Background
William Hamilton was born in Chelsea in 1751 and was of Scottish parentage. His father was an assistant to Robert Adam, the architect.
Robert Adam assisted young Hamilton to visit Italy, where he studied under Antonio Zucchi. He was, however, too young to derive much benefit from his residence in Rome, and after his return to England he became in 1769 a student of the Royal Academy.
William Hamilton was born in Chelsea in 1751 and was of Scottish parentage. His father was an assistant to Robert Adam, the architect.
Robert Adam assisted young Hamilton to visit Italy, where he studied under Antonio Zucchi. He was, however, too young to derive much benefit from his residence in Rome, and after his return to England he became in 1769 a student of the Royal Academy.
William Hamilton soon distinguished himself as a portrait and historical painter, and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1774, when he sent “King Edgar's first Interview with Elfrida” and three other works. Between 1780 und 1789 his contributions consisted chiefly of portraits, especially of theatrical personages, among whom he painted a full-length portrait of Mrs. Siddons, with her son, in the character of Isabella.
William also painted arabesques and ornaments in the style of Zucchi, as well as the panels of Lord Fitz Gibbon's state carriage, now in the South Kensington Museum, for which be received fire hundred guineas. In 1784 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1789 he became an academician, when he presented as his diploma work “Vertumnus and Pomona.” After this date his works often represented subjects from poetry, history, or scripture.
Among the best were “The Woman of Samaria” and “The Queen of Sheba entertained at a Banquet by King Solomon”, the latter being a design for a window executed by Francis Eginton for the great dining-room at Arundel Castle. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790 and engraved by James Caldwall.
In 1799 he painted also scenes from “Much Ado about Nothing”, “Love's Labour's Lost”, “As you like it”, “Twelfth Night”, “The Winter's Tale”, and “Cymbeline”, for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, but he failed to catch either the spirit of the dramatist or the character of the times. He pained, however, more popularity by his small pictures of rural scenes, and the designs which he made for Macklin'a “Bible” and “British Poets”, Bowyer's “History of England”, and Du Roveray's editions of Milton's “Paradise Lost”, and Gray's and Goldsmith's “Poems.”
His best designs were those for Thomson's “Seasons” (1797), engraved by Bartolozzi and P. W. Tomkins. His drawings are tasteful and rich in color, but, like his pictures, are somewhat theatrical in style. Hamilton died after a few days' illness, in Dean Street, Soho, London, on December 2, 1801, and was buried in St. Anne's Church, Soho, where there is a tablet to his memory.
There is a medallion portrait of him on the frontispiece to Thomson's “Seasons”, 1797. The South Kensington Museum possesses a “Scene from Twelfth Night”, painted by him in oil, and “Gleaners” and “Eve and the Serpent” executed in watercolors. His portrait of the John Wesley, painted in 1789, and engraved bv James Fittler, is in the National Portrait Gallery.
John Philip Kemble as Richard III
1787Vertumnus and Pomona
1789The carousing of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Anthony Aguecheek
1792Isabella appealing to Angelo
1793Marie Antoinette being taken to her execution
1794The Wolves Descending from the Alps
1792Olivia's proposal
1796Prospero and Ariel
1797A Scene from Twelfth Night
1797The Duke of York discovering his son Aumerle's treachery
1798Hamilton's style shows the influence of the cult of sentiment typical of the period, resembling the work of Angelica Kauffman. He also sometimes adopts aspects of Fuseli's dramatic distortions in composition and figure drawing.
In 1784 William was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1789 he became an academician, when he presented as his diploma work “Vertumnus and Pomona.”