[Born at Arnold, near Nottingham, October 25, 1802; received some instruction from Francia at Calais, 1817; studied at the Louvre and Institute, and under Baron Gros, at Paris; first exhibited at the Salon, 1822; made lithographs for Baron Taylor’s “Voyages Pittoresques dans l’ancienne France,” “Vues Pittoresques de l’Ecosse” (1826) and other works; visited England with Delacroix, 1825; died during a visit to England, 1828. EXHIBITED: Salon (Paris), 1822 (Water-Colours), ’24 (Water-Colours), ’27 (Oils and Water-Colours); Royal Academy, 1827, ’28; British Institution, 1826-’29. WORKS IN PUBLIC GALLERIES: Louvre; National Gallery; National Portrait Gallery (a small drawing of himself); V. and A. Museum (Oil and Water-Colours); British Museum; Wallace Collection; Manchester Whitworth Institute; Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow Art Galleries; National Gallery of Ireland. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES: “Annual Register” and “Gentleman’s Magazine,” 1828; Cunningham’s “Lives,” etc.; Redgrave’s “Dictionary”; THE STUDIO, Nov. 1904; Catalogue of Bonington’s Lithographs, by Aglaüs Bonvenne (Paris), 1873; “Influence de Bonington et de l’Ecole Anglaise sur la Peinture de Paysage en France,” by A. Dubuisson (Walpole Society’s Vol. II.). REPRODUCTIONS: “Series of Subjects from Bonington’s Works,” lithographed by J. D. Harding (twenty-one plates), 1828; Monkhouse’s and Hughes’s works cited above.] Bonington was the most brilliant of the later school of topographical artists--those who used the full resources of water-colour for the production of pictorial effects. The drawings he produced during his short life--for he died at twenty-six, may be divided into purely topographical subjects, like the _Street in Verona_ (V. and A. Museum); river and coast scenes, like the _Rouen_ (Wallace Collection); and figure subjects, in which historical costume played the chief part, like the _Meditation_ and several other drawings in the Wallace Collection. His drawings are amazingly dexterous, firm and large in handling, finely composed, and wonderfully rich in tone and colour. His influence on English artists was considerable, particularly on W. J. Müller, T. Shotter Boys, and William Callow.