Thomas Milton facts for kids
Thomas Milton (born 1743 – died February 27, 1827) was a talented British engraver. An engraver is an artist who creates pictures by carving designs into metal plates. These plates are then used to print images onto paper.
Who Was Thomas Milton?
Thomas Milton was the son of John Milton (fl. 1770), who was a marine painter. This means his father painted pictures of ships and the sea. Thomas was also related to the famous poet John Milton.
It's thought that Thomas learned his engraving skills from William Woollett, another well-known engraver. Milton likely worked in London for some time when he was younger. We don't know much about his earliest work.
By 1783, he was living in Dublin, Ireland. However, he moved back to London by 1786. In 1803, Thomas Milton became a governor of a group called the Society of Engravers. This group didn't last very long. He passed away in Bristol on February 27, 1827.
Thomas Milton's Engravings and Artworks
In 1783, the first part of his famous work, Views of Seats in Ireland, was released. This project featured twenty-four detailed pictures of important places and buildings in Ireland. Artists like William Ashford, John James Barralet, and Francis Wheatley drew the original scenes. Milton then engraved them. This work made him very well-known, and it was finished in 1793. After this, he often received requests for new engravings from publishers.
Another important engraving he created was The Deluge. This picture showed the great flood from the Bible. He made it for Thomas Macklin's Bible, based on a painting by Philip James de Loutherbourg.
Milton's engravings also appeared in many other books. You can find his work in editions of Shakespeare's plays published by John Boydell, George Kearsley, and George Steevens. He also contributed to William Young Ottley's Stafford Gallery in 1818.
In 1801, a series of colored pictures called Views in Egypt came out. These were special types of prints called aquatints. The pictures were based on drawings owned by Sir Robert Ainslie. These drawings were made by Luigi Mayer during Sir Robert's time as an ambassador in Constantinople. Thomas Milton was in charge of engraving these beautiful images.
He also created more than 200 engravings for Rees's Cyclopædia. Most of these pictures were about natural history topics, like plants and animals.
