The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (392 page)

(1609–68).
The most distinguished member of a family of Flemish sculptors. He was born in Antwerp and was a pupil of François
Duquesnoy
in Rome. He was back in Antwerp
c.
1640, then moved to Amsterdam, where from
c.
1650 to 1664 he directed the sumptuous sculptural decoration of the Town Hall. His dignified style was singularly appropriate for van
Campen's
great building, and the decoration forms the most impressive sculptural ensemble of the time in northern Europe. The high quality of his portrait busts can be seen in the Rijksmuseum. His collaborators at Amsterdam Town Hall included his cousin,
Artus II Quellin
(1625–1700), whose independent work was more
Baroque
in style. The commanding figure of
God the Father
(1682) for the rood screen at Bruges Cathedral is perhaps his finest work.
Artus III Quellin
(1653–86), usually called Arnold, son of Artus II, settled in England about 1678. By 1684 he was working with Grinling
Gibbons
, and the drop in quality of Gibbons's large-scale figure work (not his forte) after Quellin's death indicates that the latter was probably the dominant personality in producing such fine statues as the bronze
James II
(1686) outside the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Quellin's outstanding independent work is the tomb of Thomas Thynne (Westminster Abbey, 1682), which features a
relief
of Thynne's murder in his coach in Pall Mall. Other artist members of the Quellin family included
Erasmus I
(
c.
1584–1639/40), father of Artus I and likewise a sculptor, and Artus I's two brothers,
Erasmus II
(1607–78), a painter who was a pupil and collaborator of
Rubens
, and
Hubert
(1619?–87), an engraver.

 
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(
c.
1374–1438).
The greatest sculptor of the Sienese school, the son of an undistinguished goldsmith and woodcarver,
Piero di Angelo
(Quercia, from which he takes his name, is a place near Siena). He was one of the outstanding figures of his generation in Italian sculpture, alongside
Donatello
and
Ghiberti
, but his career is difficult to follow, as he worked in numerous places and sometimes left one commission unfinished while he took up another elsewhere. Contrary to
Vasari's
assertions that he led a ‘well-ordered life’, he seems to have been inveterately dilatory. He is first firmly documented in 1401, unsuccessfully competing for the commission (won by Ghiberti ) for the Baptistery doors in Florence. His first surviving work is usually considered to be the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, wife of the ruler of Lucca, Paolo Guinigi (Cathedral, Lucca,
c.
1406), which was eulogized by
Ruskin
. There are Renaissance
putti
and swags round the sides of the coffin, but the serene and graceful effigy is in the northern manner and suggests Quercia had knowledge of work done in the circle of Claus
Sluter
in Burgundy. His major work for his native city was a fountain called the
Fonte Gaia
(commissioned in 1409, executed in 1414–19), which is now—much damaged—in the loggia of the Palazzo Pubblico. Its
relief
carvings include some beautifully draped female figures and a terribly battered but still awesomely powerful panel of
The Expulsion from Paradise
. Between 1417 and 1431 he worked together with Donatello and Ghiberti on reliefs for the font in the Baptistery at Siena, and in 1425 he received the commission for his last great work (left unfinished at his death), a series of relief panels decorating the main doorway of S. Petronio, Bologna; the subjects are taken from Genesis and the nativity of Christ. The figures—usually only three to a relief, in contrast to the crowded panels of Ghiberti—have a directness and strength which won the admiration of
Michelangelo
, who visited Bologna in 1494. Several of the motifs are to be found, reinterpreted, on the Sistine Ceiling.

 
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(1867–1939)
. British artist, celebrated for his illustrations to children's books. He said he believed in ‘the greatest stimulating and educative power of imaginative, fantastic and playful pictures and writings for children in their most impressionable years’, and he worked in a striking vein of Nordic fantasy, creating a world populated by goblins, fairies, and weird creatures. At the peak of his career Edmund
Dulac
was his only serious rival as an illustrator of fairy stories.

 
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(1756–1823)
. The leading Scottish portrait painter of his period, active mainly in his native Edinburgh. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a goldsmith, then worked as a
miniaturist
, and appears to have been largely self-taught as a painter in oils. Between 1784 and 1787 he had periods in London (where he met
Reynolds
) and Italy, but his distinctive style was by this time already formed—one of his finest works, the
Rev.
Robert Walker Skating (NG, Edinburgh), is traditionally said to have been painted in 1784. He painted directly on to the canvas without preliminary drawings, and his vigorous, bold handling—sometimes called his ‘square touch’—could be extraordinarily effective in conveying the character of rugged Highland chiefs or bluff legal worthies. He also had a penchant for vivid and original lighting effects (
William Glendonwyn
, Fitzwilliam Mus., Cambridge,
c.
1795) and could be remarkably sensitive when painting women (
Isabella McLeod, Mrs James Gregory
, National Trust for Scotland, Fyvie Castle, Aberdeenshire,
c.
1798). At times, however, his technical facility can degenerate into empty virtuosity. In 1822, on the occasion of George IV's visit to Edinburgh, he was knighted and in 1823 he was appointed His Majesty's
Limner
for Scotland. Since he had all the sitters he needed in Scotland, there was no need for him to compete with
Lawrence
and
Hoppner
in London (although he did consider moving there after Hoppner's death in 1810), and in the history of British portraiture he is an isolated and perhaps underrated figure.

 
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