ‘Prince Henry, afterwards Henry V, acknowledging the authority of Chief Justice Gascoigne,’ with a portion of the same subject in fresco, and in 1847 an oil-painting illustrative of ‘The Acts of Mercy.’ He was an excellent landscape-painter both in oil and in watercolours, and several fine examples of the latter now belong to Mr. Briton Riviere. But it was to the educational side of art that Riviere mainly devoted himself, and in 1849 he was appointed drawing-master at Cheltenham College, where he succeeded in creating a drawing-school which was unique of its kind, and was probably the best school of art out of London. After ten years' work he resigned his appointment and went to Oxford, where he laboured earnestly to develop his theory that the study of art should form an essential part of higher education. His last exhibited work was a portrait of Dr. Wynter, president of St. John's College, Oxford, which was at the Royal Academy in 1860. He likewise essayed sculpture, and left behind him an original model of ‘Samson slaying the Lion.’

Riviere died suddenly, at 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford, on 21 Aug. 1876. A miniature of him when a young man, by C. W. Pegler, is in the possession of his son, Mr. Briton Riviere, R.A.

[Jackson's Oxford Journal, 2 Sept. 1876; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School, 1878; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves and Armstrong, 1886–9, ii. 388; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1826–1860; information kindly supplied by Mr. Briton Riviere, R.A.] 

RIVINGTON, CHARLES (1688–1742), publisher, eldest son of Thurston Rivington, was born at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in 1688. He was apprenticed to Matthews, a London bookseller, and made free of the city in 1711, when the premises and trade of Richard Chiswell (1639–1711) [q. v.] passed into his hands, and the sign of the ‘Bible and Crown’ was first affixed to the house in Paternoster Row. By 1715 Rivington had published editions of Cave's ‘Primitive Christianity,’ Nelson's ‘Thomas à Kempis,’ and other works, chiefly theological. ‘The Scourge, in Vindication of the Church of England’ (1720), is the earliest book known to bear the well-known sign of the Rivingtons. Charles Rivington brought out one of Whitefield's earliest works, ‘The Nature and Necessity of a new Birth in Christ’ (1737), and Wesley's edition of ‘Thomas à Kempis’ (1735). With Bettesworth he formed a ‘New Conger’ in 1736, in rivalry to the old ‘Conger,’ or partnership of booksellers which had existed in various forms from before 1700 (, New English Dict. 1893, ii. 820;, Lit. Anecd. i. 340). He soon became the leading theological publisher, and carried on a large commission business in sermons. Writing to Aaron Hill, Samuel Richardson says that Rivington and Osborne ‘had long been urging me to give them a little book, which they