{{Use British English|date=October 2013}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}} {{Infobox person | name = James Malton | image = | caption = Irish engraver and watercolourist | birth_name = | birth_date = 1761 | birth_place = | death_date = {{Death date and age|1803|7|28|1761|df=y}} | death_place = Marylebone, United Kingdom | resting_place = London, United Kingdom | occupation = Engraver and watercolourist | known_for = Engravings and paintings of 18th century life | parents = Thomas Malton, the elder (father) | family = Thomas Malton (brother) | signature = }} [[Image:MaltonCH.jpg|thumb|Section of Malton's view of the Royal Exchange, Dublin (late 18th century)]]
'''James Malton''' (1761–1803) was an Irish engraver and watercolourist, who once taught geometry and perspective. He worked briefly as a draughtsman in the office of the celebrated Irish architect James Gandon. He is best known for a series of prints, published in the 1790s as ''A Picturesque and Descriptive View of the City of Dublin'', commonly known as ''Malton's Views of Dublin''.{{sfn|White|2021}}
==Early life== Born in 1761,{{sfn|Adams|2017}}{{ref label|alpha|a}} James Malton was the son of the English architectural draughtsman Thomas Malton the elder and brother of Thomas Malton the younger.{{sfn|Dictionary of National Biography|1893}} He moved to Ireland with his father and was living in Dublin by the 1780s.{{sfn|Adams|2017}} He was employed as a draughtsman in the office of the architect James Gandon for nearly three years during the building of the Custom House (built between 1781 and 1791), but was eventually dismissed.{{sfn|Raftery|1964}}
==Career== Malton is first recorded as an artist in 1790,{{sfn|Raftery|1964}} when he sent two drawings to the Society of Artists in London from an address in Dublin.{{sfn|Strickland|1913}} He is best known for ''A Picturesque and Descriptive View of the City of Dublin'', a series of 25 prints originally published between 1792 and 1799. The plates were executed in etching and aquatint by Malton himself, after his own drawings.{{sfn|Strickland|1913}} Each plate was accompanied by descriptive text with a dedication and a vignette in aquatint. Following the completion of the issue of the work in six parts, Malton republished the whole in a bound volume.{{sfn|Strickland|1913}} The coloured prints from this work, which depict many of the new public buildings erected, capture the architectural changes which Dublin underwent in the 18th century.{{sfn|White|2021}}
Between 1792 and 1803, Malton showed 51 drawings of architectural subjects at the Royal Academy. They included 17 views of Dublin in Indian ink and watercolour, mostly depicting the same subjects as his published prints. They were not, however, the original drawings from which the plates were made, often being larger, and with the scenes populated with different figures.{{sfn|Strickland|1913}}
In 1798, he published ''An Essay on British Cottage Architecture'', described in its subtitle as "an attempt to perpetuate on principle, that peculiar mode of building, which was originally the effect of chance".{{sfn|Malton|1798}} His later publications include a practical treatise on perspective called ''The Young Painter's Mahlstick'' (1800),{{sfn|Strickland|1913}} four aquatints after drawings by Francis Keenan, issued as ''A Select Collection of Views in the County of Devon'' (1800),{{sfn|Malton|1800}} and '' A Collection of Designs for Rural Retreats as Villas Principally in the Gothic and Castle Styles of Architecture'' (1802).{{sfn|Malton|1802}}
Malton died "of a brain-fever" in Norton Street, Marylebone, London, on 28 July 1803.{{sfn|Strickland|1913}}
===Gallery=== <gallery class="center" widths="215" heights="200"> File:James Malton Trinity College Library Dublin.jpg|Trinity College Library File:Customs House Dublin 1792.jpg|The Custom House File:Four Courts and river Liffey, Dublin 1799.jpg|Four Courts and river Liffey File:Dublin Castle 1792.jpg|Dublin Castle File:Leinster House, Dublin LCCN2003671650.tif|Leinster House File:View from Capel-Street, looking over Essex-Bridge Dublin LCCN2003671653.tif|View from Capel Street, looking over Essex Bridge File:Charlemont-House, Dublin LCCN2003671649.tif|Charlemont House File:Provost's house, Dublin LCCN2003671651.jpg|Provost's house File:Survey of Dublin, Co. Dublin (25038254303).jpg|Survey of Dublin File:Royal infirmary, Phoenix Park, Dublin LCCN2003671652.jpg|Royal infirmary, Phoenix Park File:Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (1899) (14804806173).jpg|St Patrick's Cathedral File:The Tholsel, Dublin.jpg|The Tholsel, Dublin </gallery>
==See also== * Samuel Frederick Brocas * Joseph Tudor
==Footnotes== * {{note|alpha|a}} While most sources give Malton's date of birth as 1761, some (such as the ''Dublin Historical Record'') give 1763.{{sfn|Raftery|1964}}
==References== ===Notes=== {{Reflist|30em}}
===Sources=== {{refbegin}} * {{Cite DNB |first=Lionel Henry |last=Cust |wstitle=Malton, Thomas (1726-1801)|display=Malton, Thomas (1726–1801) |volume=36 |page=5 | ref = {{harvid|Dictionary of National Biography|1893}} }} * {{cite web|title=An essay on British cottage architecture|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/11034976/|via=Library of Congress|accessdate=29 March 2016 | first = James | last = Malton | date = 1798 }} * {{cite web|title=A select collection of views in the county of Devon|url=http://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/2034663|via=Yale Center for British Art|accessdate=29 March 2016 | first = James | last = Malton | date = 1800 }} * {{cite web|title=A collection of designs for rural retreats...|url=http://discover.odai.yale.edu/ydc/Record/1672731|via=Yale Digital Content|date = 1802 | first = James | last = Malton }} * {{cite journal | title = Who Was Malton? | first = P. J. | last = Raftery | journal = Dublin Historical Record | volume = 19 | issue = 4 | date = September 1964 | page = 106 | publisher = Old Dublin Society | jstor = 30083954}} * {{cite book|last=Strickland|first=Walter|title=Dictionary of Irish Artists|chapter=James Malton|year=1913|url=http://www.libraryireland.com/irishartists/james-malton.php|edition=Library Ireland online}} * {{cite book | first = Trevor |last = White | title = Malton's Views of Dublin: The Story of a Georgian City | publisher = Martello Publishing | date = 2021 | place = Dublin | isbn = 9781999896843}} * {{cite web|url = https://www.adams.ie/74808/JAMES-MALTON-1761-1803-A-set-of-twenty-five-views-of-Dublin-in-hand-coloured-aquatints-A-Picturesque-and-Descriptive-view-of-the-City-of-Dublin-Frames-30-x-42-5cm-James-Malton-is-thought-to-have?Itemid=&view=lot_detail| website = adams.ie | title = Lot 134 - James Malton (1761-1803) - Set of twenty-five views of Dublin in hand coloured aquatints | accessdate = 24 November 2022 | date = 2017 | ref = {{harvid|Adams|2017}} }} {{refend}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Malton, James}} Category:1761 births Category:1803 deaths Category:Architectural drafters Category:18th-century Irish painters Category:18th-century Irish male artists Category:Irish male painters Category:18th-century Irish engravers Category:Irish emigrants to Kingdom of Great Britain Category:Artists from County Dublin