{{Short description|English painter (1702–1772)}} {{Use British English|date=January 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = Samuel Scott | image = Samuel Scott by Thomas Hudson.jpg | image_upright = 0.9 | caption = ''Portrait of Samuel Scott'' by Thomas Hudson, {{circa|1733}} | birth_date = {{circa|1702}} | birth_place = London, England | death_date = 12 October 1772 (aged 69–70) | death_place = Bath, Somerset | children = 1 }}

'''Samuel Scott''' ({{circa|1702}} – 12 October 1772) was an English painter who specialised in landscape painting and marine art.<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Scott, Samuel|volume=51|pages=66–7}}</ref>

==Early life== Scott was born in London, and began painting around 1720.{{citation needed|date=July 2012}} Nothing is known of his artistic training.<ref>Manners and Morals,: p 114</ref> He started as a maritime artist, painting men-of-war and other ships on calm seas<ref name=oppe>{{cite book|first1=Anne|last1= Lyles|first2= Robin|last2= Hamlyn|title= English Watercolours from the Oppé Collection|publisher=Tate Gallery|location=London|year=1997|page=54}}</ref> in the style of Willem van de Velde,<ref>Manners and Morals, p 246</ref> many of whose drawings he owned.<ref name=oppe/> He also painted a set of six pictures of settlements owned by the East India Company in collaboration with George Lambert. Scott painted the ships, Lambert the buildings and landscape. Writing in 1733, George Vertue included Scott among London's "most elevated men in art".<ref name=oppe/> Around this time he posed for the ''Portrait of Samuel Scott'' by Thomas Hudson.

From 27 to 31 May 1732, he made a celebrated "Five days' Peregrination" to the Medway estuary and the Isle of Sheppey in company with William Hogarth and others.<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3662760/Hogarth-and-the-lads-go-out-on-the-town.html Five Days' peregrination] (Daily Telegraph, 27 January 2007).</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-first=Charles |editor-last=Mitchell |title=Hogarth's Peregrination |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1952 }}</ref> An account of their trip was written by Ebenezer Forrest and eventually published in 1782, with engravings taken from drawings by Hogarth and Scott.

In the early 1740s, Scott began making sketches of London, especially of the new Westminster Bridge, then under construction. When, following the arrival of Canaletto in London in 1746, paintings of views of the city became fashionable, he began working the sketches up into oil paintings.<ref name=oppe/> He painted at least eleven versions of a view of the Old London Bridge, the earliest dating from 1747. Scott continued to paint copies of it after 1757, when the houses lining the bridge, shown in the painting, had been demolished. The London Bridge pictures were often painted as one of a pair, with an image of the Tower of London or Westminster Bridge as a pendant.<ref>Manners and Morals,: p 188</ref>

==Later life== Between 1761 and 1771, he exhibited three works at the Society of Artists, one at the Free Society of artists, and one, ''The Thames and the Tower of London'', at the Royal Academy's Exhibition of 1771. He was one of the early draughtsmen in watercolours, and was called the father of English watercolour, but his chief works were in oil. Some of Scott's most celebrated paintings were his depictions of scenes during the War of Jenkins' Ear. Scott earned a considerable reputation for his shore and river scenes, which were well-drawn and painted, and enlivened with figures. Horace Walpole, who had a large collection of his works, said that they "will charm in every age" and that "if he was second to Vandeveldt in sea pieces, he excelled him in variety." His views of London Bridge, the Custom-house Quay, and other pictures of the Thames earned him the name "the English Canaletto".

Scott lived at number 2 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, overlooking the Piazza at Covent Garden, from 1747 to 1758.<ref name=surv>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=46126 "Henrietta Street and Maiden Lane Area: Henrietta Street"], ''Survey of London: Volume 36'', 1970, pp. 230-239. Date accessed: 29 September 2014.</ref> He moved to Twickenham in 1758, and then to Ludlow, where his daughter was living,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.twickenham-museum.org.uk/detail.asp?ContentID=166|title=Samuel Scott|publisher=Twickenham Museum|accessdate=3 July 2012}}</ref> before retiring to Bath, where he died in Walcot Street, of gout, on 12 October 1772, leaving one daughter. His collection was sold by Langford in January 1773.

