Details of Sculptor

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Surname	Brookshaw	Alternative Surname
First Name	George	Initial of Surname	B
Year of Birth/Baptism	1751	Flourished
Year of Death	1823
Biographical Details	Brookshaw exhibited six works, including ‘A sacrifice to Cupid; a frieze for a chimneypiece’, at the Free Society of Artists in 1780 and is described as ‘Sculptor, etc’ by Graves. He was not however a sculptor but a cabinet maker who specialised in furniture and chimneypieces, decorated with elaborately painted wood, marble and copper panels. He went out of business in the mid-1790s but re-emerged as an author and illustrator of painting manuals and horticultural works in the early years of the 19th century. He is thought to have spent the intervening decade working as a flower painter under the assumed name of George Brown, perhaps because his reputation was damaged by a financial or sexual scandal. Literary References: Graves 1907, 41; Gunnis 1968, 63; Wood 1991 (1), 301-6; Wood 1991 (2), 383-97