LAPORTE, George Henry

1802 - 1873

George Henry Laporte was born on 8 November 1802 and baptised at Marylebone, London on 7 December 1802, son and pupil of artist and teacher John Peter Laporte, R.A. (March 1761-8 July 1839) and his wife Martha, who married at Hackney, London on 19 January 1800, George's sibling sister Mary Ann Laporte, was also a painter of some note and who also exhibited at the Royal Academy. A sporting painter whose work includes depictions of all aspects of country life: hunting, racing, shooting and animal still-life, with his first exhibition at the British Institution and was a founder member of Institute of Painters in Water Colours, where he exhibited regularly. He also exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1821 and, at the Suffolk Fine Arts Association at Ipswich in 1850, he exhibited a watercolour 'A Hawking Party'. Many of his paintings were engraved for 'The Sporting Magazine' and other journals. Laporte enjoyed a wide patronage and was appointed Animal Painter to the Duke of Cumberland and to the King of Hanover but fell into financial difficulties when, in March 1851, final orders were granted against him at the Insolvent Debtors Court and in November 1854, when living at 21 Paddington Green, Paddington, paid a dividend of 2s. 6d. [12p] in the pound. George married at St Mary's Paddington, London on 1 October 1850, Eliza Elgie (1807-1880), daughter of William Elgie of Spital Square, London. In 1861, a 58-year-old artist animal painter, living at 13 Norfolk Square, Paddington with his 48-year-old wife Eliza and 8-year-old daughter Georgina Dora, all born in London and ten years later they were still at the same address. George Henry Laporte died at 13 Norfolk Square, London on 23 October 1873, aged 71. Their only child Georgina Dora was unmarried when she died at 13 Maida Vale, London leaving the then quite substantial amount of £3,257 to Elgie relatives in the USA.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from 21 Winchester Row, Edgware Road, London
1821 347 Scene on the South Downs, Sussex
1823 371 Roving Arabs waiting for a Caravan
1827 554 The Courser
from 99 Albany Street, Regent's Park
1831 55 Sketch, from nature, of the Arab Skyboots
from 16 Upper George Street, Bryanston Square
1835 22 The Find
         529 Saladin's first view of the Crusader's Camp
from 5 Berkeley Place, Connaught Square
1840 129 Returning Home
1846 332 Study of one of the Arabs presented to Her Majesty
1850 1212 Portrait of Feridjan, an Arab of High Caste

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Works by This Artist