Victorian artist in spotlight
A new information board has been established in honour of a significant 19th century resident of Staffordshire.
Lichfield’s Rev John Louis Petit is renowned as a watercolour artist and was one of the leading writers and speakers of the day on the subject of ecclesiastical architecture.
He was also a curate at St Michael’s Church, where he is buried, from 1825 to 1828 and his family lived in Tamworth Street from 1823. He died in 1868.
Rev Petit’s tomb, also the last resting place of his two brothers and the four of his seven sisters, features a Latin inscription dedicated to him, the translation of which can be found at revpetit.com/information-boards/ or by scanning the QR code on the information board in the churchyard.
Dr Trevor James, secretary of the Mid-Trent and Mercia Branch of the Historical Association and currently the editor of its membership journal “The Historian”, said: “Albeit untrained, he was an accomplished water-colourist, in the impressionist tradition.
"He did not sell any of his water-colours and only a few were exhibited in his lifetime but posthumous evidence has emerged which reveals that, between the 1820s and his death in 1868, he produced about 14,000 water-colours and sketches.
“By 1834 he ceased full-time ministry and devoted himself to his painting.”
