Article
Abadie, Paul
Claude Laroche
(b Paris, Nov 9, 1812; d Chatou, Aug 2, 1884).
French architect and restorer. He was the son of a Neo-classical architect of the same name (1783–1868), who was a pupil of Charles Percier and architect to the département of Charente. The younger Paul Abadie began studying architecture in 1832 by joining the atelier of Achille Leclère and then entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1835. While he was following this classical training, he participated in the rediscovery of the Middle Ages by going on archaeological trips and then, from 1844, in his capacity as attaché to the Commission des Monuments Historiques. He undertook his first restoration work at Notre-Dame de Paris, under the direction of Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc. Abadie was appointed deputy inspector at Notre-Dame in 1845, and in 1848, when the department responsible for diocesan buildings was created, he was appointed architect to the dioceses of Périgueux, Angoulême and Cahors. He subsequently completed about 40 restoration projects, mainly on Romanesque churches in Charente, in the Dordogne and the Gironde, and as a diocesan architect he was put in charge of two large cathedrals in his district: St Pierre d’Angoulême and St Front de Périgueux. In the former he undertook a huge programme of ‘completion’, returning to a stylistic unity that was in line with current episcopal policy (...
Article
Aberli, Johann Ludwig
Jeanne-Marie Horat-Weber
(b Winterthur, Nov 14, 1723; d Berne, Oct 17, 1786).
Swiss painter, draughtsman and engraver. In 1741 he moved to Berne, where he took drawing lessons with Johann Grimm (1675–1747), whose school of drawing he took over in 1747. He visited the Bernese Oberland with Emanuel Handmann, Christian Georg Schütz (1718–91) and Friedrich Wilhelm Hirt (1721–72) in 1759 and in the same year travelled to Paris with Adrian Zingg (1734–86). This was his only trip abroad, but it determined him to work exclusively as a landscape painter. After nine months he returned to Berne, where his landscape views became popular, particularly with foreign travellers, enamoured of ‘Nature’ and keen to retain souvenirs of their travels. He was one of the first artists to portray the beauties of the Swiss countryside; his favourite subjects were the Aare Valley and views of Swiss lakes (e.g. View of Erlach on the Lake of Biel; Berne, Kstmus.). He invented a technique known as the ...
Article
Abildgaard, Nicolai Abraham
Jens Peter Munk
(b Copenhagen, Sept 11, 1743; d Frederiksdal, Copenhagen, June 4, 1809).
Danish painter, designer and architect. His paintings reveal both Neo-classical and Romantic interests and include history paintings as well as literary and mythological works. The variety of his subject-matter reflects his wide learning, a feature further evidenced by the broad range of his creative output. In addition to painting, he produced decorative work, sculpture and furniture designs, as well as being engaged as an architect. Successfully combining both intellectual and imaginative powers, he came to be fully appreciated only in the 1980s.
He studied at the Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi in Copenhagen (1764–72), and in 1767 he assisted Johan Edvard Mandelberg (1730–86) in painting the domed hall of the Fredensborg Slot with scenes from the Homeric epic the Iliad. In 1772 he was granted a five-year travelling scholarship from the Kunstakademi to study in Rome. During his Roman sojourn he extensively copied works of art from the period of antiquity up to that of the Carracci family. His friendships with the Danish painter Jens Juel, the Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel and the Swiss painter Johann Heinrich Fuseli placed him among artists who were in the mainstream of a widespread upheaval in European art. In these years Abildgaard developed both Neo-classical and Romantic tastes; his masterpiece of the period is ...
Article
Abreu, João Nunes de
Portuguese, 18th century, male.
Active in Lisbon at the beginning of the 18th century.
Died 1738, in Lisbon.
Painter, designer of ornamental architectural features.
Abreu's works in Lisbon include the ceilings of the Menino de Deus church and the vestibule of the church of Nossa Senhora da Graça....
Article
Abreu, José Francisco de
José Fernandes Pereira
(b Elvas, fl Elvas, 1753–9).
