page_title: Henry James Richter
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Henry James Richter / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: This is an engraving by Chas. Rolls of a painting by artist Henry James Richter. The painting is titled, "The Love Letter". There was a poem written about the painting that was authored by Letitia Elizabeth Landon. The painting depicts a scene from Sir Walter Scott's book, "The Antiquary". The painting is currently in a private collection.
context_page_description: Henry James Richter RA, artist and philosopher, was born in Middlesex, possibly at 40 Great Newport Street, Soho, on 8 March 1772 and baptised at St Anne's Church, Soho, on 5 April at that same year.
context_section_description: Throughout the 1790s Richter worked mainly as an illustrator, demonstrating skills as both draftsman and engraver; projects included editions of Samuel Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison and Clarissa Harlowe (with others, both 1793), Samuel Johnson's Lives of the English Poets (with others, 1797), and J.-H. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paul and Virginia (1799). For a period of time, Richter lived at #26 Newman St. in London. This Street was also known as "Artists Street" because in the two block section were approximately 40 painters, sculptors, engravers and other in the arts including such notable individuals as Robert Cromek at #64, Benjamin West at #14, Thomas Stothard at #28, James Ward at #6, Henry Thomson at #15, Ozias Humphry at #25, George Arnald at #36, James Heath at #42, Thomas Cheesman at #71 and John Phillip "Pope" Davis at #76.
  In 1809 Richter began to exhibit at the Associated Artists in Water Colours, Bond Street, becoming a member in 1810, and president in 1811–12. His most popular work at this stage was the genre subject A Brute of a Husband, though he also established himself as a literary painter, with depictions of such characters as Don Quixote and Falstaff, and became one of the few notable artists to paint historical subjects in watercolour. With the dissolution of the Associated Artists in Water Colours in 1812 he was elected a member of the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours, though he resigned his membership in December of the same year, and until 1820 was represented on its walls only as an exhibitor. (In that year the society returned to its original form as the Society of Painters in Water Colours.)
  
  Richter was a pioneer in painting from nature, in both practice and theory. In 1812 he painted the oil Christ Giving Sight to the Blind, in bright sunlight on the roof of his house in Newman Street.
   The work was purchased by the trustees of the British Institution for 500 guineas and later presented to the New Church, Greenwich, completed in 1825, where it was installed as an altarpiece. A second version, attempting to improve on its truth to nature, was exhibited four years later. An engraving of this was done in 1816 by John Young. Then, in 1817, he published the pamphlet Daylight: a recent discovery in the art of painting, with hints on the philosophy of the fine arts, and on that of the human mind, as first dissected by Immanuel Kant. His more general ideas, including his approach to colour and use of models of his compositions in clay or wax, influenced other painters, notably the miniature painter James Holmes. Daylight combined his artistic interests with his study of metaphysical philosophy. Richter also wrote the article Metaphysics in the Encyclopaedia Londonensis and a paper, German Transcendentalism (1855).
  In 1821 Richter was again elected to the Society of Painters in Water Colours, though his membership and the frequency of his exhibits varied through the decade. Between 1827 and 1828, John Sartain apprenticed under Richter. In 1823, the 14-year-old Sartain had sought become an experienced engraver under the indenture of John Swaine of the Merchant and Tailors Company. in 1828, Sartain continued his apprenticeship under Richter. By now he was an experienced engraver and Richter gave him his first attempt at "stipple on steel" or Mezzotint that was titled "Omphale". Around that time, Richter had painted The Tight Shoe and had requested that Sartain do the engraving. Sartain did so, then later did additional engravings after he went to the US. Richter had hoped that Sartain would also do the engraving for his painting, The Brute of a Husband, but their relationship had soured and Sartain left Richter's employ to go out on his own. Between 1829 and 1830, Sartain was self-employed in London before leaving for Philadelphia and becoming very well known and respected in the US. From 1829 until his death, Richter he was both a member and a frequent exhibitor of the Society of Painters in Water Colours. The subject's of his most ambitious paintings of this later phase were taken
caption: 1843 The Love Letter by Henry James Richter
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2014:01:10 19:57:25", "Image ExifOffset": "2142", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "0", "Thumbnail YResolution": "0", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4316", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7420", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "42054DA8B57E47C6B67AD37716236C4F", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}