PITTS, WILLIAM, was born in London in 1790, and brought up by his father to his own business, that of an engraver. At the age of nineteen he was married, and was employed by Flaxman in chasing the shield of Achilles. Pitts was also employed on the Wellington shield, which was executed under the immediate inspection of Stothard. Afterwards Pitts engraved two series of designs from Virgil and Ossian. William Pitts was an unassuming artist, and altogether unskilled in winning his way to popularity and fortune. How far this had any reason in impelling him to the fatal deed which he is known to have committed, it is difficult to judge. He destroyed himself with poison on the 16th of April 1840.
The following is a list of his chief productions, arranged according to their dates:—"The Deluge," 1823; "Samson Slaying the Lion," the "Creation of Eve," and "Herod's Cruelty," 1824; "A Chariot Race," "Pleiades," and "Shield of Æneas," 1828; the "Rape of Proserpine," and the "Nuptials of Perithous," 1824; the "Brunswick Shield," 1830; the "Apotheoses of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton," 1831; the "Shield of Hercules," 1834; a long bas-relief or frieze of all the English sovereigns from the Conquest, 1837; a design for a masonic trophy, 1839; the "Triumph of Ceres," 1840; the "Kemble Tribute," and a vase executed for her Majesty as a sponsal present by her, of exquisite design as to its general form, and poetically embellished with groups in relief signifying Birth, Infancy, Instruction, Education, and Love.