Description
Autograph Letter Signed ‘Joshua Cristall’, to V.Bartholomew, arranging an evening party; “I have a great many sketches to share.” 2 pp. 6 x 4 inches, in good condition, light stains only. [London] 15 April 1844. Uncommon. Joshua Cristall (1767–1847), English painter. For a time he was president of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours. He was first apprenticed to a china dealer at Rotherhithe, but after finding that business too irksome, he left for the Staffordshire Potteries, where he found employment as a china painter. Finding that job too monotonous, he went to London, and commenced a life of great privations and hard efforts to study the fine arts. During this period of his life, he reportedly seriously injured his health by trying to live for a year on just potatoes and water. Aided in secret by his mother, he persevered in his endeavours, and finally gained admission to the school of the Royal Academy. Cristall was an early member of the Sketching Society.