Who is Charles Exshaw?

Charles Exshaw (died 1771) was an Irish painter and engraver.

Exshaw was a indigenous of Dublin, was one of the yet to be competitors for the Society of Arts’ premium for an historical painting, with a Describe of ‘The Black Prince droll the captive French Monarch after the Battle of Cressy.’ He is said to have studied in Rome, but in 1757 he was in Paris as a pupil of Carle Vanloo, and he executed four engravings of that painter’s children in a combination method of etching and mezzotint engraving.

From Paris he proceeded to Amsterdam, where he especially studied the works of Rembrandt, and executed two etchings from his pictures, “Potiphar’s Wife making Accusation adjacent to Joseph” and “Christ later his Disciples at Sea in a Storm”, the latter plate being obsolescent 1760. He plus executed some etchings and mezzotint engravings of heads of boors and peasants after various Dutch masters, and a mezzotint engraving of ‘A Girl later a Basket of Cherries, and Two Boys,’ after Rubens.

He subsequently settled in London, and unsuccessfully attempted to confirm a drawing-school, after the example of the Caracci, in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden.

He died in front in 1771, and in April of that year his amassing of studies and pictures was sold by auction. In 1781, two pictures and drawing of his were exhibited at the Society of British Artists, including a view of Salisbury.

 This article incorporates text from a broadcast now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1889). “Exshaw, Charles”. Dictionary of National Biography. 18. London: Smith, Elder & Co.