Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pond, Arthur
POND, ARTHUR (1705?–1758), painter and engraver, born about 1705, was educated in London, and made a short sojourn in Rome for purposes of studying art in company with the sculptor Roubiliac. He became a successful portrait-painter. The most notable of his numerous original portraits are those of Alexander Pope, William, duke of Cumberland, and Peg Woffington; the last is in the National Portrait Gallery. Pond was also a prolific etcher, and an industrious worker in various mixed processes of engraving by means of which he imitated or reproduced the works of masters such as Rembrandt, Raphael, Salvator Rosa, Parmigiano, Caravaggio, and the Poussins. In 1734–5 he published a series of his plates under the title ‘Imitations of the Italian Masters.’ He also collaborated with George Knapton in the publication of the ‘Heads of Illustrious Persons,’ after Houbraken and Vertue, with lives by Dr. Birch (London, 1743–52), and engraved sixty-eight plates for a collection of ninety-five reproductions from drawings by famous masters, in which Knapton was again his colleague. Another of his productions was a series of twenty-five caricatures after the Cavaliere Ghezzi, republished in 1823 and 1832 as ‘Eccentric Characters.’ He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1752, and died in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 9 Sept. 1758. His collection of drawings by the old masters was sold the following year, and realised over fourteen hundred pounds. An anonymous etched portrait of Pond is mentioned by Bromley.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Gent. Mag. 1758, p. 452; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. p. 1911.]