William Fortescue (1687-1749) judge

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand

Thomas Hudson (1701-1779) was a portrait painter and an art collector from Devon. He was a pupil of the English artist and collector Jonathan Richardson (1665–1745), whose daughter Mary he had married by 1725. Hudson worked primarily in the West Country prior to Richardson’s retirement from painting in 1740; after this date his reputation grew in the capital as he inherited Richardson’s former clients. He is thought to have painted around 400 portraits over the course of his career, an output which was aided by his employment of the Flemish artist working in England, Joseph van Aken (c.1699–1749). He also later employed his brother Alexander (1701–1757) as a drapery painter. Hudson was one of a number of prominent artists who met at Old Slaughter’s Coffee House in London in the mid 1740s, at a time before formal artistic academies had been established in Britain. Other painters who frequented the coffee house include William Hogarth (1697–1764), Francis Hayman (c.1708–1776), Allan Ramsay (1713–1784), and the sculptor John Michael Rysbrack (c.1684–1770). Hudson also travelled to France and the Low Countries in 1748 with Hogarth, Hayman and van Aken. In 1752 he visited Rome, as many British artists were increasingly to do, with the sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac (1695–1762).Among the list of Hudson’s apprentices are Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), and John Hamilton Mortimer (1740–1779). After the mid 1760s Hudson received less work and soon retired to Twickenham, where he died in 1779.
John Faber II was born in Amsterdam, the son of engraver John Faber (c.1660-1721). The family settled in England by 1698. He was a pupil of his father, studied at the St Martin’s Lane Academy and also joined the Rose and Crown Club of artists, which met at a Covent Garden tavern. He produced mezzotints under the name John Faber Junior, until his father’s death in 1721. In 1737 publisher George Virtue recorded an attack on him by a street robber, during which he was shot in the breast, however he later recovered. In total, he made over 500 mezzotint prints, mainly after 17th-century or contemporary artists, becoming the leading mezzotint engraver of his day. His apprentices included Andrew Miller (died 1763). He died of gout, aged about 61.

People

William Fortescue (1687 - 1749)

Places

Subjects

male portrait, judge, lawyer, Master of the Rolls, Member of Parliament, Privy Counsellor

Materials & Techniques

engraving

Artist

Thomas Hudson (1701 - 1779)
John, II Faber (1684 - 1756)

Title

William Fortescue (1687-1749) judge

Date

Medium

Engraving

Acquisition

Origin uncertain

Provenance

Discovered in Royal Courts of Justice

GAC number

17187