François Louis Thomas Francia Art

François Louis Thomas Francia was a French watercolor painter born in Calais and famous for his shore landscapes. He spent much of the earlier part of his life in England. The British painter Richard Parkes Bonington was his pupil. Francia was born at Calais on 21 December 1772 and was taken early in life to London by his father, a refugee. He was for some time employed as an assistant of a drawing-master named Barrow, who was the master of John Varley. He showed a total of 85 works at the Royal Academy between 1795 and 1821 (inclusive). Francia was a part of one of the sketching societies formed by Thomas Girtin about 1799, and there is a drawing of a moonlit landscape in the Victoria and Albert Museum dated in May of that year. Francia was a member of the (now Royal) Society of Painters in Water-Colours, and for some time its secretary, but he resigned his membership, and became in 1816 an unsuccessful candidate for the associateship of the Royal Academy. The next year he retired to Calais, where he lived until his death on 6 February 1839. It was here that Francia gave lessons to Richard Parkes Bonington, whose coast scenes bear much resemblance to the later works of Francia. Francia's earlier drawings are broad and simple in execution, rich, but sombre in color, like those of Girtin but his later work, while still retaining its breadth and harmony, is brighter and lighter in tone, and more subtle in handling. Though Francia painted landscapes of different kinds, his favorite subjects were shore scenes, which he executed with great truth and beauty of aerial effect. He was an excellent draughtsman of boats and shipping, and some of his drawings were engraved to illustrate a book of sketches of shipping by Edward William Cooke. Francia was one of the earliest and most accomplished of English watercolorists, and his works are distinguished by their fine color and poetical feeling. There are several of his drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a few at the British Museum. In 1810, Francia published Studies of Landscapes by T. Gainsborough, J. Hoppner, R.A., T. Girtin, &c., imitated from the originals by L. F.