Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Schweickhardt, Heinrich Wilhelm
SCHWEICKHARDT, HEINRICH WILHELM (1746–1797), landscape-painter, who is believed to have been of Dutch descent, was born in Brandenburg in 1746. He studied at The Hague under Girolamo Lapis, an Italian painter, and resided there until the end of 1786, when troubles arose in the Low Countries, and he left Holland and came to London. He gained a considerable reputation by his landscapes, especially the winter scenes, in which he introduced cattle and figures. He painted also sea-pieces and a few portraits, and made some excellent drawings in pen and ink, in bistre, and in chalk. He likewise etched some clever plates of animals. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1788 to 1796, and at the Society of Artists in 1790. Schweickhardt died in Belgrave Place, Pimlico, London, on 8 July 1797. He left a son, Leonardus Schweickhardt, who engraved several plates, as well as many maps, among which were those for Eckhoff's ‘Atlas of Friesland,’ published in 1850. He died at The Hague in January 1862, in his seventy-ninth year. Schweickhardt's daughter Katharina Wilhelmina, who possessed much talent as an artist, and still more as a poetess, became in 1797 the second wife of the Dutch poet Willem Bilderdijk. She was born at The Hague on 3 July 1777, and died at Haarlem on 16 April 1830.
[Edwards's Anecdotes of Painters, 1808, p. 241; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School, 1878; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves and Armstrong, 1886–9, ii. 481; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1788–96; Nagler's Neues allgemeines Künstler-Lexicon, xvi. 131; Van der Aa's Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden, 1852–78, xvii. 573; Immerzeel's Levens en Werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche Kunstschilders, &c., 1842–3; Kramm's Levens en Werken der Hollandsche en Vlaamsche Kunstschilders, &c., 1857–64.]