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Lewis (i).
English family of painters and printmakers. Frederick Christian Lewis the elder (b London, 14 March 1779; d Enfield, London, 18 Dec 1856) was a student of Joseph Constantine Stadler ( fl 1780–1812) and of the Royal Academy Schools, London, who became an eminent reproductive engraver and landscape painter. He made aquatints after Thomas Girtin’s Twenty of the Most Picturesque Views in Paris and its Environs (London, 1803) and produced one plate—Bridge and Goats—for Turner’s Liber Studiorum (London, 1807) before collaboration collapsed after a financial disagreement. He worked extensively in reproducing master drawings in various intaglio techniques, especially for William Young Ottley’s 3-volume The Italian School of Design (London, 1808–23), and was Engraver of Drawings to Princess Charlotte, Prince Leopold, George IV, William IV and Queen Victoria. He executed engravings after many contemporary painters’ works, particularly Thomas Lawrence’s portrait drawings, and, under the patronage of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, and other landowners and connoisseurs, etched or aquatinted published series of topographical views of Devon and Cornwall. He consistently exhibited somewhat conventional landscapes in oil and watercolour at the Royal Academy (1802–53), the British Institution (1817–53), the Society of British Artists (1824–46) and the Old Water-Colour Society. These were painted in a soft, loose and flat manner reminiscent of Girtin and were often well-reviewed by critics, although subsequently overshadowed by his engraved oeuvre. He had two brothers who were also active as artists. George Robert Lewis (b London, 27 March 1782; d London, 15 May 1871) was a pupil of Fuseli and became a portrait and landscape painter and an engraver of a variety of topographical, scientific and antiquarian illustrations. William Lewis ( fl 1804–38) was an amateur landscape painter who nevertheless exhibited over 200 works between the years 1804 and 1838. Another brother, Charles Lewis (b London, 1786; d London, 8 Jan 1836), was a distinguished bookbinder in London. Frederick Christian Lewis the elder’s sons were (1) John Frederick Lewis and Charles George Lewis (b Enfield, London, 13 June 1808; d Felpham, W. Sussex, 16 June 1880). Charles George Lewis was taught by his father and became a prominent reproductive engraver in etching, stipple and mezzotint after such popular contemporary painters and Academicians as Edwin Landseer and Rosa Bonheur. A third son, Frederick Christian Lewis the younger (b London, 1813; d Genoa, 26 May 1875), was a pupil of Lawrence and painted watercolours of ethnographic subjects. He depicted state and ceremonial events for local potentates in India during his numerous visits to that country (1839–49, 1851–6, 1863–7 and 1874–5), acquiring the name ‘Indian Lewis’. He also travelled in Europe and the USA and visited Malta, Constantinople, Baghdad and Persia, as well as the Far East (1856–63). He in turn trained his son John Hardwicke Lewis (b Hyderabad, 1840; d Veytaux, Vaud, 1927), who worked with Thomas Couture in Paris as a portrait painter and in California as an illustrator (1875–85); he is best remembered, however, for his later suave, polished watercolours of mountain views in France and Switzerland. George Robert Lewis’s son Lennard Lewis (b London, 18 March 1826; d 1913) was a writer and a painter of watercolour landscapes who exhibited from 1848 to 1898. The following members have entries:
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