GEORGE MORLAND (1763-1804)

GEORGE MORLAND (1763-1804) , English painter of animals and rustic scenes, was born in London on the 26th of June 1763 . His grandfather, George H . Morland, was a subject painter, three of whose popular pictures were engraved by Watson and Dawe in 1769 . The son, H . R . Morland, father of George, was also an artist and engraver, and picture restorer, at one time a rich man, but later in reduced circumstances . His pictures of laundry-maids especially were very popular in their time, and were reproduced in mezzotint . They represented ladies of some importance who desired to be painted, according to the fashion of the day, engaged in domestic work . Morland's mother was a Frenchwoman, who possessed a small independent property of her own; she is believed to have been the Maria Morland who exhibited twice at the Royal Academy in 1785 and 1786, although some writers have stated that Maria Morland was not the mother, but one of the sisters of George Morland . At a very early age Morland produced sketches of remarkable promise, exhibiting some at the Royal Academy in 1773, when he was but ten years old, and continuing to exhibit at the Free Society in 1775 and 1776, and at the Society of Artists in 1777, and then sending again to the Royal Academy in 1778, 1779 and 1780 . His very earliest work, however, was produced even before that tender age, as his father kept a drawing which the boy had executed when he was but four years old, representing a coach and horses and two footmen . He was a student at the Royal Academy in early youth, but only for a very short time .