Thomas Beach (painter)

[1] Beach was born at Milton Abbas, Dorset in 1738, and showed a strong predilection for art from an early age.

In 1760, under the patronage of Lord Dorchester's family, he became a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, while at the same time studying at the St. Martin's Lane Academy.

He depicted her again later in 1782, in one of his more ambitious works, an allegorical portrait inspired by Milton's Il Penseroso, in which she represented the personification of Melancholy.

[2] In 1787 he painted Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble in the Dagger Scene in Macbeth, of which the actress wrote, "My brother's head is the finest I have ever seen, and the likest of the two".

[1] Several of Beach's portraits were engraved in mezzotint by William Dickinson, Valentine Green, Richard Houston, and John Jones.