Author: Tresham, Henry
Biography:
TRESHAM, Henry (c. 1750-1814: DIB)
He was born in Dublin and baptised in St. Audeon’s church on 21 Feb. 1850, the son of Thomas and Sarah Tresham. In 1765 he entered the Dublin Society drawing school and began his career as an artist; one of his history paintings won a prize of £15 from the Society in 1773. In 1775 he left for London and thence for Italy, where he lived for the next 13 years, mainly in Rome. An early patron was Col. John Campbell, later Baron Cawdor (1753-1821). An uncle allowed him £100 a year in Rome but that was withdrawn, possibly because he was using it to support a French countess. In Italy Tresham developed as an artist and was able to publish aquatints and to sell watercolours. He aspired to be recognised as a history painter, and brought several canvases back to England for exhibition when he returned in 1788. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, was elected RA in 1799, and was appointed as Professor of Painting in 1807, though he had to resign on grounds of ill health in 1809. In Italy he had also begun to collect works of art and antiquities for himself and to work as an agent for other collectors. In London he established a gallery in Lower Brook St. to sell his own work and other objets d’art. The earl of Carlisle settled an annuity of £300 on him in return for his services and for some valuable Etruscan vases. The publisher Longman engaged him to supervise the publication of a volume of engravings from Old Master paintings, The British Gallery of Pictures, a project completed after his death. Tresham died, unmarried, on 17 June 1814 at his home on Bond St. and was buried at St. George’s, Hanover Square, on 29 June. His contributions to the sister art of poetry are generally dismissed but there were six separate titles issued between 1780 and 1810, the last of which, A Tributary Law inscribed to the Memory of . . . the Marquis of Lansdowne (1810), is only seven pages long and therefore excluded from this bibliography. (DIB 8 Sept. 2024; ODNB 8 Sept. 2024; findmypast.com 8 Sept. 2024; GM Sept. 1814, 290-2) HJ