Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fairfield, Charles
FAIRFIELD, CHARLES (1761?–1804), painter, executed some original works of great merit, which passed almost unnoticed owing to his retired and diffident nature and the seclusion in which he lived. He is best known as a copyist of the works of the Dutch and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century. These were extremely well done, and were eagerly sought after by dealers, who disposed of them as originals. A copy by him of Teniers's ‘Le Bonnet Rouge’ was ‘of the most striking perfection of finish and tone, capable of deceiving any one could it have but age’ (manuscript notes in Anderdon, Collectanea Biographica, print room, British Museum). He died in Brompton in 1804 in his forty-fifth year. He etched a few plates, including one of a ‘Cavalier at the Door of an Inn,’ after Metsu.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Gent. Mag. (1805), lxxv. 880; Nagler's Künstler-Lexikon; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves.]