John Absolon

John Absolon (1815 – May 5, 1895) was a British watercolourist, specialising in figure painting. He studied in London and then Paris.

Life

Absolon was born in Lambeth in May 1815.

In the 1850s and 1860s he lived in Camden New Town (now in the London Borough of Camden), first at 10 Cornwall Crescent and later at 15 Saint Augustine's Road.

In 1843 he was commissioned to produce illustrations for an edition of Isaac Walton's Compleat Angler, and the next year the publisher David Bogue employed him to provide drawings for an edition of the poems of James Beattie and William Collins.

He contributed the figures to "The Overland Mail" an attraction exhibited at the 'Gallery of Illustration' in Regent Street, described in an advertisement as "a gigantic moving diorama of the route of the overland mail to India". He later visited Switzerland and Italy, and exhibited scenes from the two countries.

Works His works include:

Metare (1845) First night in the monastery, Dopscen (1856) Coast scene, Normandy (1860; Victoria and Albert Museum, London) Goldsmith workshop (1860) The haymakers (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney)