George Sharp

George Scharf, portrait by Walter William Ouless , 1885

Sir George Scharf (junior) (born December 16, 1820 in London , † April 19, 1895 ibid) was a British painter and art writer .

George Scharf was the son of the Bavarian painter Georg Johann Scharf , who had settled in London in 1816. He entered the Royal Academy of Arts in 1838 and provided as a first work a collection of etchings under the title Scenic effects , which were to serve as illustrations for the new performances of Shakespeare and other classical pieces organized by William Charles Macready in 1838 and 1839 . In 1840 he made a trip through Italy and accompanied Charles Fellows to Asia Minor , which he visited again in 1843 as a draftsman with the expedition sent there by the government.

Henry Crabb Robinson , drawing by George Scharf, 1860

A large number of his sketches depicting Lycian landscapes and sculptures are on display in the British Museum . He also published the book Lycia, Caria, Lydia, illustrated and described (1847, vol. 1) with Fellows . After his return, he devoted himself mainly to oil painting and book illustration: Thomas Babington Macaulays Lays of ancient Rome , Austen Henry Layards Niniveh , John Keats ' Poems, etc. In addition, he wrote a History of the characteristics of Greek art (as an introduction to Wordsworths Greece , 3rd Ed. 1859), On the principal portraits of Shakespeare (1864), valuable catalogs of London art collections, exhibition reports, etc. In 1875 he was appointed curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Shortly before his death, he was knighted as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on February 12, 1895 .

literature

Freeman Marius O'Donoghue: Sharp, George (1820-1895) . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . 50, Smith, Elder & Co., London 1887, pp. 410-411 ( Wikisource ).

Web links

Commons : George Scharf - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 294.

personal data
SURNAME	Sharp, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Sharp, George (junior)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British painter and art writer
DATE OF BIRTH	December 16, 1820
PLACE OF BIRTH	London
DATE OF DEATH	April 19, 1895
Place of death	London

[1] William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 294.