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SIR JAMES THORNHILL (1676-1734)

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 880 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SIR JAMES THORNHILL (1676-1734)  ,
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English
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historical painter, was born at Melcombe Regis, Dorset, in 1676, of an ancient but impoverished county
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family . His
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father died while he was young, but he was befriended by his maternal
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uncle, the celebrated Dr Sydenham, and apprenticed to Thomas Highmore,
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serjeant-painter to King William III., a connexion of the Thornhill family . Little is known regarding his early career . About 1715 he visited Holland, Flanders and France; and, having obtained the patronage of Queen Anne, be was in 1719-1720 appointed her serjeant-painter in succession to High-more, and was ordered to decorate the interior of the dome of St Paul's with a series of eight designs, in chiaroscuro heightened with gold, illustrative of the
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life of that apostle—a commission for which Louis Laguerre had previously been selected by the commissioners for the repair of the
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cathedral . He also designed and decorated the
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saloon and hall of
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Moor Park, Herts, and painted the
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great hall at Blenheim, the princesses' apartments at Hampton Court, the hall and
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staircase of the South Sea
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Company, the
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chapel at Wimpole, the staircase at
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Easton-Neston, Northamptonshire, and the hall at
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Greenwich Hospital, usually considered his most important and successful
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work, upon which he was engaged from 1708 to 1727 . Among his easel pictures are the altar-pieces of All Souls and Queen's College chapels, Oxford, and that in Melcombe Regis church; and he executed such portrait subjects as that of
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Sir Isaac Newton, in Trinity College, Cambridge, and the picture of the House of
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Commons in 1730, in the possession of the
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earl of Hardwicke, in which he was assisted by Hogarth, who married Jane, his only daughter . He also produced a few etchings in a slight and sketchy but effective manner, and executed careful full-
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size copies of Raphael's cartoons, which now belong to the Royal Academy . About 1724 he drew up a proposal for the establishment of a royal academy of the arts, and his scheme had the support of the lord treasurer Halifax, but government declined to furnish the needful funds . Thornhill then opened a
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drawing-school in his own house in James Street, Covent Garden, where instructioncontinued to be given till the time of his
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death . He acquired a considerable fortune by his
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art, and was enabled to repurchase his family estate of Thornhill, Dorsetshire . In 1715 he was knighted by George I., and in 1719 he represented Melcombe Regis in parliament, a borough for which Sir Christopher Wren had previously been member . Having been removed from his office by some court intrigue, and suffering from broken
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health and repeated attacks of
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gout, he retired to his country seat, where he died on the 4th of May 1734 .

His son James, also an artist, succeeded his father as serjeant-painter to George II. and was appointed " painter to the

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navy." The high contemporary estimate of Sir James Thornhill's
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works has not since been confirmed ; in spite of Dr Young, "
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late times " do not " Understand How Raphael's pencil lives in Thornhill's hands." He is weak in drawing—indeed, when dealing with complicated figures he was assisted by Thomas Gibson; and, ignorant of the great monumental art of Italy, he formed himself upon the
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lower model of Le Brun ..

End of Article: SIR JAMES THORNHILL (1676-1734)
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