Matthew Pilkington was the author of a standard text on painters, what would become known as Pilkington's Dictionary.

Biography

Pilkington was born in 1701 at Ballyboy

Ballyboy

Ballyboy or Ballaboy is a village in County Offaly, Ireland. It is about two kilometres east of Kilcormac.Although now a small village of several houses, a pub and a primary school, it was an important and thriving hub in the Middle Ages. During this era, the town had a hat and glove factory, a...

, King's County, Ireland, wrote poetry, studied to be a minister at Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

, married Laetitia

Laetitia Pilkington

Laetitia Pilkington was a celebrated Anglo-Irish poet and important source of information on the early 18th century. Her Memoirs are the source of much of what is known of the personalities and habits of Jonathan Swift and others.Laetitia was born of two distinguished families...

, moved to London, and became associated with Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...

 and Henry Walpole

Henry Walpole

-Early life:He was born at Docking, Norfolk, in 1558, the eldest son of Christopher Walpole, by Margery, heiress of Richard Beckham of Narford, and was educated at Norwich School, Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Gray's Inn. Converted to Roman Catholicism by the death of Saint Edmund Campion, he went by...

. The fractious relations with Mrs. Pilkington were published. He took an interest in historical painting and published a collection of biographies as The Gentleman's and Connoisseur's Dictionary of Painters.

His work was widely published through many editions, being renamed A Dictionary of Painters in the 1805 and 1810 versions of Henry Fuseli

Henry Fuseli

Henry Fuseli was a British painter, draughtsman, and writer on art, of Swiss origin.-Biography:...

, before becoming commonly known in the nineteenth century as Pilkington's Dictionary. The 1857 edition is available for free download at http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/matthew-pilkington.shtml

Pilkington's contribution to Rapin de Thoyras' Impartial History (1784) has been described as, "an extreme falsification of his life." He died in 1774 in Dublin.