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Kay's Originals Vol. 2

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182 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. a sum of money for the purposes of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh. Dr. Walker was succeeded in the Chair of Natural History by the eminent Professor Jameson, who was his pupil, and afterwards his assistant. No. CCXXXIII. BI. DE LATOUR, PAINTER TO THE KING OF FRANCE, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF PAINTING AT PARIS, etc. M. DE LATOURa,n eminent French painter, who died at St. Quentin, the place of his nativity, in 1789, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, was remarkable, even in boyhood, for his efforts with the pencil j and the caricatures of the pedagogue, at whose seminary he acquired the rudiments of learning, frequently prgcured for him the reward of the birch. After attending the instructions of a drawing-master, under whom he made great progress, he improved himself by a journey to the Netherlands, where he had an opportunity of studying the productions of the Flemish school. Cambray happened to be at that time the seat of a negotiation, where the representatives of the various powers interested were assembled. Portraits of several of the ministers having been successfully painted by young Latour, the English Ambassador prevailed on him to accompany him to London, where he received the most flattering encouragement. On his return to France, an extreme irritability of the nervous system forbidding him the use of oil-colours, he was obliged to confine himself to crayons, a mode of painting to which it is difficult to give any degree of force. The obstacles he had hence to encounter served but to animate his zeal ; and he sought every means of perfecting his art, by the constant study of design. Admitted into the Royal Academy of Painting at the age of thirty-three, it was not long before he was called to Court. His free and independent spirit, however, led him to refuse what most as eagerly covet. At length he submitted to the Monarch’s commands. The place in which Louis XV. chose to sit for his picture was a tower surrounded with windows. (‘What am I to do in this lantern ?” said Latour : (( painting requires a single passage for the light.” (‘ I have chosen this retired place,” answered the king, (‘ that we may not be interrupted.’’ ‘( I did not know, Sire,” replied the painter, ‘‘ that a king of France was not master of his own house.” Louis XV. was much amused with the salliea of Latour, who sometimes carried them pretty far, as may be conceived from the following anecdote: Being sent for to Versailles, to paint the portrait of Madame de Pompadour,
Volume 9 Page 243
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