- Also known as
-
Sir James Thornhill
-
primary name: Thornhill, James
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; British; Male
- Life dates
- 1675-1734
- Biography
- Painter of historical subjects working in the Italian baroque tradition. his works include the inside of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral and the "Painted Hall" at the Royal Hospital, Greenwich. in 1711 he was in Delft, Holland and painted a series of twelve plates with the signs of the zodiac. He was the father-in-law of William Hogarth, the painter and engraver, and the plates were inherited by Hogarth.
The BM has a large album of miscellaneous decorative designs; a second album of his Netherlandish journey in 1711, now in the V&A, has been published by Fremantle (photographs of the whole journal are in the BM, 176.a.15 to 17); a third journal of his travels to Paris in 1717 is also in the V&A (unpublished; photographs in the BM at 176.a.18,19).
- Bibliography
- Colvin
E Croft-Murray, 'Decorative Painting in England', I 1962, pp.69-78, 263-74.
E Mayhew, 'Sketches by Thornhill in the V&A', 1967
K.Fremantle, 'Sir James Thornhill's travel journal of 1711', Utrecht 1976
J. Cray, 'Paintings by Thonhill at Chinnor', Burlington Mag., Nov. 1990, 789-93
Richard Johns, 'James Thornhill and Decorative HIstory Painting in England after 1688', PhD dissertation, University of York 2004, 2 vols (http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9866/2/423739_vol1.pdf)
R. Johns, 'An Air of Grandeur and Modesty': the painted dome of St Paul's Cathedral, in Eighteenth-Century Studies 42:4, Summer, 2009, 501-27
J. Barker, 'Sir James Thonrhill and Addiscombe Place', Surrey HIstory, vii, no. 5, pp. 243-51
J. Barker, 'Sir James Thornhill and the Folke Altarpiece', Sherborne House Occasional Papers, 2018
J. Barker, 'Sir James Thornill's Painted Coach Panels in Dorset County Museum - in Context', Sherborne House Occasional Papers, 2019 (25 pp leaflet in Thornhill ECM files in BM P&D)
