Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Richardson, George (1736?-1817?)
RICHARDSON, GEORGE (1736?–1817?), architect, was in full professional practice towards the end of the eighteenth century in London. From 1760 to 1763 he was travelling in the south of France, Italy, Istria, and Dalmatia, and studying the remains of ancient architecture and painting. The materials which he there collected were utilised in his subsequent work on the five orders of architecture, and in what formed the main branch of his professional activity, viz. the decoration of apartments in the antique taste. In 1765 he gained the premium of the Society of Arts for the elevation of a side of a street in classical style, being then under thirty years of age, and from 1766 he was a frequent exhibitor at that society's gallery. From 1774 to 1793 he also exhibited at the Royal Academy. In 1766 he lived in King Street, Golden Square; but had removed by 1767 to 95 Great Titchfield Street, and again by 1781 to No. 105 in the same street, which continued to be his address till 1816, the date of his last publication. His terms as a teacher of architectural drawing are advertised in his ‘New Designs in Architecture,’ 1792. In his old age he was in reduced circumstances, and was relieved by Nollekens.
Original coloured designs for ceilings, by Richardson, are in the Soane Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields. The range of his studies and the measure of his ability as a decorator may be deduced from his published works: 1. ‘Ædes Pembrochianæ,’ 1774 (an account of the antiquities at Wilton House). 2. ‘A Book of Ceilings,’ 1776. 3. ‘Iconology,’ 2 vols. 1778–9, with plates by Bartolozzi and other engravers after W. Hamilton. 4. ‘A New Collection of Chimney Pieces,’ 1781. 5. ‘Treatise on the Five Orders of Architecture,’ 1787. 6. ‘New Designs in Architecture,’ 1792. 7. ‘New Designs of Vases and Tripods,’ 1793. 8. ‘Capitals of Columns and Friezes from the Antique,’ 1793. 9. ‘Original Designs for Country Seats or Villas,’ 1795. 10. ‘The New Vitruvius Britannicus,’ 2 vols. 1802–8 (a sequel to Colin Campbell's ‘Vitruvius Britannicus,’ 1715, &c.). 11. ‘Ornaments in the Grecian, Roman, and Etruscan Tastes,’ 1816. In all these works, with the exception of ‘Iconology’ (No. 3), the plates were engraved in aquatint by Richardson himself, jointly, in the later publications, with his son William, who exhibited architectural designs at the Royal Academy, 1783–1794.
[Richardson's published works; Dict. of Architecture; Smith's Nollekens and his Times, ed. Gosse, 1895, p. 122; Dossie's Memoirs, 1782, iii. 421.]