Quick Facts
Biography
James Mitan (1776–1822) was an English engraver.
Life
He was born in London on 13 February 1776, and educated by his father until the age of ten, when he attended King's Academy, Chapel St, Soho for two years. In 1790 he was articled to a writing engraver named Vincent; but obtained instruction from John Samuel Agar and Thomas Cheesman, studied in the schools of the Royal Academy, and made copies of Francesco Bartolozzi's tickets. His articles expired in 1797.
Mitan died of paralysis at 63 Warren Street, Fitzroy Square, London, on 16 August 1822, leaving a wife and family.
Works
Mitan became a line engraver, mainly of book illustrations; he usually worked for other engravers, so that plates bearing his name are not numerous. He worked on:
- Elizabeth Inchbald's British Theatre 1806-9;
- John Sharpe's British Poets and British Classics;
- Bannatyne's edition of Shakespeare;
- Thomas Moore's Irish National Airs (after Thomas Stothard), 1818;
- Thomas Frognall Dibdin's Bibliographical Tour through France and Germany, 1821, and Ædes Althorpianæ, 1822; and
- Charles Jervas's translation of Don Quixote (after Robert Smirke), 1825.
A set of fifty-six small plates of natural history engraved by Mitan, perhaps from his own designs, was published in 1822. Between 1802 and 1805 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a series of compositions illustrating George Moore's gothic novel Theodosius de Zulvin, and in 1818 a design for a national memorial of the battle of Waterloo. In 1818 he also made a design, eighteen feet long, for a chain bridge over the River Mersey. Mitan worked for the Admiralty and the Freemasons. A plate of Charles Robert Leslie's 'Anne Page and Slender,' which Mitan left unfinished, was completed by Francis Engleheart and published in 1823.
His students included his brother Samuel Mitan, the brothers William Finden and Edward Francis Finden, and Alfred Robert Freebairn.
Family
Samuel Mitan (1786–1843) was the brother and pupil of James Mitan, and engraver in the same style. He made plates for Robert Batty's French Scenery, 1822, and was employed by Rudolph Ackermann. He became a member of the Artists' Annuity Fund in 1810, and died at the Polygon, Somers Town, 3 June 1843.
While the Dictionary of National Biography states that nothing is known of his family, it appears that James & Samuel (with sisters Maria & Frances) were children of (Tobias) William Mitan (1744-1809) & Elizabeth (née Jenison) (c.1749-1813) and were a quite prominent Catholic family. Tobias' father William (c.1720-1802) was probably born in Yorkshire.