Portuguese architect and master builder. His earliest known works are the six side altars (black-veined marble, 1753) in the small 15th-century chapel of S Bento in Vila Viçosa, where all his work is to be found. They are carved in a characteristic Late Baroque manner. In 1754 he designed and directed the installation of the high choir at the church of S Agostinho, with a baluster and handrail in white, black and pink marble. Also in 1754 he took charge of the reconstruction of the Paços do Concelho, fending off plans to open the work to public tender and undertaking to adhere to approved designs. He resumed work at S Agostinho in 1758, replacing the old retable of the high altar, thought unworthy by Joseph I, with a new design of coloured marble. He may also have directed work on the façade of the Matriz de Portel (1741–59...
Article
Abriot, David Nicolaus
German, 18th century, male.
Active still in 1810.
Born 1757, in Mompelgard.
Draughtsman, architect.
He furnished proof of remarkable aptitude for drawing while very young, such that at 14 he was enrolled for the academy of fine arts in Stuttgart. He was a brilliant student, and on ...
Article
Achmiller, Franz Xaver
German, 18th century, male.
Active in Munich at the beginning of the 18th century.
Sculptor. Architectural views.
Munich (Royal Collection): Façade of a House (drawing)
Article
Acton, S.
British, 18th – 19th century, male.
Active at the end of the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century.
Painter, engraver. Architectural views.
S. Acton lived in London between 1791 and 1802 and exhibited at the Royal Academy.
Article
Adam, Grégoire Joseph
French, 18th – 19th century, male.
Born 1737, in Valenciennes; died 1820, in Valenciennes.
Sculptor.
Grégoire Adam is not mentioned in artists' records, but Gombert, the architect from Lille who built the Hôtel Merghelynck at Ypres, thought him fit to compete with the best artists of French Flanders in the ornamentation of this supreme expression of 18th-century art. He decorated one of the salons, installing in it medallions of ...
Article
Adam, James
Damie Stillman
(b Edinburgh, July 21, 1732; d London, Oct 20, 1794).
Scottish architect, son of William Adam. In the 1750s he was taken into partnership in Edinburgh with his older brothers John and Robert, and from1760 to 1763 he was on a Grand Tour in Italy. Accompanied by an architectural draughtsman, George Richardson, James was guided by Charles-Louis Clérisseau, Robert’s teacher, employee and friend during his time in Italy. In 1763 James joined Robert in a London partnership, remaining his brother’s associate and subsidiary designer until Robert’s death in 1792. He then continued alone until his own death two years later.
In 1769 James succeeded Robert as joint Architect of the King’s Works, remaining in that post until its dissolution in 1782. Most of his architectural work was subsumed within the Adam partnership, whose chief designer was Robert, but James executed a few independent designs, among them the Shire Hall at Hertford, Herts (1767–71); façades for Portland Place, London (...
Article
Adam, Jean
French, 18th – 19th century, male.
Active at the beginning of the 19th century.
Engraver. Architectural views.
Jean Adam was a pupil of the older Sellier and of Van Mechel. He made the plates for Belidore's Hydraulic Architecture ( Architecture Hydraulique), for Carnot's Attack and Defence of Strongholds...
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Adam, John
Damie Stillman
(b Kirkcaldy, Fife, bapt March 5, 1721; d Blair Adam, Tayside, June 25, 1792).
Scottish architect, son of William Adam. He was trained by his father and worked with him until the latter’s death in 1748. He succeeded to the family’s architectural practice and contracting business, including the post of Master Mason to the Board of Ordnance for North Britain. He brought his brother Robert into partnership immediately, and James shortly after. During the late 1740s and the 1750s all three brothers were active as contractors on the Highland forts, especially Fort William, and at Inveraray Castle, Strathclyde, as well; but they also continued their father’s architectural projects, for example Hopetoun House, Lothian (c.1750–60), and took on new commissions, including Dumfries House, Strathclyde (1753–9), and Arniston, Lothian (1753–8). Since his partnership with Robert was dissolved in 1758, and that with James two years later, during the 1760s Adam practised alone in Edinburgh, though he was increasingly active in other business interests. After ...
