Richard Westall

Richard Westall
Portrait of Westall by Thomas Lawrence
Born	(1765-01-02)2 January 1765 Reepham
Died	4 December 1836(1836-12-04) (aged 71)
Father	Benjamin Westall
Relatives	William Westall (brother)

Richard Westall RA (2 January 1765 – 4 December 1836) was an English painter and illustrator of portraits, historical and literary events, best known for his portraits of Byron. He was also Queen Victoria's drawing master.

Biography

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron by Richard Westall, 1813

Westall was the more successful of two half-brothers (both sons of a Benjamin Westall, from Norwich) who both became painters. His younger half-brother was William Westall (1781–1850), a much-travelled landscape painter.

Born on 2 January 1765 in Reepham near Norwich (where he was baptised at All Saints on 13 January in the same year), Richard Westall moved to London after the death of his mother and the bankruptcy of his father in 1772. Westall was apprenticed to a heraldic silver engraver in 1779, where he was encouraged to become a painter by John Alefounder; he then began studying at the Royal Academy School of Arts from 10 December 1785. He exhibited at the Academy regularly between 1784 and 1836, became an Associate in November 1792 and was elected an Academician on 10 February 1794. From 1790 to 1795 he shared a house with Thomas Lawrence (later Sir), the future Royal Academy president, at 57 Greek Street, on the corner of Soho Square, each of the artists placing their name on one of the entrances.

Works

His works – many in watercolour – caused great interest in the late years of the 18th century when he was considered by his chief patron Richard Payne Knight to be an outstanding artist of the picturesque. He painted works in a neoclassical style for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery and for Henry Fuseli's Milton Gallery. His painting of John Milton and his daughters hangs in Sir John Soane's Museum in London. A number of scenes in which Westall depicts events in the life of Horatio Nelson are at the National Maritime Museum.

Solitude, landscape by Westall, 1811

Westall was a prolific book illustrator of both fiction and poetry, including the works of Sir Walter Scott, Oliver Goldsmith, William Cowper and Thomas Gray. Byron, who greatly admired his work, stated that "the brush has beat the poetry". Westall was commissioned to provide illustrations to John Boydell's editions of Shakespeare and John Milton. He also illustrated editions of the Bible, including one with John Martin. His oil painting Christ Crowned with Thorns is the altarpiece at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London.

His portraiture, in a style similar to Lawrence's, included Princess Victoria (later Queen Victoria, for whom he was art teacher for eight years before his death on 4 December 1836), and Richard Ayton, a writer who collaborated with landscape artist William Daniell (Westall's brother-in-law).

Richard Westall is perhaps best known for several portraits of Lord Byron. One of these hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London, another at Hughenden Manor, and a third in the House of Lords.

• Richard Westall's works
• 
  Wolsey disgraced, 1795
• 
  Shylock rebuffing Antonio, 1795
• 
  Lady Hamilton as St Cecilia, late 18th–early 19th century
• 
  Vertumnus and Pomona, early 19th century
• 
  Nelson at Cadiz, 1806
• 
  Sir Horatio Nelson when wounded at Teneriffe, 1806
• 
  Nelson and the Bear, 1809
• 
  The Sword of Damocles, 1812

Sources

• Marina Warner,. Queen Victoria's Sketchbook, Macmillan, 1979.
• John Ramm, Forgotten Pioneer, Antique Dealer & Collectors Guide, Nov 1998, Volume 53, No. 4
• Richard J. Westall, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004

External links

• "Westall, Richard" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
• 35 artworks by or after Richard Westall at the Art UK site
• Richard Westall online (Artcyclopedia)
• Works by R. Westall (V&A)
• Portrait of a Woman seated in a Landscape with a spaniel (1793 watercolour - British Museum)
• Works by Richard Westall at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Richard Westall (illustrator) at Faded Page (Canada)
• Works by or about Richard Westall at the Internet Archive
• Engraving by Charles Heath of the painting The Parting Charge. with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in Forget Me Not annual for 1825.
• Engraving by Charles Heath of the painting The Hebrew Mother. with a poem by Felicia Hemans in The Amulet annual for 1826.
• Engraving by Edward Francis Finden of the painting Love's Motto. with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in Forget Me Not annual for 1827.
• Engraving by R. Staines of the painting Henri IV and Gabrielle d'Estrées. with a poetical illustration (Henri IV. to the Fair Gabrielle) by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in The Literary Souvenir annual for 1835.
• Picture in oil colours by George Baxter of Burns and his Highland Mary. in Pictorial Album; or, Cabinet of Paintings, 1837, with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
• Portrait of George Gordon Byron. engraved by John Henry Robinson for Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840 with a posthumous poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon.