Beechcroft, Hay and Ledward , solicitors

George Dawe, 1781-1829, was a portrait painter and mezzotint engraver. Dawe was noticed by Alexander I and invited to go to St Petersburg to paint, on very profitable terms, more than 300 portraits of Russian generals who had distinguished themselves in the war against the emperor Napoleon I. Dawe stayed in Russia for about ten years (from spring 1819 to May 1828, and again briefly in spring 1829) and founded a 'portrait factory', confirming his reputation as an international painter who was prolific and rapid in production. For five years, until the completion of most of the Military Gallery (opened in the Winter Palace in December 1826 and now part of the Hermitage collection), Dawe's studio, including his brother Henry and brother-in-law Thomas Wright (who married Mary Margaret Dawe in St Petersburg in 1825), issued many engravings after the originals which were painted by Dawe himself with the assistance of two Russian apprentices, A. Polyakov and V.-A. Golicke. The engravings were protected by copyright, granted to Dawe by the emperor. The artist had an unparalleled success in Russia: in the winter of 1826 he held a solo exhibition in Moscow; Nicholas I chose him as court painter for the coronation ceremony of the same year; in 1820 Dawe was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg, where in 1827 he was allowed to exhibit 150 portraits. The next year he was appointed the first portrait painter at court and in 1829 accompanied Grand Duke Constantine to Warsaw.

Source: G. Andreeva, 'Dawe, George (1781-1829)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008.