Article
Adam, Robert
Damie Stillman
(b Kirkcaldy, Fife, July 3, 1728; d London, March 3, 1792).
Scottish architect and designer, son of William Adam. He and his rival William Chambers were the leading British architects in the second half of the 18th century. Aftertraining under his father, he embarked on a Grand Tour in 1754; this ended early in 1758 whenhe settled in London rather than Edinburgh. There he established a practice that wastransformed into a partnership with his younger brother James after the latter’s return in 1763 from his own Grand Tour. By then, however, the Adam style was formed, andRobert remained the partnership’s driving force and principal designer until his death.He not only developed a distinctive and highly influential style but further refined itthrough his large number of commissions, earning fame and a certain amount of fortunealong the way. Eminently successful, he left an indelible stamp on British architectureand interior decoration and on international Neo-classicism.
Born into a close-knit Lowlands family, Adam grew up in Edinburgh surrounded by intellectuals and the architectural and building affairs of his father, from whom he learnt both the art and business of his future profession. He attended the High School in Edinburgh and matriculated in ...
Article
Adam, Robert
British, 18th century, male.
Born 3 July 1728, in Kirkcaldy (Fife); died 3 March 1792, in London.
Draughtsman, watercolourist, engraver, architect. Landscapes, architectural views, interiors, ruins. Decorative models.
Robert Adam was the son of William Adam, a well-known Scottish architect. He initially trained in his father's practice in partnership with his bothers, John and James. Examples of his early architectural work include Hopetoun House in Lothian (c. ...
Article
Adam, William
Damie Stillman
(b Kirkcaldy, Fife, Oct 30, 1689; d Edinburgh, June 24, 1748).
Scottish architect and landscape designer. He was the leading architect in Scotland during the second quarter of the 18th century and had an extensive practice. An important contractor for the Government, serving from 1730 to his death as Master Mason to the Board of Ordnance for North Britain, he also pursued various business enterprises, including ownership of a brickworks. Apparently self-taught as an architect, he was involved with building country houses from the early 1720s. His early patron, SirJohn Clerk, 2nd Baronet of Penicuik, made his own library available to Adam, and in 1727 they made a joint trip to England. Adam developed a style that was influenced by Sir John Vanbrugh, James Gibbs and the English Palladianism of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, and his circle. Thus, Baroque and Palladian forms co-existed in his work, although he handled them in a very personal and inventive way....
Article
Adelcrantz, C(arl) F(redrik)
(b Stockholm, Jan 3, 1716; d Stockholm, Feb 26, 1796).
Swedish architect. His father, Göran Josuae Adelcrantz (1668–1739), was a pupil and associate of Nicodemus Tessin (ii) and had studied in France and Italy before assisting in the building of the Kungliga Slott in Stockholm. He became City Architect of Stockholm and created the splendid Baroque cupola (1724–44) on Jean De la Vallée’s Katarinakyrka, but he had been pushed aside during the political crisis that followed the death of Charles XII in 1718. He advised his son not to become an architect but nevertheless let him attend the drawing school at the palace. After his father’s death, Adelcrantz went abroad for architectural study in Paris and Italy, returning in 1743 to assist Carl Hårleman in the interior work on the Kungliga Slott. In 1757 he became Superintendent and in 1767 President of the Royal Academy of Arts, which he reorganized by instituting schools of drawing and painting, sculpture and architecture. He was made a baron in ...
Article
Adelcrantz, Carl Fredrik
Swedish, 18th century, male.
Born 1716; died 1796.
Draughtsman, architect.
Stockholm, 19 May 1992: Designs for the decorations for a royal ceremony (watercolour and ink, 9 × 17¾ ins/22 × 45 cm) SEK 6,500
Article
Agnelli, Federico
Italian, 18th century, male.
Active in Milanc.1700.
Painter, engraver.
Essentially a portraitist, but also painted several emblematic subjects and architectural themes. His engravings include a series of plates representing Milan Cathedral that he signed in conjunction with the architect Carlo Butio.
