George Price Boyce
George Price Boyce RWS (24 September 1826 – 9 February 1897) was a British watercolour painter of landscapes and vernacular architecture in the Pre-Raphaelite style. He was a patron and friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Life
Boyce was born in Gray's Inn Terrace in London, and was the son of George Boyce, a wine merchant turned pawnbroker.[1] His sister was the painter Joanna Mary Boyce. He went to school in Chipping Ongar in Essex, and then studied in Paris. In October 1843 he was articled to an architect named Little, with whom he remained for four years, until joining the architectural firm of Wyatt and Brandon. Already disillusioned with architecture[2] a meeting with the artist David Cox in August 1849 persuaded him to give up the profession and take up watercolour painting instead.[3]
His early work shows the influence of Cox who he met again in Bettws-y-Coed in 1851,[4] but he went on to develop his own detailed style under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, having met Thomas Seddon and Rossetti in about 1849 and William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais in 1853,[5] in which year he painted in Dinan, Brittany, with Seddon.[5] In 1854 he went to Venice, where he sketched subjects recommended to him by the critic John Ruskin.[6] who corresponded with him during his four months in the city.[7]
Much of his work from the late 1850s concentrated on English landscapes, often incorporating views of vernacular architecture,[8] especially around the Thames Valley villages of Pangbourne, Mapledurham, Whitchurch and Streatley, swell as in Sussex and Surrey. In the 1870s he painted many views of Ludlow, and was increasingly drawn to more remote landscapes in Britain.[9]
In 1861, following the death of his sister, he went to Egypt, where he shared a house in Giza with Frank Dillon and Egron Lundgren until the February of the following year.[10]
Rossetti, who disliked working out of doors borrowed Boyce's sketches to provide the background for his watercolour Writing on the Sand (1858; British Museum, London).[11]
Boyce exhibited both oils and watercolours at the Royal Academy between 1853 and 1861. He was a founding member of the Hogarth Club.[5] and of the Medieval Society, an organisation, formed mostly of architects, dedicated to promoting interest in the art and architecture of the Middle Ages. He was also a leading member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.[12] He exhibited frequently at the Royal Watercolour Society and was elected Associate in 1864 and Member in 1878.
From 1871 he lived at West House, Chelsea, designed for him by his friend Philip Webb.[13][14] He retired from painting in 1893 through ill health.[5] and died at West House on 9 February 1897.
Boyce's diary has become a major source of information on Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.[5]
References
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.4
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.5
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.6
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.12
- ^ a b c d e George Price Boyce RWS (1826–1897): An Overview at Victorianweb.org (Accessed 2 April 2007)
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.14
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.16
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.22
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.24
- ^ Staley and Newall (2004), p.121
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.13
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.19
- ^ Newall and Egerton (1987), p.30
- ^ "Settlement and building: Artists and Chelsea Pages 102-106 A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 12, Chelsea". British History Online. Victoria County History, 2004. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
Sources
- Newall, Christopher; Egerton, Judy (1987). George Price Boyce. Exhibition Catalogue. London: The Tate Gallery. ISBN 978-0-946590-77-3.
- Staley, Alison; Newall, Christopher (2004). Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature. London: Tate Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85437-499-8.
External links
- Lot details for artworks
- The Pre-Raph Pack Discover more about the artists, the techniques they used and a timeline spanning 100 years.
- v
- t
- e
artists and
figures
- Lawrence Alma-Tadema
- George Price Boyce
- John Brett
- Ford Madox Brown
- Lucy Madox Brown
- Richard Burchett
- Edward Burne-Jones
- Georgiana Burne-Jones
- James Campbell
- John Collier
- Charles Allston Collins
- Frank Cadogan Cowper
- Evelyn De Morgan
- Walter Deverell
- Henry Treffry Dunn
- William Dyce
- Henry Holiday
- Arthur Hughes
- Edward Robert Hughes
- Frederic Leighton
- Robert Braithwaite Martineau
- Louisa Beresford, Marchioness of Waterford
- William Morris
- Alexander Munro
- Joseph Noel Paton
- Valentine Cameron Prinsep
- Christina Rossetti
- John Ruskin
- Emma Sandys
- Frederick Sandys
- Thomas Seddon
- Elizabeth Siddal
- James Smetham
- Rebecca Solomon
- Simeon Solomon
- John Roddam Spencer Stanhope
- Marie Spartali Stillman
- John Melhuish Strudwick
- Algernon Charles Swinburne
- Henry Wallis
- John William Waterhouse
- William James Webbe
- William Lindsay Windus
well-known
works
(period and
post-period)
- Ophelia
- Christ in the House of His Parents
- A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids
- Ecce Ancilla Domini
- Mariana
- The Light of the World
- Our English Coasts ('Strayed Sheep')
- The Scapegoat
- Paolo and Francesca da Rimini
- The Last of England
- Work
- The Awakening Conscience
- The Hireling Shepherd
- April Love
- Found
- Autumn Leaves
- Bocca Baciata
- Oxford Union murals
- Lady Lilith
- Roman Widow
- Mary Magdalene
- The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple
- Morgan le Fay
- Beata Beatrix
- The Shadow of Death
- Proserpine
- A Vision of Fiammetta
- Pygmalion and the Image series
- The Beloved
- Cymon and Iphigenia
- King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid
- The Day Dream
- The Golden Stairs
- Dante and Beatrice
- Love's Messenger
- The Magic Circle
- The Legend of Briar Rose
- The Lady of Shalott (Waterhouse)
- The Roses of Heliogabalus
- Lilith
- Eos
- Flaming June
- Hope
- Hylas and the Nymphs
- Lady Godiva
- The Love Potion
- The Lady of Shalott (Hunt)
- I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott
- The Germ
- Hogarth Club
- Morris & Co.
- Rossetti and His Circle (1922 book)
- Dante's Inferno (1967 film)
- The Love School (1975 series)
- Desperate Romantics (2009 series)
- Effie Gray (2014 film)