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- David Loggan
- Also known as
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David Loggan
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primary name: Loggan, David
- Details
- individual; printmaker; British; Polish; Male
- Life dates
- 1634-1692
- Biography
- Engraver, born in Gdansk. Loggan's father, John, came from an old Oxfordshire family; in the late 1620s and early 1630s he went to Gdansk (Danzig) where he married a local girl in February 1634. David was born six months later on 27 August. Sandrart states that he was a pupil for four years of the Dutch engraver Willem Hondius (who had settled in Gdansk in 1636), and that after his death, he went to Amsterdam between 1656 and 1663 where he studied with Crispijn de Passe II for seven years. He then went to London, intending to continue to France and Italy. But the success he had with a drawn portrait of Cromwell (never engraved) induced him to stay in England. This was presumably shortly before Cromwell's death in September 1658.
He settled in London, and married on 15 June 1663 Ann Jordan, also from an Oxfordshire family. He specialised in portraits, making finished drawings 'ad vivum' in black lead, which might or might not subsequently be engraved. The plague of 1665 took him to Oxfordshire, where he established his reputation in the University with an engraved portrait of Mother Louse, of Louse Hall, a famous inn outside the city (Vertue Add.Ms.23078 f.45). When the University established a press in the Sheldonian Theatre in 1669, Loggan was appointed 'public sculptor' at a salary of 20s a year, and supplied a rolling press at a cost of £5 1s. 6d. His work in Oxford culminated in 1675 with 'Oxonia Illustrata'. One of his sons, John, later became a fellow of Magdalen College.
In 1675 Loggan was naturalised and moved to London, where he lived in Leicester Fields, 'in the row next to St Martin's Lane' or, later, 'next door to the Golden Head'. Here he let out lodging rooms and undertook assorted architectural engravings (he advertised for a lost draught of Wells Cathedral in the London Gazette for 15 March 1677), as well as 'Cantabrigia Illustrata', a sequel to his Oxford book. Work on this continued from 1676 to 1690, with Loggan making long visits from London to a workshop and a press that he was provided in Trinity College. He was elected engraver to Cambridge University on 5 March 1690, and is said to have hurt his eyes when drawing King's College Chapel.
The peak of his prosperity was in the 1670s. In later years his business was badly affected by the rise of mezzotint, which he tried to meet by publishing half a dozen mezzotints himself c.1683 (listed by Chaloner Smith), as well as two maps in 1687 (Tyacke nos.132 and 135). He died at the age of 58, having supported seven children. His will shows that he had debts of £140. Vertue grimly noted his sad end; he had had 'great employments by nobility and gentry ... this kept him for his time, but little remaining substance left except a few copper grav'd plates, at his death all sold almost for the weight of old copper to Overton who from thence has gained partly of a good fortune' (VI 182).
Robert White and Edward Davis were both pupils of Loggan. Michael Burghers of Amsterdam was a journeyman who assisted him on 'Oxonia Illustrata' and took his place as the principal engraver for publications at Oxford after his return to London in 1675. He inherited Loggan's position as 'Calcographus Academicus' in 1694. Another journeyman was P.Williamson (Vertue 23078 f.38v), who may have been a Dutchman (to judge by the spelling of his portrait of Charles II published by Stent, Globe 69).
- Bibliography
- C.F. Bell and Rachel Poole, 'English Seventeenth-Century Portrait Drawings in Oxford Collections, Part II', Walpole Society XIV, 1925-1926.
Antony Griffiths, 'Print in Stuart Britain', p.198
David Alexander in Michael Hunter (ed.), 'Printed Images in early modern Britain', Farnham 2010, pp.307-14 (checklist of portraits, chronologically)
De Gruyter