Unknown photographer, Daniel Ridgway-Knight in his glass studio in Poissy, France (1892)
His parents were Quakers where he was born in Philadelphia,
Pennyslvania. It was a home where you spoke with “thees” and “thous”, with
simple manners and inflexible rules. There was a ban on pictures and music and
every wall was bare. Daniel, after leaving school in Philadlephia, became an
apprentice in a wholesale hardware house. It was under this roof that Daniel
began fostering his love of copying in pen and ink engravings from books he
borrowed from the Franklin Institute Library. It took him six weeks to
complete, every evening. It was sold to his sister for twenty five cents and a
bunch of grapes as the story goes!
Daniel Ridgway Knight owes the start of his professional
career to his grandfather who loved looking at his drawings. One day he showed
a selection of them to a friend, who insisted on submitting them to dealers and
critics. The drawings made the rounds of Philadelphia, and were warmly praised.
Unfortunately, Daniel’s father did not agree with his own father and told his
son to give up this dream of becoming an artist for it is only a pursuit of
stupid fast living people. Thus, Daniel, gave up his apprenticeship and took
classes at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
One year was spent in that institution, working from the antique and
from life, and the first strictly professional work done was to execute a large
number of crayon portraits, life size, during his holidays at Chambersburg.
After another season spent at the Academy, Daniel’s father urged him to make
painting his life work. He went to Europe and took the best courses available.
His parents paid for the trip and he eventually settled in Paris, France, where
he entered Gleyre’s Atelier, the largest in Paris. He passed his exams and
became a member of the Ecole des Beaux
Arts. He spent three years of close study, drawing at the Beaux Arts and painting at Gleyre’s, and
then passed a winter in Rome studying at the British Academy, returning to
America with many portfolios.
Knight took a studio in his native city, Philadelphia,
painted portraits and genre pictures, and conducted a class of female students.
It was about this time he married Miss Rebecca Morris Webster and another study
period in Europe. He secured a number of orders for pictures from prominent
Philadelphians, and had the funding for extended residence abroad. He and his
young wife reached Paris in 1871, when the city was still suffering from the
effects of the Commune. Paris held little attraction for him and shortly after
the birth of his eldest son, in 1873, he moved with his family to Poissy, a
pretty, picturesque town on the banks of the Seine, where lived the great
French artist Meissonier. They soon became fast long time friends and Knight would
refer to him as Master. With his Master’s steady council, Knight remained in
Poissy painting large pictures of local scenery. Knight chose his models from
the peasant girls from the suburbs of Paris. He painted over 20 paintings in
rapid succession and were all exhibited at the Paris Salon. They all
represented scenes of Poissy and its neighboring villages.
Rolleboise Chateau, now a hotel!
As the number of canvases increased, Knight felt the need
for variety. He decided to move farther down the river, still keeping the
comfortable studios in his Poissy chateau, called Rolleboise, a tiny village
between Nancy and Vernon. He filled it with rare old furniture, tapestries and
bric a brac. Half of Rolleboise is located on the bank of the Seine and the
other half is on the hillside. He kept a glass studio here with a view of the
plains and woods.
Louis Aston Knight (son of Daniel Ridgway Knight)
Louis Aston Knight (1873-1948)
It is at Rolleboise that (Louis) Aston Knight, eldest son and also a
landscape painter, is a constant companion to his father and they both become
hermit artists. Mrs. Knight and younger son visit them now and then for days or
weeks at a time, and Aston and his father occasionally abandon their work for a
month’s residence at Poissy. “La Bergere
de Rolleboise,” was painted here and has become one of the most popular
paintings.
At the Paris Salon he was awarded an honorable mention and a
gold medal; at Munich he won a gold medal; at the Paris Universal Exhibition of
1889 he carried off the second medal; he was honored with the Cross of the
Legion of Honor in 1889 and the Cross of the Order of St. Michael of Bavaria in
1892. He was also awarded a Columbian Medal at Chicago in 1893; a second medal
at Antwerp and Grand Medal of Honor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at
Philadelphia.
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