Name, year of birth 1711 and death 1787, occupation, from “Horneman Family History 1605 to 2006” CD, Chapter 4.0.

Full date and place of birth (19 February 1711) and death (25 July 1787) from:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Arthur_Devis

There were five Devis family artists:
http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_id=1813&inst_id=2
1. Arthur Devis (1711-1787),
2. Anthony Devis, (1729-1816) (Arthur’s half-brother),
3. Thomas Anthony Devis (1757-1810), son of Arthur
4. Arthur William Devis (1762-1822), son of Arthur
5. Robert Marris (1750-1827), son-in-law of Arthur

From 13-pager ex Julie Bourke (including spelling of text where an S is written F) [Julie is the great-great-granddaughter of Emma Frances Devis b. 1814]:
General Evening Post Thursday 26 July 1787 also London Chronicle Thurs 26 July 1787.
DEATH
On Wednefday laft at Brighthelmftone, Arthur Devis Esq., in Sussex

Arthur Devis
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Devis
Arthur Devis (born 19 February 1712 in Preston, died 25 July 1787 in Brighton ) is an English painter best known for his group portraits called conversation pieces .
He was a pupil and assistant to the Flemish painter Peter Tillemans, from 1745 he had a studio at Great Queen Street in London . He created small conversation pieces and classic portraits. The principals were mostly among the wealthy London merchants and landlords in Lancashire . His work is characterized by the artificial poses of portraits that often resemble puppets, and delicate and subtle background treatment. During the life of the artist did not gain much publicity, his work was picked as old fashioned, and was quickly forgotten. It was only in the 1930's that Devis's work gained considerable popularity among art collectors. Also for historians, the painter's output proved to be a valuable research material because he portrayed portraits in their own homes and surroundings.
Arthur Devis married in 1742 with Elizabeth Faulkner, the marriage had 22 children, from which up to age six only mature. The two sons of Thomas Anthony Devis (1757-1810) and Arthur William Devis (1762-1822) also became painters. Also Arthur's half brother, Anthony Devis (1762-1816), was involved in art and was a landscapesist .
The largest collection of Arthur Devis' works is at the Art Gallery in Preston.

Arthur Devis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Devis_(1712–1787)
Arthur Devis was born in Preston, Lancashire, the eldest son of Anthony Devis. His father, who was a member of the town council as well as a carpenter and a bookseller, may have been responsible for introducing Devis to the Flemish painter Peter Tillemans, who became his teacher. During the early 1730s, Devis is known to have been an assistant in Tillemans's studio, apparently copying views of Italy by artists such as Pannini and Marco Ricci. Not surprisingly, the first work Devis painted on commission, a depiction of a house within its park, also shows his interest in landscape (Hoghton Towers from Duxon Hill, Lancashire, 1735; Private collection). By 1737, however, he had become a portrait painter. In 1745, he established a studio in Great Queen Street, London, by which time he had acquired a considerable artistic reputation.

Devis received his greatest number of commissions for portraits between 1748 and 1758. Many of the pictures show the sitters in landscapes. Although portrayed with what seems like precise topographical detail, these views, like all but one of the interiors, were mostly invented by Devis. The exception is the neo-Gothic library at Arbury Hall shown in Devis's portrait of Sir Roger Newdigate, who holds the plan for the room on his knee.

During the 1760s, Devis's success as a portrait painter diminished sharply. Although he exhibited works at the new Free Society of Artists between 1761 and 1775 and in 1780, becoming its president in 1768, his style seemed old-fashioned compared to portraits by important contemporary artists such as Joshua Reynolds and Johann Zoffany. Art reviewers and observers like Horace Walpole were very critical of Devis's pictures. During the 1770s and 1780s, he seems to have made his living by restoring pictures. His most prominent job, done between 1777 and 1778, was restoring Sir James Thornhill's paintings in the Painted Hall in the old Royal Hospital for Seamen, Greenwich (now the Old Royal Naval College). Devis retired to Brighton in 1783 and died there in 1787. Devis is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary Paddington, London.

Devis married Elizabeth Faulkner (1719–1788) at St Katharine's by the Tower, London, on 20 July 1742. They had twenty-two children, only six of whom survived past infancy. Two, Thomas Anthony Devis (1757–1810) and Arthur William Devis (1762–1822), became painters. One, Ellin Devis (1746-1820), was a schoolmistress and author of the popular grammar The Accidence (1775). Devis's half-brother Anthony Devis (1729–1816) also was a painter.
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See a Conversation with Arthur Devis posted on the web on 11 March 2017:
https://thegardenstrustblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/...on-with-arthur-devis

Extracts reproduced here:
In the early 18thc a style of portraiture developed, known as the conversation piece, which often depicted the sitter or sitters outside in a garden or parkland setting.

The greatest exponent of this style was Arthur Devis, who painted the rising gentry and professional classes of Georgian England at ease in and around their own homes and estates.

Given that we are used to using paintings of gardens and landscapes as good evidence for the appearance of a site when the picture was undertaken, can these conversation piece portraits be trusted to give us a truthful idea of the 18thc garden?...

Arthur Devis was born in Preston in 1712 and as a young man was taught by the sporting and topographical landscape artist Peter Tillemans. He would have learned by copying fashionable pictures, particularly classical Italian landscape paintings which were already beginning to influence architecture and garden design. However Arthur quickly developed his own style, more naive than romantic, the earliest known surviving piece being a birds-eye view of Hoghton Tower in Lancashire (1735) for which he was paid six guineas. A second early landscape, of the newly built Hornby Hall (1736), gives a touching insight into the formal garden there, with the owners being presented with a bouquet by their gardener to celebrate their moving in.

By 1742, Devis was in London where he married Elizabeth Faulkner and was soon living in Great Queen Street, in Covent Garden. The couple had 22 children although only six survived childhood.

However landscape soon took second place in his repertoire as he switched to portrait painting …but portrait painting with a difference. These were not the standard rather stuffy posed pictures which copied the style of court portraiture but in the comparatively new genre of the conversation piece. This was to become his speciality...
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Date of birth/christening is given as 12 February 1712 in the “Devis Family Tree” kindly shared by Julie Bourke (nee McColl) received in the post on 3 May 2017. This information is based on original research, including that of Wills, by Linda Burge and Julie Bourke. Linda is the great-great-granddaughter of Emma Frances Devis b. 1814.
Date and place of marriage from the “Devis Family Tree”.

Brian of nzolivers noted some confusion over the date of birth. Julie Bourke advises that, “the book Polite Society, Portraits of the English Country Gentleman and his Family Arthur Devis, It states he was born in Preston Lancashire 12 February 1712. He may have been christened on the 19th. Arthur died in Brighton 25 July 1787”.

“Arthur and Elisabeth had 22 children”, from Linda Burge received in a spreadsheet emailed on 8 July 2018. Linda is the x2-great granddaughter of Emma Frances Devis b. 1814.