Details of Sculptor

Surname

Pingo

Alternative Surname

First Name

Lewis

Initial of Surname

P

Year of Birth/Baptism

1743

Flourished

Year of Death

1830

Biographical Details

He was a medallist who made preliminary models in wax. The fourth son of the medallist Thomas Pingo (1714-1776), he was baptized on 26 July 1743 at St Andrew, Holborn. He attended William Shipley's drawing school and drew in the Duke of Richmond's cast gallery before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1770. He was awarded several Society of Arts premiums for medal-making, gem-engraving, wax modelling, and drawing between 1756 and 1771 and exhibited medals and models at the Society of Artists and the Free Society between 1761 and 1782.
Pingo produced more than 15 portrait medals, including images of David Garrick (1772) and Captain James Cook (1783) and he provided prize medals for the Royal Humane Society (1776) and the Board of Admiralty (1796). He succeeded his father as third engraver at the Mint in 1776 and was appointed chief engraver in 1780. He and his brother John Pingo (1738-1827) began trading under their joint names around the time of their father's death, when they inherited his medal dies. A trade label in the British Museum (P&D) refers to ‘J & L Pingo, Engravers to His Majesty’ and gives their address as 101 Gray’s Inn Lane (repr Eimer 1998, 26). They continued to produce medals until the mid-1790s. Lewis retired from his post as chief engraver at the Mint in 1815 and subsequently moved to Grove Lane, Camberwell, Surrey, where he died on 26 August 1830.
Gunnis erroneously states that a sculptor called Pingo was employed as a modeller by Josiah Wedgwood, citing Meteyard as his source. This mistake originated in the misreading of the word ‘medal’ for ‘model’ in an invoice from Thomas Pingo in the Wedgwood archives. Another member of the family, Walter Pingo, a customs officer, also had business connections with Wedgwood. It was his wife who sought the manufacturer’s assistance in February 1800, her husband having ‘long laboured under a severe illness’ (Wedgwood/Pingo, L1/24, Theodosia Pingo to Wedgwood and Co).
Literary References: Dossie 1782, 441; Meteyard I, 1866, 441-2; Gunnis 1968, 305; Pyke 1973, 107; Pyke 1981, 33; Eimer 1998, passim (includes an illustrated catalogue of the family's works); ODNB (Eimer); JKB 2009, 49