George Engleheart

George Engleheart (1750–1829) was one of the greatest English painters of portrait miniatures, and a contemporary of Richard Cosway, John Smart, William Wood, and Richard Crosse.

Engleheart is generally thought to have been born in Kew, Surrey, on 26 October 1750. His father was Francis Englehart (died 1773), a German plaster modeller who emigrated to England as a child; his mother was Anne Dawney. He had seven brothers. The family name was changed to Engleheart after his father died.

He married his first wife, Elizabeth Brown, in 1776; and the couple set up house in Prince’s Street, Hanover Square, London. Elizabeth died in April 1779, aged only 26. Engleheart moved to 4 Hertford Street in Mayfair, London. He married his second wife, Ursula Sarah Browne in 1785; and the couple had four children: George, Nathaniel, Harry and Emma.

In 1813, Engleheart retired full-time to his country house in Bedfont, near Hounslow in Middlesex. He had built the house on land he purchased in 1783, and the interiors are said to have been decorated in the fashionable neo-classical style of Robert Adam. His second wife, Ursula, died in 1817, and Engleheart soon after gave up the house and went to live with his son Nathaniel in Blackheath, then a village to the southeast of London.

Engleheart died in Blackheath on 21 March 1829, and was buried at St. Anne's Church, Kew.

His nephew, John Cox Dillman Engleheart, was also an accomplished portrait miniaturist, painting during the Regency era.

Engleheart entered the newly formed Royal Academy Schools on 3 November 1769. He was a pupil of George Barret, R.A., and of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Engleheart started on his own account in 1773, and worked mainly in London for the whole of his career. He regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1773 to 1822. He kept a detailed fee book from 1775 to 1813, which included detailed sketches of his miniatures. The book remains in the possession of his family to this day. Engleheart was a prolific artist: during the period of 39 years covered by the fee book, no less than 4,853 miniatures are recorded as having been executed by him.

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