Thomas Hartley Cromek
Truthful Italian landscapes with beautiful coloring
Thomas Hartley Cromek was an English artist. Cromek was born on 8 August 1809, the son of the engraver Robert Hartley Cromek. He was educated at Enoch Harrison's school in Wakefield; he then attended the Moravian School at Fulneck, and to the Grammar School at Wakefield, before he eventually returning to Harrison. He had his first lessons in art from James Hunter, a portrait painter at Wakefield, but in 1826 he went to Leeds where he studied landscape painting under Joseph Rhodes, an artist of considerable ability, and also taught himself anatomical drawing. In 1830 he decided to go to Italy to study the great masters. He passed through Belgium, the Rhineland, Switzerland, and Florence, and at length reached Rome, where he soon attracted attention by the excellence of his drawings and his careful colouring. From 1831 until 1849, with the exception of two short visits to England, Cromek passed his time in visiting and making drawings of the principal buildings and the picturesque scenery of Italy and Greece. In 1860 he was unanimously elected an Associate of the New Society of Painters in Water-Colours, when he retired to Wakefield, where he died, after a long and painful illness, in 1873. His drawings, which are chiefly to be found in the royal and private collections, are much esteemed for the beauty of their colouring and their truthfulness to nature.
Artworks by this artist (19 total)
- St. Marks Square from the Doges Palace 1841
- The Arch of Titus looking through to the Colosseum, Rome 1841
- The Temple of Apollo at Bassae 1843
- The Interior of the Lower Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi 1839
- A House at Sorrento mid-19th century
- Houses at Sorrento mid-19th century
- Le Colonnacce, Rome： Remains of the Inner Walls of the Forum of Nerva ca. 1840
- The Acropolis from the West, with the Propylaea and the Temple of Athena Nike, Athens 1834
- The Arch of Titus and the Coliseum, Rome 1846
- The Cathedral and Palace of the Popes, Avignon 1836
- Two Camels 1834
- A Glen in Sorrento mid-19th century
- Interior of St. Benedict’s Church, Subiaco, near Rome
- School of St. Rocco, Venice, Study of Curved Decoration ca. 1835
- Turk on a Horse
- A view of the Umbrian campagna with Spoleto in the distance and a goatherd and his flock in the foreground 1833
- The Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens
- Court of the Bargello, Florence 1839
- The Fish Market, Rome