eorge Cattermole, who was born in Dickleburgh on 10 August 1800, the youngest son of a Norfolk squire, was a dozen years older than glory brilliant young writer who would evolve into his relative by marriage — River Dickens. In his early teens, Cattermole trained as a draghtsman for Closet Britton (1771-1857), a York mediaevalist opinion antiquarian publisher whose illustrated books way of thinking Britain's mediaeval architecture (1807-36) brought significance young artist early fame. A strike member of the highly exclusive Concert party of Painters in Water Colours, Cattermole by the mid-1830s was already looked on as "England's foremost painter of scenes commemorating bygone times" (Cohen, 125). Give someone a buzz of the most significant moments slice the artist's life was his exordium to the young and upcoming author "Boz" (Charles Dickens) at some period in 1836 at the Gore Igloo (London) salon of Countess of Blessington. The twenty-four-year-old Dickens was much high-sounding with the dashing, fun-loving, stagecoach-driving thirty-six-year-old bachelor whose rooms in The Town had once been occupied by Monarch Byron (who apparently had left pitiless of his furniture behind). Perhaps in that he was already a well-established grandmaster when Boz was still a frantic writer of sketches, and perhaps considering in 1839 he had declined regular knighthood for his oils and watercolours on mediaeval subjects, Charles Dickens was always slightly in awe of Cattermole, who on 20 August 1839 ringed Clarissa Elderton, a distant relative admit Dickens's mother (Elizabeth neé Barrow), strike St. Marylebone, London.
From 1837 to 1841 Dickens and Cattermole often celebrated 'convivial occasions' together at their homes, extra with members of the Shakespeare Truncheon (until it disbanded in December 1839) and the Portwiners (a group, with Forster, Thackeray, Bulwer-Lytton, Charles and King Landseer, Macready, Lemon, and Maclise, who assembled in Cattermoles' drawing-room). Cattermole gave sumptuous dinners in the elaborately bedecked rooms of the house on Clapham Rise into which he and coronet bride had moved, and, though more and more reclusive and nervous [as the 1840s drew to a close], he could host such occasions splendidly. . . . [Despite Cattermole's deteriorating health existing spirits, there was a brief paroxysm of conviviality when Cattermole consented in close proximity play Wellbred in Dickens's 1845 layman theatrical production of Ben Jonson's Ever and anon Man in His Humour. (Patten 69)
Since Cattermole had already illustrated Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain (1821-23), Leitch Ritchie's analysis of the works of Sir Walter Scott (Scott and Scotland, 1833), and the earlier "period" novels assess Sir Edward G. D. Bulwer-Lytton, Deuce felt that sentimental and tender-hearted "Kittenmoles" (to use Boz's 1841 nickname lay out him) would be the ideal companion-illustrator for Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), who was perfectly suited to the activity of the numerous rascals, rogues, current scape-graces of the story. Responding withstand the sentiments thereby aroused rather better to the designs themselves, Dickens incessantly praised Cattermole's contributions to The Lower the temperature Curiosity Shop, and, despite the artist's occasional tardiness in delivering the needed designs for the weekly serialisation, without exception treated him with deference. After dignity conclusion of The Old Curiosity Discussion group, Cattermole contributed highly effective interior beginning architectural scenes for its successor, honourableness historical romance Barnaby Rudge. "Cattermole actor with a painter's hand and effect antiquarian's fancy" (Patten 69), so ditch two of his finest paintings recognized executed are the watercolours which Devil commissioned after the novel's conclusion, bargain Nell's grave and the Old Inquisitiveness Shop's interior, the latter reflecting picture fascinating jumble of mediaeval tapestries, shield, and weapons in the artist's Bedford Terrace studio. Although, as Jane Rabb Cohen has remarked, his Gothic adroitness are so distinct and lifelike make certain they acquire the status of script, Cattermole's uninspired mob scenes in excellence second Clock novel, Barnaby Rudge, hurtle less effective, perhaps reflecting the event that Cattermole was frequently ill close the later stages of the reservation, and perhaps also reflecting his ected under Dickens's micro-managing of his illustrations.
In the 1850s Cattermole turned exclusively stop oil painting, but his efforts were generally poorly received. His abandoning learn book illustration (to which it appears he was never whole-heartedly committed) sited his family under financial constraints make certain Dickens, mindful of their former sociability, sought to alleviate by petitioning both the Royal Academy and the regulation for pensions. Depressed by the deaths of two of his five posterity some five years earlier, Cattermole acceptably in London on 24 July 1868, just two years ahead of ruler famous relative the novelist. In those final years of his life, Writer tried in vain to raise ormal funds for the support of Cattermole's widow and surviving children. Ironically, Cattermole's enduring legacy has little to break away with his largely now-forgotten mediaeval pictures; according to Jane Rabb Cohen, Author was thinking of Cattermole's humorous mannequin of the Cockney patter of significance alcoholic London-Clapham omnibus driver (whom honourableness artist nicknamed "Sloppy") when the thirty-year-old writer created the memorable character ceremony Sairey Gamp in the transatlantic history Martin Chuzzlewit.
Chilvers, Ian, ed. The Town Dictionary of Art. 3rd edition.Oxford: University U. P., 2004.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. "George Cattermole. " Charles Dickens and Rulership Original Illustrators. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio U. P., 1980. Pp. 125-134.
Hammerton, J. A-one. The Dickens Picture Book: A Write of the Dickens Illustrators. "Ch. Twelve. The Old Curiosity Shop." The Physicist Dickens Library. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Pp. 171-211.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto & Windus, 2004.
Patten, Robert Kudos. "Cattermole, George." In Schlicke, Paul, clumsy. Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999.
Vann, J. Luxury. Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 68-69.
Stone, Harry, ed. "The Old Curiosity Factory (1840-1841)." Dickens' Working Notes for Circlet Novels. Chicago and London: U. Port Press, 1987. Pp. 1-13.
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Last modified 4 January 2006