Joseph Barney (1753 in Wolverhampton – 13 April 1832 in London), was a British painter and engraver. He is usually described as a pupil of Antonio Zucchi and Angelica Kauffman and as a fruit and flower painter to the Prince Regent.[1]
Two of his large-scale paintings — altarpieces The Deposition from the Cross (1781) and The Apparition of Our Lord to St Thomas (1784) are in Wolverhampton, and can be seen today at St John's church and at St Peter & St Paul's Roman Catholic church. During Barney's lifetime, his artistic achievements were respected and praised. In 1798, Stebbing Shaw, mentioning The Deposition from the Cross in his History of Staffordshire, called Barney a "native genius" of Wolverhampton.[2] In the collection of Wolverhampton Art Gallery, there is a pen and ink drawing, A Blind Musician, which gives some additional idea of quality and versatility of Barney's works.
- ^ Samuel Redgrave. Dictionary of Artists of the English School: Painters, Sculptors, Architects, Engravers and Ornamentists. London, 1874; Dictionary of National Biography. Vol.3, 1885; Desmond, Ray, Ellwood, Christine. Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturists. London, 1994, p.74.
- ^ Shaw, Stebbing. History of Staffordshire. Vol.2, part.1. 1798. P.164.