Richard Dighton
Satirical Regency profile portraits
Richard Dighton, was an English artist in the Regency period, best known for his many satirical profile portraits of contemporary London celebrities and characters. He was the son and apprentice of another noted caricaturist, Robert Dighton (1752–1814), and brother of the battle-scene painter Denis Dighton and of Robert Dighton junior. The works of Robert and Richard Dighton are regarded as predecessors of the Vanity Fair style of the late nineteenth century. His series of City and West End portraits was started in 1817, and he published more than one hundred etchings during the next decade. From 1828 on he produced no further etchings and settled and worked in Cheltenham and Worcester where he spent the next twenty years, thereafter returning to London. He concentrated firstly on watercolour portraits and after 1835 on lithographic portraits. Richard Dighton died of an 'enlarged prostate and Bright's disease' at 3 Elm Grove, Hammersmith on 13 April 1880 aged 84. His sons Richard junior and Joshua were also portraitists.
Relationship Network
Master student
- Robert Dighton Master
Parent child
- Robert Dighton Parent
Siblings
- Robert Dighton junior Unknown
Artworks by this artist (64 total)
- Absolute wisdom, or Queen’s owl. Taken from a Wood.
- A view of Westmoreland, or an impression of the privy seal. 1821
- Pshaw! What are you there 1822
- A great man on change. 1824
- A Welch castle 1818
- One of the Rakes of London. 1818
- A view of a Lake. 1818
- Kangkook 1819
- Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. 1821
- A view of Nugent 1822
- His Excellency the Persian Ambassador. 1819
- I believe I’m right. 1823
- A view of Argyle. 1823
- A worthy alderman of London. 1824
- Charley the principal-d broker. 1822
- Byng-Go 1820
- The golden Ball 1819
- A view of Devonshire 1820
- Reverend Moore 1841
- A View of the Royal Exchange 1824