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4 unusual facts about William Leighton Leitch


Picturesque Europe

The books depicted tourist haunts in Europe, with text descriptions and steel and wood engravings by eminent artists of the time, such as Harry Fenn, William Henry James Boot, Thomas Charles Leeson Rowbotham (1823–1875), Henry Towneley Green (1836–1899), Myles Birkett Foster, John Mogford (1821–1885), David Hall McKewan (1816–1875), William Leighton Leitch (1804–1883), Edmund Morison Wimperis (1835–1900) and Joseph B. Smith (1798–1876).

William Leighton Leitch

While in Venice he met and became friends with the Hungarian painter, Miklós Barabás; They toured and painted in the Lago Maggiore region in 1834, and Leitch was a great influence on Barabás's future work.

The theatre failing, he spent two years at Mauchline, painting snuff boxes, and then moved to London, where he made the acquaintance of artists David Roberts and Clarkson Stanfield, and obtained employment as a scene-painter at the Queen's Theatre (now demolished) on Charlotte Street.

Among the books illustrated with engravings from his drawings are the Rev. Robert Walsh's "Constantinople and the Turkish empire" (1838); George Newenham Wright's "The Rhine, Italy and Greece" (1840), and "Shores and islands of the Mediterranean" (1841), William Brockedon's "Italy" (1843), Sir T. D. Lauder's "Memorial of the royal progress in Scotland" (1843), and John Parker Lawson's "Scotland delineated" (1847–54).



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