Henry Tresham was born in about 1751. He received his first art instruction from W. Ennis, a pupil of
Robert West at the
Dublin Art School. He moved to England in 1775, but spent most of the next fourteen years in Rome. There he became a friend of the British painter,
Thomas Jones and the artist and dealer,
Gavin Hamilton. Like many other artists in Rome he also acted as a dealer, working with Gavin Hamilton and
Thomas Jenkins, and negotiating sales of antiquities to
Frederick Hervey and
John Campbell. He also acted as an intermediary between Campbell and the sculptor,
Antonio Canova: a pastel by
Hugh Douglas Hamilton of
Antonio Canova in his studio with Henry Tresham and a plaster model for Cupid and Psyche, showing a work commissioned by Campbell, is in the collection of the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Tresham returned to Britain in 1788. His reputation was gained primarily through large-scale
history paintings, somewhat similar in style to those of
Henry Fuseli. These were based on his travels to
Rome. is probably by
Thomas Holloway based on a painting by Henry Tresham for
David Hume's
History of England (1793–1806). In 1791 he was elected an Associate of the
Royal Academy, He was professor of painting at the Academy from 1807 to 1809. He was involved in several of the major history painting ventures of late 18th-century London, including
Robert Bowyer's History Gallery, the
Boydell Shakespeare Gallery and
Thomas Macklin's
Holy Bible. He died in 1814. ==References==