John Alefounder

John Alefounder (1757 – 1794) was a painter of portraits and miniatures, working in London and later in India.

Life

Alefounder was born in Colchester, Essex in 1757 and became a student at the Royal Academy Schools in 1776.^[1]

He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1777 and 1793. The first piece he showed was a Design for a Lunatic Asylum, but after that he showed mostly portraits.^[2] He won a silver medal in 1782.

In 1784 he exhibited some theatrical portraits and portrait groups. Francesco Bartolozzi made an engraving after his portrait of "Peter the Wild Boy"^[3] and in the same year C.H. Hodges engraved his portrait of the actor John Edwin.^[3]^[4]

He subsequently went to India and died at Calcutta on 25 December 1794.^[1]^[3] According to William Baillie, in a letter written the following year, he committed suicide, in despair at his financial situation.^[5]

References

^ ^a ^b "John Alefounder". Royal Academy Collections. Archived from the original on 23 March 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
^ Graves, Algernon (1905). The Royal Academy: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors from its Foundations in 1769 to 1904. Vol. 1. London: Henry Graves. p. 19.
^ ^a ^b ^c Bryan,1886–9
^ "H Beard Print Collection". Victoria and Albert Museum. 16 October 1784. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
^ Tillotson, Giles Henry Rupert (2000). The Artificial Empire: The Indian Landscapes of William Hodges. Routledge. p. 121. ISBN 9780700712823.

Sources

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bryan, Michael (1886). "Alefounder, John". In Graves, Robert Edmund (ed.). Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (A–K). Vol. I (3rd ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Alefounder, John". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.