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Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812) French painter, born in Strasbourg on 31 October 1740. His father Philipp-Jakob (1698–1768) was miniature painter and engraver to the court of Darmstadt, and de Loutherbourg’s first teacher. After moving to Paris in 1755, he studied under Carl Vanloo, the genre and portrait painter, Francesco Casanova, a battle and marine painter, and at Jean-Georges Wille’s engraving academy. Having been elected to the French Royal Academy and made Painter to Louis XVI in 1766, he left Paris for London in 1771 at the invitation of the actor-manager David Garrick, for whom he became scenic director at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, from 1773 at the unprecedented salary of £500 a year. Here his artistic influence and technical innovations inspired long-term improvements in British stage presentation and he remained with Drury Lane after Garrick’s retirement in 1776, until 1783. His last major theatre project was the scenery for the spectacular pantomime ‘Omai; or, A Trip Around the World’, based on Cook’s voyages, at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1785.He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1772 and was elected full Academician in 1781. In that year he also first exhibited his 'Eidophusikon', or mechanical theatre – a precursor of both the 19th-century ‘diorama’ and of cinema - drawing fascination from Gainsborough and interest from Reynolds. As a result of numerous tours round Britain, he published ’Picturesque Scenery of Great Britain‘ (1801) followed in 1805 by ’Romantic and Picturesque Scenery of England and Wales‘. His love of the Sublime is evident in the cliff landscape and dramatic lighting of ’A Fishing Boat brought ashore at Conway Castle‘ (1800, National Maritime Museum, London), a painting that also reflects the mutual esteem that de Loutherbourg and Turner held for each other’s work. His large ‘Lord Howe’s Victory, or the Glorious First of June, 1794’, (1795) commissioned for an engraving project, later passed into the Royal Collection where the need for a pendant for it led, in 1822, to George IV commissioning Turner’s ‘Battle of Trafalgar’ of 1823–24. Controversy over the latter saw both works consigned from the Royal Collection to Greenwich Hospital in 1829, the last of the king’s notable gifts to its collection (now in the care of the National Maritime Museum). As might be expected de Loutherbourg was a dramatic colourist and a dynamic draughtsman. His personal reputation in later life was somewhat injured by involvements in mysticism and faith-healing. He died in Chiswick on 11 March 1812 and is buried there under a striking monument, possibly by Sir John Soane.