Collection: Louis Haghe
Louis Haghe (17 March 1806 – 9 March 1885) was a lithographer and watercolourist from the Netherlands and then the United Kingdom. His father and grandfather had practised as architects. Training in his teens in watercolour painting, he found work in the relatively new art of lithography when the first press was set up in Tournai. He visited England to find work, and settled there permanently in 1823. Together with William Day (1797–1845), around 1830 he formed the partnership Day & Haghe, which became the most famous early Victorian firm of lithographic printing in London.
Day and Haghe created and printed lithographs dealing with a wide range of subjects, such as hunting scenes, architecture, topographical views and genre depictions. They pioneered the new techniques for chromolithography as well as hand-tinted lithographs. After William's death in 1845, the firm became known as 'Day & Son'.
They were pioneers in developing the medium of the colour lithograph. In 1838, Day and Haghe were appointed 'Lithographers to the Queen'. Possibly his most ambitious project was providing 250 images for David Roberts' The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia printed between 1842 and 1849. Roberts praised his skill and artistry, although John Ruskin called it 'forced'.
He belongs to the Romanticism movement.
