Name John Burnet Role Painter | Siblings James M. Burnet | |
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Books Rembrandt and His Works Comprising a Short Account of His Life; with a Critical Examination Into His Principles and Practice of Design, Light, Shade, and Colour. Illustrated by Examples from the Etchings of Rembrandt | ||
John Burnet (March 1781 or 20 March 1784 – 29 April 1868) was a Scottish engraver and painter.
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Life
Son of the Surveyor-General of Excise of Scotland, Burnet was born either in Edinburgh in 1781 or in Fisherrow in 1784. He was apprenticed to the engraver Robert Scott and later trained at the Trustees Academy.
In 1806, he moved from Edinburgh to London, where he became an established painter of portraits, landscapes, and rural genre scenes.
Between 1808 and 1862, he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and with the Society of British Artists and was finally awarded a fellowship to the Royal Society.
As an engraver he provided illustrations for editions of Robert Burns’s poems and Walter Scott’s Waverley novels.
He engraved copies of paintings of several notable portraits and artists.
He also wrote manuals and books on drawing, painting and artists, retiring from public life in 1860. He died in London.