Sir John Baptist Medina or John Baptiste de Medina (1659 – 5 October 1710) was an artist of Flemish

Flemish people

The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...

-Spanish origin who worked in England and Scotland, mostly as a portrait painter, though he was also the first illustrator of Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

by John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

 in 1688.

Life and portrait-painting

Medina was the son of a Spanish army captain posted to Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

, where he was born and later trained by François Duchatel

François Duchatel

François Duchatel or Du Chastel, a Flemish painter, born at Brussels in 1616, is said to have been a pupil of David Teniers the younger, whose style he followed in some of his pictures, representing village festivals; but he is more known for his small family portraits and conversations in the...

, before coming to London in 1686 and setting up his studio in Drury Lane

Drury Lane

Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....

. Even in London he seems to have specialized in Scottish sitters, and in either 1688–89 or 1694 he moved to Edinburgh, where he remained for the rest of his life. He was encouraged and sponsored by the Earl of Melville

George Melville, 1st Earl of Melville

George Melville, 1st Earl of Melville was a Scots aristocrat and statesman during the reigns of William and Mary.In 1643, he succeeded his father as Lord Melville.-Career:...

, who he painted in London. From 1689 Melville, like many of Medina's subjects a strong Whig, was Secretary of State for Scotland, effectively running the country for the King in London. With little competition, Medina was the most prominent Scottish portraitist for the rest of his life, charging £5 for a head and £10 for a half-length.

His best known works are a group of about 30 oval bust-lengths, including a self-portrait, in Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh; these are invariably compared to the Kit Cat Club series in London by Sir Godfrey Kneller

Godfrey Kneller

Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet was the leading portrait painter in England during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and was court painter to British monarchs from Charles II to George I...

. His style follows the conventions of Kneller, but his portraits are often more relaxed and informal, favouring relatively bright blues and rose-reds in the clothing, and dark backgrounds. The quality of the painting can vary considerably, probably reflecting the use of his assistants. In 1706 he was knighted, one of the last batch of Scottish knights to be created before the Acts of Union 1707

Acts of Union 1707

The Acts of Union were two Parliamentary Acts - the Union with Scotland Act passed in 1706 by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland - which put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706,...

. Medina died at Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 in 1710. He trained his son and the more talented William Aikman

William Aikman (painter)

William Aikman was a Scottish portrait-painter.-Life and career:Aikman was the son of William Aikman, of Cairney. His father intended that he should follow the law, and gave him an education suitable to these views; but the strong predilection of the son to the fine arts induced him to attach...

, the leading Scottish portrait-painter of the next generation.

The National Gallery of Scotland

National Gallery of Scotland

The National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is the national art gallery of Scotland. An elaborate neoclassical edifice, it stands on The Mound, between the two sections of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens...

 has a representative seven works, including another self-portrait, and most of his paintings remain in Scotland — there are none, for example, in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Illustrations to Paradise Lost

Although he appears to have painted other types of work than portraits, the only works other than portraits known to survive are his eight (out of a total of twelve plates prefacing each book of the poem) engraved book illustrations for the fourth edition, the first to be illustrated, of Paradise Lost by John Milton, published in London by Jacob Tonson

Jacob Tonson

Jacob Tonson, sometimes referred to as Jacob Tonson the elder was an 18th-century English bookseller and publisher....

 in 1688. Though they have been described, perhaps rather unfairly, as "stiff and archaic", these follow Milton's text carefully, unlike those of the artists used for the other prints, and usually include several different episodes in each illustration. Appropriately, Medina drew on traditional Biblical iconography, carefully and imaginatively adapting it to fit Milton's text. Medina's designs preface Books 3 and 5 to 11; the plates were engraved from his designs by a specialist, Michael Burghers

Michael Burghers

Michael Burghers was an illustrator and artist of the 17th century; born around 1647-48, he died in 1727.He was commissioned to create maps, estate plans, and illustrations of stately houses, by the English aristocracy of that period...

 (also Burgese or Burgess), a Flemish engraver working in Oxford, who signed all but one plate as the engraver. They were still being used, in rather worn-out condition, for the sixth edition of 1695.

The exact authorship of some plates is a matter of dispute. Purely based on the interpretation of a hand-written note attributed to Horace Walpole in the New York City Public Library copy of the book, Henry Aldrich

Henry Aldrich

Henry Aldrich was an English theologian and philosopher.-Life:Aldrich was educated at Westminster School under Dr Richard Busby. In 1662, he entered Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1689 was made Dean in succession to the Roman Catholic John Massey, who had fled to the Continent. In 1692, he...

, an Oxford don of diverse talents, but not otherwise known as an artist, has been identified as the unknown artist of some plates, usually Books I, II and XII. Bernard Lens II

Bernard Lens II

Bernard Lens II was an English engraver, pioneer of mezzotint technique, and publisher.Bernard Lens II was the son of the first Bernard Lens, "an obscure painter" of Dutch origin...

, otherwise known as a painter of enamels, is signed as the artist for Book IV, and Medina is signed as the artist for one more plate than some say would seem likely to be his on stylistic grounds.

Further reading

• Marshall, Rosalind K. John de Medina, 1659-1710. Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland, 1988 (32pp) ISBN: 090314879X 0-903148-79-X