BARTHOLOMEW, Valentine (1799-1879) — London
Artist, draughtsman, drawing-master & lithographer. Drew on stone John Hogg, Map of the vicinity of Stockton on Tees ca.1850, apparently for the London Magazine, lithographed by Charles Joseph Hullmandel (see BME 2011). Lauded as “the prince of flower-painters” (Morning Post, 30th April 1845), he was from 1837 Flower Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria.
© National Portrait Gallery, London NPG x38974
Born 18 Jan 1799 at 25 Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell, London, and baptised 14 Feb 1799 at St. Sepulchre, the son of Josiah Bartholomew (1766-1847), a watchmaker, and his wife, Betsy Benson (1771-1810), who married in 1792. Alfred Bartholomew (1801-1845), the architect, was his younger brother. Largely self-taught. Between 1821-1827 he worked for and lived with the lithographer Charles Joseph Hullmandel (see BME 2011), whose sister Evelina Adelaide Charlotte Hullmandel (1787–1839) he married (1) at St. James Westminster 22 Dec 1827 — he had been granted a patent for improvements in lampshades earlier that year. The couple were robbed of property — miniatures, silk shawls, work-boxes, etc., worth some £100 by some of their servants in 1828 (Morning Chronicle, 14 Mar 1828, and elsewhere). After her death, he married (2) Ann Charlotte Turnbull, née Fayermann, (1800-1862), novelist, poet, song-writer and well-known portrait & miniature painter, the widow of the composer Walter Turnbull, at All Souls Marylebone 30 Jul 1840. Exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists and elsewhere 1826-1876 and trained a considerable number of highly gifted pupils. He died in Charlotte Street 21 Mar 1879 and is buried at Highgate Cemetery alongside his second wife. His personal estate was valued at under £14,000. There are two photographic portraits of Bartholomew in NPG, and a number of insurance policies, items of correspondence, etc., in NA. The London bookbinder Valentine Bartholomew (b.1825?), who emigrated to the United States was presumably related, but not a son.
51 Great Marlborough Street — 1826-1827
16 Foley Place, Marylebone — 1828-1842
23 Charlotte Street, Portland Place — 1842-1879
— 3 Gray’s Inn Place — 1860-1861
BNA. Bryan. Census 1851-1871. Graves (1901) (1912). Johnson (1975). NA. NPG. ODNB.