Boydell, John (1720–1804), engraver and printseller, the eldest of the seven children of Josiah Boydell (1691–1757?), surveyor and land steward, and his wife, Mary (1693/4–1777), was born at Dorrington in Shropshire on 19 January 1720. Like other men of his day he was disinclined to lose a year of his life to the change in calendar, and so always gave the year of his birth in old style, as 1719....
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Frank Herrmann
Christie, James (1730–1803), auctioneer, was born in Perth, Scotland. Little is known of his background, except that his mother was a MacDonald; his father, an Englishman of good family. He entered the navy, but resigned his commission as a midshipman about 1750 in order to marry....
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Timothy Clayton
Cooper, Edward (d. 1725), print seller, became the most distinguished print publisher of his generation and a leading figure in the art world. Nothing is known of his early life, but he first appeared as publisher of a portrait of Thomas Thynne in an advertisement in the ...
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John Sunderland
Dalton, Richard (c. 1715–1791), art dealer and librarian, was the son of the Revd John Dalton of Darlington, co. Durham, and younger brother of the Revd John Dalton, rector of St Mary-at-Hill, London. Dalton was apparently apprenticed to a coach-painter at Clerkenwell, London...
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Timothy Clayton
Darly, Matthias (c. 1720–1780), designer and printseller, is of obscure origins: nothing is known of his parents or his early life. In 1735 he was apprenticed to the clockmaker Umfraville Sampson, implying that he was probably born about 1720. In 1749 he was one of several printsellers rounded up by the government for questioning about several satirical prints which ridiculed the ...
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Alec Martin
revised by Helen Davies
Duveen, Joseph Joel, Baron Duveen (1869–1939), art dealer and benefactor, was born at 31 Myton Gate, Hull on 14 October 1869, the eldest of the ten sons and four daughters of Sir Joseph Joel Duveen (1843–1908) and his wife, Rosetta, daughter of Abraham Barnett...
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Gerbier, Sir Balthazar (1592–1663/1667), art agent, miniature painter, and architect, was born on 23 February 1592 at Middelburg in the Netherlands, the son of Antonie Gerbier and Radigonde Blavet, who were Huguenot émigrés. Gerbier later styled himself Baron d'Ouvilly, or Doully. Little is known about his early upbringing or education, and ...
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Gibbons, (Edward) Stanley (1840–1913), postage stamp dealer, was born on 21 June 1840 in Plymouth, the youngest child in the family of three sons and two daughters of William Gibbons (d. 1867), pharmaceutical chemist, and his wife, Elizabeth Langridge, of Portsea, Hampshire...
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Herbert, William (1718–1795), bibliographer and printseller, was born on 29 November 1718, the second of five children of Thomas Herbert (c.1691–1721), a dyer and hosier of Gravel Lane, Southwark, and his wife, Sarah (d. 1748). His parents were Londoners and Presbyterians. What is known of his first thirty years derives from ...
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Joll, (Dowrish) Evelyn Louis (1925–2001), fine art dealer and art historian, was born at 29 Devonshire Street, London, on 6 February 1925, the only child of Cecil Augustus Joll (1886–1945) and his first wife, Laura Meriel, née Winsloe (d. 1931). His father was a distinguished surgeon, becoming senior surgeon at the ...
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L. Perry Curtis jun.
Lane, Sir Hugh Percy (1875–1915), art dealer and collector, was born on 9 November 1875 in Ballybrack House, Douglas, a suburb of Cork. His father, the Revd James William Lane (1847–1910), came from a middle-class family of lawyers and businessmen and, after ordination into the ...
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Michael I. Wilson
Lanier, Nicholas (bap. 1588, d. 1666), musician and art dealer, was baptized on 10 September 1588 in the church of Holy Trinity Minories, London. His father, John Lanier (d. 1616), was a sackbut player in the royal court band or musick, and his mother, ...
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Nat Williams
Kivell, Sir Rex de Charembac Nan (1898–1977), antiquarian, art collector, art dealer, and benefactor, was born Reginald Nankivell in Cust, New Zealand, on 8 April 1898 (though in later life he gave the date as 9 April 1899), the son of Alice Nankivell...
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Louise Lippincott
Pond, Arthur (bap. 1701, d. 1758), artist and printseller, was baptized on 2 August 1701 in the parish church of St Magnus the Martyr, London. The oldest surviving son of John Pond (d. 1749), a wealthy surgeon of London Bridge, and his wife, ...
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Wilson, Peter Cecil (1913–1984), fine art auctioneer, was born on 8 March 1913 in London, the third and youngest son (there were no daughters) of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Mathew Richard Henry (‘Scatters’) Wilson, fourth baronet (1875–1958), of Eshton Hall, Gargrave, Yorkshire, and his wife, the ...
