Worlidge, Thomas

, an artist of considerable merit, was a native of England, born in 1700, and for the greater part of his life painted portraits in miniature: he afterwards, with worse success, performed them in oil; but at last acquired reputation and money by etchings, in the manner of Rembrandt, which proved to be a very easy task, by the numbers of men who have counterfeited that master so as to deceive all those who did not know his works. Worlidge’s imitations and his heads in black-lead have grown astonishingly into fashion. His best, piece is the whole-length of sir John Astley, copied from Rembrandt, and his copy of the hundred Guilder print; but his print of the theatre at Oxford and the act there, and his statue of lady Pomfret’s Cicero, are very poor performances. His last work was a book of gems from the antique. He died at Hammersmith, Sept. 23, 1766, aged sixty-six. ²