Charles Poitier, Animal Painter

(d. 1797)

Animal Painter

From A Dictionary of Irish Artists 1913

A native of England. He joined the 12th Light Dragoons as cornet in 1772 and retired in 1777, when his regiment was serving in Ireland. He was a friend of Benjamin Vandergucht, the painter, from whom, perhaps, he learned his art. In 1777, after his retirement from the army, he was living in Mecklenburg Street, Dublin, and in that year he sent to the Society of Artists in William Street a "Portrait of a Horse." After being employed for a short time in command of the military depot at Kilmainham Gaol, he was, on the 18th May, 1784, appointed an Invalid Officer in the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, and there spent the rest of his life, dying in the spring of 1797. He seems to have enjoyed some reputation as a painter of animals.

Poitier appears to have married Mrs. Thompson, an actress and singer, and by her was the father of Maria Anne Poitier, an accomplished singer and musician who had appeared on the London stage, and in 1778 had an engagement at Crow Street Theatre. She married on 22nd February of that year John Johnstone, the actor. She was at Covent Garden in 1783, and died in 1785. Another daughter, Isabella, married in 1794 Edward Eagle, a surgeon, or apothecary, in Church Street, Dublin.

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