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Thomas Seddon

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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THOMAS SEDDON (1821-1856), English landscape painter, was born in London on the 28th of August 1821. His father was a cabinetmaker, and the son for some time followed the same occupation; but in 1842 he was sent to Paris to study ornamental art. On his return he executed designs for furniture for his father. In 1849 he made sketching expeditions in Wales and France, and in 1852 began to exhibit in the Royal Academy, sending a figure-piece, Penelope, and afterwards landscapes, deriving their subjects from Brittany. In the end of 1853 he joined Holman Hunt at Cairo. He worked for a year in Egypt and Palestine, xxiv. 19 executing views which Ruskin pronounced to be "the first landscapes uniting perfect artistical skill with topographical accuracy; being directed, with stern self-restraint, to no other purpose than that of giving to persons who cannot travel trustworthy knowledge of the scenes which ought to be most interesting to them." Seddon's Eastern subjects were exhibited in Berners Street, London, in 1855, and in Conduit Street in 1856. In October 1856 Seddon again visited Cairo, where he died on the 23rd of November. In 1857 his works were exhibited in the rooms of the Society of Arts, and his important and elaborately finished picture, "Jerusalem and the Valley of Jehoshaphat," was purchased by subscription and presented to the National Gallery.

A memoir of Seddon, by his brother, was published in 1859.