William Marlow (1740&ndash;1813) and the animal painter Sawrey Gilpin (1733&ndash;1807) were his pupils.<ref name=oppe/> Marlow produced similar scenes of the Thames to Scott, and later acquired his former villa at Twickenham.

==Gallery== <gallery mode="packed" heights="200"> File:Samuel Scott - Departure from England of Francis, Duke of Lorraine, 1731 - WGA21090.jpg|''Departure from England of Francis, Duke of Lorraine'', 1732 File:Samuel Scott - A Danish Timber Bark Getting Under Way.jpg|''A Danish Timber Bark Getting Under Way'', 1736 File:Samuel Scott - Shipping off Dover - Google Art Project.jpg|''Shipping off Dover'', 1738 File:The Capture of Puerto Bello, 21 November 1739 RMG BHC0354.tiff|''The Capture of Puerto Bello'', 1740 File:Samuel scott view of the thames at wapping082809).jpg|''The Thames at Wapping'', c.1740 File:Samuel Scott - The Building of Westminster Bridge - Google Art Project.jpg|''The Building of Westminster Bridge'', 1742 File:Wager's Action off Cartagena 28 May 1708.jpg|''Wager's Action off Cartagena'', {{circa|1747}} File:Samuel Scott - Vice Admiral Sir George Anson's Victory off Cape Finisterre - Google Art Project.jpg|''Lord Anson's Victory off Cape Finisterre'', 1749 File:Samuel Scott - Arches of Westminster Bridge - Google Art Project.jpg|''An Arch of Westminster Bridge'', 1750 File:Samuel Scott (c.1702-1772) - Horse Guards Parade - 16811 - Government Art Collection.jpg|''Horse Guards Parade'', 1755 File:A Thames Wharf (painting).jpeg|''A Thames Wharf'', 1757 File:Samuel Scott, Old London Bridge.jpg|''Old London Bridge'', 1758 File:A View of Alexander Pope's Villa, Twickenham, on the Banks of the Thames by Samuel Scott, RA.jpg|''A View of Alexander Pope's Villa, Twickenham'', 1759 File:Samuel Scott - The Thames at Twickenham - Google Art Project.jpg|''The Thames at Twickenham'', c.1760 File:Samuel Scott, Le pont de Blackfriars en construction, Blicking Hall, Norwich.jpg|''The Construction of Blackfriars Bridge'', c.1763 File:French Firerafts Attacking the British Fleet off Quebec, 28 June 1759 RMG BHC0393.tiff|''French Firerafts Attacking the British Fleet off Quebec'', 1767 File:Samuel Scott (c.1702-1772) - The Pool of London - 4467 - Guildhall Art Gallery.jpg|''The Pool of London'', 1769 File:Samuel Scott - The Thames and the Tower of London Supposedly on the King's Birthday - Google Art Project.jpg|''The Thames and the Tower of London'', 1771 </gallery>

==References and sources== ;References {{reflist|2}}

;Sources *{{cite book |title=Manners and Morals: Hogarth and British Painting1700–1760|type=Exhibition catalogue |year=1987 |publisher=Tate Gallery |location=London}}

==External links== {{commons category|Samuel Scott}} *{{Art UK bio}} *[http://rgssamachupicchu.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/action-off-cartagena.html Action of Cartagena, 1708] *[http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/scott_samuel.html Samuel Scott online] (ArtCyclopedia) *[http://www.cichw1.net/pmscott.html Peter Monamy & Samuel Scott] *[http://www.nmm.ac.uk/mag/pages/mnuInDepth/Biography.cfm?biog=182 Scott biography + paintings] (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London) *[http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=480&page=1 Scott's paintings] (Tate Gallery, London) *[http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5309078 A view of Covent garden Piazza] (Christie's) *[http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/european_paintings/the_building_of_westminster_bridge_samuel_scott/objectview.aspx?collID=11&OID=110002096 The building of Westminster Bridge] (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York )

{{Samuel Scott (painter)}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Samuel}} Category:1702 births Category:1772 deaths Category:18th-century English male artists Category:British marine artists Category:English landscape painters Category:English watercolourists Category:Painters from London