Sunday

August - HD Thielcke and WJ Thomson

I hope some readers may enjoy more of my wanders though history!

This website was started as a means of exhibited the miniatures in the collection. However, as time goes on, the research into the sitters becomes more and more of the focus. I hope that this will not discourage visitors.

There are still some sitters in existing portraits, and artists for that matter, who have not been properly researched. Thus, when prompted by a query from a reader, I try and get my act together on items not previously properly researched.

This month I was kindly corrected over some errors I had on the entry relating to Henry Daniel Thielcke and so I have taken the opportunity to add some research notes to his entry, see Thielcke, Henry Daniel - portrait of an unknown lady

His parents were courtiers to King George III. Thielcke commenced his career by being able to paint people at Court, but for some reason he left London for Scotland, then worked in Canada painting portraits and as a school teacher, before dying in Chicago in 1884. He has a connection to St Petersburg in Russia and his second cousin was a Governor of the Bank of England.

Also, this month a new acquisition by William John Thomson of Charlotte Knox Trotter, has proved another a fascinating wander through history, effectively through "the back of a portrait".

William John Thomson classifies as both an American and British artist, as he was born in Savannah, Georgia, but spent most of his life in Britain.

By a strange quirk, Thielcke and Thomson were both living and competing in Edinburgh, Scotland during the 1820's and most likely met there.

Charlotte Trotter has been revealed through the researching of her portrait, as the daughter of a famous Edinburgh cabinet-maker, William Trotter.

She also has links to the abolition of slavery in Scotland, a 21C Pony Club in Scotland, the execution of a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie after the Jacobite revolution in 1745, the founder of the Presbyterian Church, the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and an Indian postage stamp from 1990!!

See Thomson, William John - portrait of Charlotte Knox Trotter 1343

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Don.

Thielcke actually died in 1874 and not 1874.

Your research is very impressive.

Best regards,


Patrick White in Quebec City, Canada

Unknown said...

Sorry: 1874 and NOT 1884.