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- Francis Seymour Haden
- Also known as
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Francis Seymour Haden
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primary name: Haden, Francis Seymour
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pseudonym: Dean, H
- Details
- individual; medical; collector; printmaker; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1818-1910
- Biography
- Etcher, mezzotint engraver and surgeon (practiced medicine until 1887); b. 1818, London, d. 1910, Bramdean. Studied at Christ's Hospital, University College London, and medical school at the Sorbonne, Paris, and Grenoble. During his stay in Europe, Haden first started sketching while travelling Italy and a number of drawings with Italian scenes, presumably from this period, survive in the collection. Took life drawing classes in Paris believing that drawing would aid precise observation and manual dexterity, skills central to the practice of the surgeon. Haden was introduced to etching by his brother-in-law James McNeill Whistler, whose half-sister (Dasha) Delano Whistler he had married, and became a fanatical propagandist for the medium and a central figure in the so-called 'Etching Revival'. Although an amateur, he held commercial exhibitions of his work, which was widely collected. Haden was a domineering personality and in 1867 Whistler pushed him through a plate-glass window, bringing an abrupt end to their relationship. In 1880, Haden founded and became first president of the Society of Painter-Etchers. He received numerous distinctions and honours, and was knighted in 1894. He also made a fine collection of prints by Rembrandt.
- Bibliography
- William R. Drake, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Francis Seymour Haden, 1880.
Samuel Henry Nazeby Harrington, 'The engraved work of Sir Francis Seymour Haden PRE: An illustrated and descriptive catalogue' (collection arranged by Harrington), 1910 (251 numbers)
Richard S. Schneiderman, 'A catalogue raisonné of the prints of Sir Francis Seymour Haden', Robin Garton, London 1983 (235 numbers)
Lugt 1227, 1048, 2286 & 2286 (see also Lugt 3553 and 3554 for false marks)
DNB
Francis Seymour Haden, About Etching, 1879.
---, The Art of the Painter-Etcher, 1890.
---, The Relative Claims of Etching and Engraving to Rank as Fine Arts, 1883.
Further reading:
Emma Chambers, An Indolent and Blundering Art? The Etching Revival and the Redefinition of Etching in England 1838-1892. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999.
Martha Tedeschi, 'The New Language of Etching in Nineteenth-Century England,' The "Writing of Life", exh. cat. University of Chicago, 2008, pp. 25-38.