Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/323

 success and became well known. Some of the best artists, such as Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A., from time to time placed the models; and among Sass's youthful pupils were Sir John Millais, P.R.A., C. W. Cope, R.A., W. P. Frith, R.A., W. E. Frost, R.A., and other well-known artists of distinction in later life. A humorous caricature of such a drawing-school is given by Thackeray in the ‘Newcomes;’ but though some of the details may be taken from Sass's school, it is not intended to be descriptive of this school or of Sass himself. Sass was a popular man of society, possessed of private means, an accomplished musician, and a constant entertainer of artistic and cultivated people. Among his more intimate friends, as artists, were Sir Edwin Landseer, William Etty, and J. M. W. Turner, the latter being a constant visitor and favourite in Sass's family. In 1842 Sass relinquished the direction of the school to Francis Stephen Cary [q. v.], his health having become impaired through an accident. He died in 1844. Sass married, in 1815, Mary Robinson, a connection of the earls of Ripon, a lady with some fortune, by whom he had nine children; their eldest surviving son, Henry William Sass, practised as an architect, and the youngest, Edwin Etty Sass, who survives, entered the medical profession. A portrait of Sass, by himself, is in the latter's possession.

or (1774–1849), landscape-painter, elder half-brother of the above, born in 1774, practised as a landscape-painter, and was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy from 1791 to 1813. He was appointed teacher in drawing to the Princess Charlotte, and later landscape-painter to the prince regent. In 1825 he removed to Paris, where he spent the remainder of his life, altering his surname to ‘Sasse.’ He died there on 7 Sept. 1849. Sasse had some repute as a landscape-painter, especially in watercolours. Specimens of his work are in the South Kensington Museum and the British Museum. In 1810 he published a series of etchings from picturesque scenery in Ireland, Scotland, and elsewhere.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880; Gent. Mag. 1845, p. 210; information kindly supplied by F. J. Sass, esq.]

 SASSOON, ALBERT ABDULLAH DAVID (1818–1896), philanthropist and merchant, born at Bagdad on 25 July 1818, was the eldest son of David Sassoon by his first wife, Hannah, daughter of Abdullah Joseph of Bagdad. The family claims to have been settled between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries in Toledo, where it bore the name of Ibn Shoshan. For a long period members of it held the position of chief of the Jewish community of Toledo, and gained reputation as men of wealth and learning. In the fifteenth century persecution in Spain drove the family of Ibn Shoshan towards the East, and the chief branch settled in Bagdad, then under Turkish rule, early in the sixteenth century. Sir Albert's grandfather became known as chief of the Jews of Mesopotamia, and on him was conferred the ancient title of nasi, or prince of the captivity, which gave him large powers, recognised by the Turkish government, over the Jewish communities of Turkey in Asia. He was also appointed state-treasurer to the governor of the pashalic. Sir Albert's father, David Sassoon, born at Bagdad in 1792, acquired a leading position as a merchant there. But the Turkish government proved itself unable or unwilling to check outbreaks of persecution, and David Sassoon deemed it prudent to remove to Bushire in Persia, where an English agency had been established. In 1832 he left Persia to settle in Bombay, where he founded a banking and mercantile firm, and became one of the wealthiest of Indian merchant princes. His firm notably developed the trade between Mesopotamia and Persia and western India. Its operations gradually extended to China and Japan. With a view to increasing the business in England, he sent thither in 1858 his third son Sassoon David Sassoon (1832–1867). London soon became the centre of the firm's operations, and branches were established at Liverpool and Manchester. David Sassoon was a munificent supporter of public institutions, and bestowed large gifts on the Jewish communities of India. In Bombay he founded the David Sassoon Benevolent Institution (a school for Jewish children) and an industrial school and reformatory, and at Poonah he built a large general hospital. He died of fever at Poonah on 5 Nov. 1864. A statue of him by Thomas Woolner, R.A. [q. v.], was erected in the Mechanics' Institute, Bombay, in 1870. After the death of his first wife in 1826, he married, in 1828, Farhah (d. 1886), the daughter of Furraj Hyeem of Bagdad, and by her he had five sons and two daughters (Gent. Mag. 1865, i. 115, 252, 1867, ii. 250; Illustrated London News, 17 July 1869; Landed Gentry, 8th ed.).

The eldest son, Albert, was educated in India, and in early life spent some time in developing the trading connection of his father's firm with China. He inherited his