Robert Bowyer

Robert Bowyer (/ˈboʊjər/; bap. 18 June 1758 – 4 June 1834) was a British miniature painter and publisher.

Bowyer was born in Portsmouth to Amos and Betty Ann Bowyer and baptized on 18 June 1758. His first job was as a clerk to a merchant in Portsmouth and then London. Two different accounts of his career shift survive. The first claims that he had decided to voyage to America, and before leaving wanted to obtain a portrait of himself for his fiancée, Mary Shoveller. Unable to afford to commission one, he painted one himself and eventually gave up the idea of going to America and became a miniaturist. The second claims that he was simply looking for a job and decided to paint.^[1] On 14 July 1777, Bowyer married Shoveller; the couple had one daughter.

Bowyer probably began to train with the miniature painter

Bowyer displayed the paintings he commissioned for Hume's work in a "Historic Gallery", sited in the Schomberg House building at 82 Pall Mall. The idea of placing the original pictures for the illustrated edition on display followed the examples of the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, Thomas Macklin's Gallery of the Poets, and Henry Fuseli's Milton Gallery, all of which operated in Pall Mall at around the same time. Benjamin West and others contributed a total of 60 works to the Historic Gallery. By 1806, Bowyer had printed five folios, covering the years up to 1688, but high costs then prevented him from completing the work.^[1] Bowyer lost as much as £30,000 on the project and in 1805, to recoup some of these costs, he followed John Boydell's route in applying to Parliament for permission to hold a lottery for the gallery contents.^[1][3][4] Even after receiving approval for the lottery, it took Bowyer a further year to ensure that two paintings by Robert Smirke and 18 engravings were completed and the sale could proceed.^[5]

Due to his relationship with Smart, Bowyer also published a series of engravings regarding India.^[1] In 1794, for example, he published Picturesque Views, with a Descriptive History of the Country of Tipoo Sultan after drawings by Robert Home and in 1797 Oriental Scenery: Twenty-Four Views in Hindoostan after drawings by Thomas Daniell.

In 1796, the Bowyers' only daughter died at 18 and Robert wrote to Warren Hastings that he feared his wife might die as well.^[1] Three years later, however, the couple adopted Catherine Andras an orphaned wax modeller from Bristol.

During the

Bowyer's last years were plagued by financial difficulties and his home suffered a significant fire. He died on 4 June 1834. Mary Parkes, a maid and shop assistant, inherited the business.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert Bowyer.

• 
  Schomberg House, at 82 Pall Mall, where Bowyer opened his Historic Gallery in the 1790s.
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  One of 6,330 prints in the 45 volumes of the Bowyer Bible in

  Bolton Museum

  , England
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  "Death of

  The History of England
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  Parable of the barren fig tree