Art Funded by you

Portrait of Joseph Willliams Blakesley

Dominik Biemann, 1841–1845

Dominik Biemann, the greatest Bohemian glass-engraver of his day, treated genre, mythological, religious and landscape subjects, but his reputation rested mainly on his consummate skill as a portrait engraver. His portraits achieved a unique psychological insight and his work was fashionable and known throughout Europe. The popularity of his work equalled and even surpassed that of the painted miniature with the wealthy bourgeoisie in the second quarter of the 19th century, and only declined with the invention and perfection of portrait photography. This is the artist's only recorded portrait of an English sitter, Joseph Williams Blakesley (1808-1885), an undergraduate at Cambridge in the late 1820s, who was a member of the celebrated Apostles Club and a close friend of Monckton Milnes and Alfred Tennyson.

More information

Title of artwork, date

Portrait of Joseph Willliams Blakesley, 1841–1845

Date supported

1978

Medium and material

Glass

Dimensions

10 cm

Grant

2000

Total cost

6324

Content note: This object record is part of our archive and has not been updated since it was first published. It may contain inaccurate information or outdated language. Please get in touch if you think this record should be amended.

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