Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sullivan, Luke
SULLIVAN, LUKE (d. 1771), engraver and miniature-painter, was born in co. Louth, his father being a groom in the service of the Duke of Beaufort. Showing artistic talent, he was enabled by the duke's patronage to obtain instruction, and Strutt states that he became a pupil of Thomas Major [q. v.]; but he was certainly Major's senior, and it is more probable that they were fellow-students under the French engraver Le Bas, whose style that of Sullivan much resembles. His earliest work was a view of the battle of Culloden (after A. Heckel, 1746), and soon afterwards he was engaged as an assistant by Hogarth, for whom he engraved the celebrated plate of the ‘March to Finchley,’ published in 1750; also his ‘Paul before Felix,’ 1752, and his frontispiece to Kirby's ‘Perspective,’ 1754. Subsequently Sullivan engraved a fine plate of the ‘Temptation of St. Antony’ (after D. Teniers), which he dedicated to the Duke of Beaufort. In 1759 he published a set of six views of noblemen's seats, viz. Oatlands, Wilton, Ditchley, Cliefden, Esher, and Woburn—all drawn and engraved by himself. Sullivan practised miniature-painting with considerable ability, and from 1764 to 1770 exhibited portraits with the Incorporated Society, of which he was a director. He led a disreputable life, and died at the White Bear tavern in Piccadilly early in 1771.
[Strutt's Dict. of Engravers; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dodd's manuscript Hist. of English Engravers in Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 33405.]