Biographies

For comprehensive information about engraved book illustration in Samuel Richardson’s period, readers should consult Book Illustrators in Eighteenth-Century England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1975.) This wonderful reference book was originally drafted by Hanns Hammelmann and edited and completed, after Hammelmann’s death, by T.S. R. Boase. What follows here is a brief summary of information it provides about Hubert Gravelot and Francis Hayman, the two illustrators who worked collaboratively on Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1742).

Hubert François Burguignon Gravelot (1669-1773) first came to London, from his native France, late in 1732 or 1733. According to Hammelmann and Boase, he “brought from France the vogue of the elegant engraved book of the rococo, the notion that a book should not only be pleasant to read, but also attractive to look at and handle” (Book Illustrators, 38). Gravelot’s studio was located at the Pestle and Mortar in Covent Garden, and among his pupils was the young Thomas Gainsborough, when he first arrived in London. Together with William Hogarth and Francis Hayman, Gravelot was one of the teachers at the St. Martin’s Lane Academy which trained young artists. Although he is known primarily as an illustrator, during his brief years in England he also provided designs for gold and silversmiths; cabinetmakers; workmen in upholstery and furniture; printers who produced invitation cards, trade cards, and book plates; as well as the makers of fans.

As book illustrator, his first opportunity for a major work came in 1735 when Jacob Tonson asked him to create frontispieces for an edition of John Dryden’s Works. He also designed thirty-six play scenes and engraved many of them for Theobald’s 1740 edition of Shakespeare’s Works. Several years later (1743-4) he assisted Francis Hayman in completing illustrations for another edition of Shakespeare, Sir Thomas Hanmer’s luxury edition which was published at Oxford. In 1745, after the battle of Fontenoy between the English and French which greatly increased fears of a French invasion within England, Gravelot decided to return to Paris. But in the brief period of his residence in London, he established himself as one of England’s leading illustrators. Hammelmann and Boase provide an extensive list of works that Gravelot engraved both in England and in France.

Francis Hayman (?1708-76) was, reputedly, the model for the disheveled sign-painter standing on a ladder, brush in hand, at the center of William Hogarth’s print, Beer Street, which depicts the advantages of beer drinking over the harmful effects of gin. This was perhaps fitting, for Hayman was known for being highly convivial and socialized with many well known writers and artists of his day. By placing him centrally within this image, Hogarth seems symbolically to assert Hayman’s prominence within the world of mid-eighteenth-century public art. Hayman began his career as a scene painter for the theaters of London and may also have had a small career as an actor. He eventually became a portraitist, and his commission to paint the Jonathan Tyers family resulted in his employment by Tyers to produce a series of large wall paintings for Spring Gardens, Vauxhall. Among their subjects were scenes from history, from the plays of Shakespeare, and from Pamela. Ultimately Hayman went on to illustrate books of many kinds, in addition to his work as a history painter and portraitist. He had a particular flair for the group portrait, known by the term “conversation piece.”

Hayman’s career as a book illustrator appears to have begun with his work with Gravelot on Pamela. Gravelot was very much Hayman’s senior and his teacher; however, as I have argued elsewhere, there is good reason to believe that Hayman was the lead artist in this venture. As in the case of the Tyers family portrait, Hayman’s commission to paint “the Samuel Richardson family” may well have been a test of his skills before Richardson would employ him as an illustrator. For detailed discussion of his professional work and relationship with Richardson, see “Picturing ‘Samuel Richardson’: Francis Hayman and the Intersections of Word and Image,” Eighteenth-Century Fiction 14, nos. 3-4 (April-July 2002): 465-505. Although no book length study of Gravelot exists, readers with an interest in Hayman can consult Francis Hayman (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1987), the superb exhibition catalog written by Brian Allen to accompany the 1987 exhibition of Hayman’s works at Kenwood House, in London.

Janet E. Aikins Yount, Professor of English
University of New Hampshire