(b Dublin, ?1751; d London, 17 June 1814). Irish painter, printmaker, dealer and writer. He first studied at the Dublin Society of Artists drawing school, winning an exhibition prize in 1773. In 1775 he travelled to London and then to Rome, probably in the company of John Campbell, later 1st Baron Cawdor. Tresham spent 14 years on the Continent, chiefly in Rome, and it was there among an international circle of Neo-classical artists that his taste was formed; his acquaintances included Thomas Jones, William Pars, James Northcote, Thomas Banks, Antonio Canova and Henry Fuseli. Tresham supplemented his income by working as a dealer in art and antiquities, while his most ambitious project in Italy was Le avventure di Saffo (Rome, 1784), a folio volume of 18 of his aquatints (Josiah Wedgwood’s copy now London, BM). In 1789 he returned to London and quickly assumed a prominent position in artistic circles. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, and became ARA in 1791 and RA in 1799. In 1807 he succeeded John Opie as the Academy’s professor of painting, resigning after two years through ill health. He was also intermittently active as an editor and poet (publishing five volumes of verse between 1796 and 1810), as well as continuing to work as an art dealer. The annuity on which he depended in his late years was derived from his sale to Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, of a group of supposedly authentic ‘Etruscan’ vases (for the background to such misattributions see ETRUSCAN, §VIII, and ETRUSCAN STYLE).

• Tresham, Henry
  • Campbell, John, 1st Baron Cawdor
  • Provenance