Page:Bryan's dictionary of painters and engravers, volume 1.djvu/426

This page needs to be proofread.

A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF


acquiring some knowledge of painting he went to Rome, and became a disciple of Corrado Giaquinto, whose manner he imitated. He returned to Valencia, and passed on to Granada to seek assistance from an uncle who was one of the judges of the Court of Chancery, but not receiving the aid which he needed, he entered the Capuchin convent in that city in 1747. He was drowned in 1749. In the refectory of the convent to which he belonged there was a picture of the ' Last Supper ' by him ; and several of his smaller subjects were in the collections of private persons in Valencia,

CHALETTE, Jeax, a French miniature and portrait painter, was a native of Troyes, where he at first practised his art. In 1581 he was sum- moned to Toulouse to decorate the H6tel-de-Vi!le, and there gained so much renown that he settled in that citv, where he died in 1643.

CHALLES, Charles Michel Anqe, a French painter, architect, and mathematician, was born in Paris in 1718. He studied under Andre, Lemoine, and Boucher, and subsequently visited Rome. A ' Sleeping Diana,' which he painted in 1744, and a ' Venus by him are to be seen in Brunswick, He also painted many ceilings for palaces and churches, but never gained much reputation as a painter, although elected an Academician in 1753. As an architect and as draughtsman to the king he directed the theatrical entertainments at Fontaine- bleau in 1765, and the fetes and illuminations at Versailles on the occasion of the birth of Louis XVI. in 1754, as well as the funerals of the Dauphin and the Dauphiness, of Stanislaus, King of Poland, of the Queen of Spain, and of Louis XV. and his queen, Marie Leszczynska. He was a kniglit of the Order of St. Jlichael, married the dau.shter of the painter Nattier, and died in Paris in 1778.

CHALMERS, Sir George, Bart., a native of Edinburgh and a pupil of Allan Ramsay, exhibited portraits at the Royal Academy from 1775 to 1790. He died in London in 1791.

CHALMERS, George Paul, a Scotch portrait and landscape painter, was born at Montrose in 1836. He at first served an apprenticesliip to a ship-chandler, but afterwards went to Edinburgh, and entered the School of Design, then under the direction of Lauder. Ilis earlier works were por- traits, and it was only at a later period that he took to landscape painting. He was elected an Associate of the Scottish Academy in 1867, and an Academician in 1871. He died in Edinburgh, February 20, 1878, from the effects of an accident that befell him in the streets of that city on the 16th of the same month. Among his works were:

The End of the Harvest. 1873. Eimning "Water. 1S75. The Love Song. Prayer. 1S71. The Potato Harvest. The Legend {in the Edinluryh National Gallery).

CHALMERS, W. A., a water-colour painter, who practised in London towards the close of the 18th century, and is believed to have died young. His works are chiefly interiors of churches with some ceremony introduced : occasionally he painted subject-pieces, as " Mrs, Jordan as ' Sir Harry W'ildair.'" and "Kemble in the 'Stranger.'"

CHALON, Alfred Edward, was born at Geneva, in 1781. His family, whilst he was yet a youth, re- moved to London, where, together with his brother John James Chalon, he was destined for mercantile pursuits. But an inclination for the arts overruled this intention, and the establishment of the Sketch ing Society, in which the two young Chalons werf mainly iustrumental, confirmed them in the adop tion of the pursuit of their choice, Alfred becama a student of the Royal Academy in 1797, an Asso- ciate in 1812, and a Royal Academician in 1816. His reputation was first established and principally rests upon the portraits, mostly in water-colours, which he esliibited during many years at the Royal Academy ; and in which he displayed a certain turn of piquancy and elegance, and a free and sparkling pencil. So much in vogue, indeed, was he at one time, that the ladies of the aristocracy flocked to him to sit for their portraits. He made a striking portrait of Queen Victoria, shortly after her accession, and was appointed portrait-painter in water-colours to Her Majesty. When somewhat advanced in life, he essayed oil-painting, but, as may be supposed, with a success, in a technical point of view, subordinate to that which he had achieved in the more familiar vehicle of water- colours ; whilst, as regards composition and treat- ment, the delineator of the reigning belle of the season was hardly endowed with the grandeur of purpose and style to do full justice to such subjects as ' Samson and Delilah,' ' John Knox reprov- ing the Ladies of Queen Mary's Court' (1837), ' Christ mocked by Herod ' (1841), ' A Madonna ' (1845), or even to fancy and poetic subjects of less lofty aim. He <iied at Kensington in 1860, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.

CHALON, Christina, was born in Amsterdam in 1748, and studied painting under Sara Troost and Ploos van Amstel. She, however, devoted herself more particularly to etching, in which she acquired great proficiency. She has left us some thirty plates, for the most part in the style of Ostaile. She died at Leyden in 1808. Her etch- ings are marked with C'/ic" Cha., or Chr<^ Chal., or else CC. Amongst the best may be noticed :

An Interior, with three Boors. A Mother taking three children to School. An Old Woman saluting a peasant Boy.

CIIALON, Henry Bernard, an animal painter, was born of Dutch parentage in London in 1770. He was a student of the Academy, and first exhi- bited a landscape with cattle in 1792. He met with much patronage at court, being appointed animal painter to the Duchess of York in 1795, as well as to the Prince Regent, and afterwards to William IV. His pictures were chiefly devoted to the portraiture of horses. He met with a severe accident in 1846, and died in 1849. His daughter, Miss M. A. Chalon (afterwards Mrs, H. Moseley), was miniature-painter to the Duke of York. She died in 1867.

CHALON, John James, was born at Geneva in 1778, of an old French family who had taken refuge there after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He was a painter of a wide range of subjects — landscapes, marine scenes, animal life, and figure-pieces. He went to England when quite young, and entered the Schools of the Academy in 1796. His first picture, 'Banditti at their Repast,' appeared in 1800. In 1808, he, his brother Alfred Edward Chalon, and some friends, founded the Sketching Society, and in the same year he joined the Water-Colour Society, but in 1813 he seceded from it, and again devoted himself to painting pictures in oil for the Royal Academy.

280