Alfred Swaine Taylor, Llangollen, Wales – Original c.1833 graphite drawing
An original c.1833 graphite drawing, Alfred Swaine Taylor, Llangollen, Wales.
An interesting early 19th-century sketch in graphite.
This drawing is one of a series of works executed during a tour around the north of England, Wales and Scotland in 1833 by the father of British forensic medicine, Dr Alfred Swaine Taylor. Taylor was a ground-breaking toxicologist and pioneer of photography, as well as a talented artist.
In this precisely rendered view Taylor demonstrates the keen observation of a scientific mind.
Details
- Signed: No.
- Inscribed: Inscribed upper centre.
- Dated: --
- Height (cm): 11 Width (cm): 18.3
- Height (inches): 4.33 Width (inches): 7.2
- Condition: In good condition for its age. The picture may have minor imperfections such as slight marks, toning, foxing, creasing or pinholes, commensurate with age. Please see photos for detail.
- Presented: Unframed.
- Stock Number: KA-164
This drawing forms part of a larger collection of works that we have for sale by Alfred Swaine Taylor, executed during his travels on the Continent 1828-9 and around Scotland and the North of England in 1833. The Continental subjects follow the progression of Taylor’s early medical study in France and then his remarkable homeward journey on foot from Naples. The British subjects date from when Taylor had taken up the professorship post of medical jurisprudence at Guy’s Hospital in London.
Alfred Swaine Taylor held this professorship at Guy’s Hospital from 1831 until 1877, during which time he became one of the foremost authorities on medical jurisprudence. He published works on forensic medicine, with a particular focus on poisons, achieving renown as the leading toxicologist in the country. He was much in demand as a witness in criminal investigations, and is remembered for his involvement in celebrated murder trials, including those of Drory, and the poisoners Tawell, Palmer, Smethurst and Catherine Wilson.
Born at Northfleet in Kent, Alfred Swaine Taylor was the eldest son of Thomas Taylor, a captain in the East India Company’s fleet and his first wife, Susan Mary, daughter of Charles Badger of Kent. Aged sixteen he was apprenticed to a practitioner near Maidstone, then in 1823 he entered the united Medical School of Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals. He paid a visit to Paris in 1825, returning to receive the prize for anatomy at St Thomas’s. After qualifying in 1828, he was again drawn to Paris to attend the lectures of Orfila, Dupuytren, and Gay-Lussac. He made a brief geological survey of Auvergne and visited the Montpellier School before making an adventurous voyage to Naples, where he stayed for nine months and published two papers in Italian. His homeward journey on foot across the Continent took him to no fewer than eight medical schools. Taylor spent the winter of 1829-30 studying at Guy’s. In 1830 a stay in Paris, at the time of the Revolution, enabled him to watch the treatment of battle wounds by Manec and Misfranc. Then in 1831 the still young Taylor took up the professorship at St Guys.
Taylor produced books on medical jurisprudence which would become regarded both by lawyers and by physicians as standard works in his lifetime. The mid-19th century saw Taylor at the height of his career; he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1849, was awarded the Swiney Prize for his publications on Medical Jurisprudence in 1859 and published many more books and reports.
During the 1940s, Taylor was very taken with the new art/science of ‘photogenic drawing’ being pioneered by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839. Taylor began his own experiments and hit upon the use of hyposulphate of lime as a ‘fixer’, and recommended ammonia nitrate of silver rather than chloride of silver as a sensitiser. He published his findings in 1840 in a pamphlet, and shared his interest and discoveries with others, including chemist Michael Faraday and photographer John Werge.
In 1834 Taylor married Caroline, daughter of John Cancellor, a London stockbroker, by whom he had one daughter. He died at Regent’s Park, London in 1880.
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Somerset & Wood was founded in 2015 near Bath, UK in the beautiful Cotswold market town of Bradford on Avon. Today the Gallery is run by founding owners Ayumi Ellingham and Olivia Nicholls. The Somerset & Wood project grew out of a desire to share our interests in art, history and design, and to champion the sometimes underrated field of British drawings and watercolours. We bring to the project combined professional arts backgrounds, in museums & galleries, art dealership and illustration. After completing a first class MA in English at the University of Cambridge and an MSc in History of Art with distinction at the University of Edinburgh, our Art Historian, Olivia Nicholls, worked for many years at the National Galleries of Scotland, and subsequently as an independent editor and art historian.
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