{"title":"Weir, Harrison","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHarrison William Weir RI (1824-1906)\u003c\/strong\u003e, known as \"The Father of the Cat Fancy\", was a British artist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWeir was born at Lewes, Sussex, on 5 May 1824. In 1866, Weir started working on his Victorian Gothic home, \"Weirleigh\" in the village of Matfield, Kent. Weirleigh was later bought by the Sassoon family and was the birthplace of Siegfried Sassoon in 1886. The house still stands today. After selling Weirleigh, Weir lived at Poplar Hall, Appledore, Kent, where he died on 3 January 1906.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWeir was educated at Albany Academy, Camberwell, until 1837, when he became apprenticed to George Baxter, the colour-printer. Weir worked in every branch of Baxter's business, his main work being printing off the plates. From Baxter, he learned to engrave and draw on wood and taught himself during his spare time to draw birds, mammals, and other subjects from nature. In 1842, Herbert Ingram founded The Illustrated London News and employed Weir as a draughtsman on wood and engraver from the first issue and for many years thereafter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1845, Weir made a first exhibition consisting of an oil painting of a wild duck, \"The Dead Shot\", at the British Institution. During his career, he was an occasional exhibitor at the Royal Academy, the Suffolk Street, and other galleries. On his election in 1849 as a member of the New Society of Painters in Water-colours (now the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours), he exhibited mainly there, altogether 100 pictures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWeir was a natural history artist and provided some of the illustrations for the Rev John George Wood's Illustrated Natural History (1853), served as chief illustrator for Charles St John's Wild Sports and Natural History of the Highlands, and designed all of the illustrations for George Fyler Townsend's Three Hundred Æsop's Fables (1867). He also provided illustrations for many of the books of the natural history author Sarah Bowdich Lee. Weir was enormously prolific and popular as a book illustrator and worked not just for The Illustrated London News but for many illustrated papers, including the Pictorial Times, The Field, and Pictorial World. In some cases, such as The Poetry of Nature (1867), he compiled the books he illustrated. He was both author and illustrator of Every Day in the Country (1883) and Animal Studies, Old and New (1885). In literary society, Weir's close friends included Douglas Jerrold, Henry Mayhew, Albert Smith, and Tom Hood the younger, and Weir knew Thackeray and other eminent literary men.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1889, Weir wrote Our Cats and All About Them, describing and illustrating the pedigree varieties of the time. This was the first pedigree cat book. The final third of Weir's book is various explanations and commentary on a multitude of feline-related topics, ranging from cat-derived proverbs to feline Shakespearean theatre to Belgian cat-racing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWeir was a keen animal fancier, and his illustrations of domestic cats, dogs and poultry are probably best known. He was an experienced breeder of cats, carrier pigeons, and poultry and for thirty years often acted as a judge at the principal pigeon and poultry shows. He wrote and illustrated the exhaustive book Our Poultry and All About Them (1903), and much earlier in 1867 illustrated William Bernhard Tegetmeier's The Poultry Book.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHarrison Weir was married three times: first, in 1845, to Ann, the older daughter of \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/publicdomainimagelibrary.com\/collections\/herring-john-frederick\" title=\"John Frederick Herring\"\u003eJohn Frederick Herring\u003c\/a\u003e, Sr., the famous painter of racehorses; second, to Alice, the youngest daughter of T. Upjohn, M.R.C.S., of Norfolk; and third, upon Alice's death in 1898, in 1899, to Eva, daughter of George Gobell of Worthing, Sussex. Eva became his widow. Weir had two sons, Arthur Herring Weir (1847-1902) and John Gilbert Weir, and two daughters.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"chatterbox-childrens-annual-285-images","title":"Chatterbox Children's Annual - 285 High Resolution Images","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis collection includes 285 colour images from the Chatterbox Children's Annuals from 1872 until the 1930s, including cover art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eChatterbox was a weekly British paper of stories and pictures for boys and girls, published in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  It was also published as an annual for much of its run, in both the UK and the US. It was founded in 1866 by John Erskine Clarke, who edited the paper until 1902.  It ceased publication in 1955.  \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs well as the cover art, there are various cute colour images in this collection including playful Victorian children, dogs, a rugby scrum, cycling, boats, garden scenes, fencing, a pommel horse scene, animals and loads more. Artists include Harrison Weir (1824-1906), Frederick Cotman (1850-1920) and Amédée Forestier (1854-1930), although most pictures are uncredited. Not all years are included but we've packed in as much as we can.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a great collection if you want to delve into the world of Victorian and early 20th-century children's illustration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis download features 285 hi-res images, in jpeg format. The images are all 300dpi and range in size from 1464 pixels wide\/tall to 5988 pixels wide\/tall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pictures are out of copyright and in the public domain, so you are free to use them in whatever way you’d like, including commercial use.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Digital Download - 285 images","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49676425036106,"sku":"","price":5.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0776\/7965\/7290\/files\/ChatterboxChildrensAnnual-285images.jpg?v=1747045218"},{"product_id":"mischievous-puppy-the-1865-harrison-weir-1824-1906-18-images","title":"Mischievous Puppy, The 1865 - Harrison Weir (1824-1906) - 18 images","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis must be the oldest book we have on the website so far. This crudely printed children's book, from 1865, was illustrated by British artist Harrison Weir. You can see from this just how far printed techniques have come.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis download features 18 hi-res images in JPEG format, scanned by us from an original copy of the book. The images are 600dpi and range in size from 3970 pixels wide to 5744 pixels tall.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe download includes the 8 colour illustrations plus all the text pages, and the front and back covers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pictures are out of copyright and in the public domain, so you are free to use them in whatever way you'd like, including commercial use.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRead more about \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/publicdomainimagelibrary.com\/collections\/weir-harrison\" title=\"Harrison Weir\"\u003eHarrison Weir\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Digital Download - 18 images","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":62537694150986,"sku":null,"price":2.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0776\/7965\/7290\/files\/Weir_Harrison_1824-1906_-TheMischievousPuppy1865_main.jpg?v=1782506960"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0776\/7965\/7290\/collections\/Weir_Harrison_1824-1906-4395705.jpg?v=1782506785","url":"https:\/\/www.publicdomainimagelibrary.com\/collections\/weir-harrison.oembed","provider":"Public Domain Image Library","version":"1.0","type":"link"}