Self-Portrait, by Charles Fairfax Murray

Charles Fairfax Murray (30 September 1849 – 25 January 1919) was a British painter, dealer, collector, benefactor, and art historian who was connected with the second wave of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Early years

The youngest of four children, he was born on 30 September 1849 in Bow, near London, but grew up in

Sudbury, Suffolk Sudbury (, ) is a market town in the south west of Suffolk, England, on the River Stour near the Essex border, north-east of London. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 13,063. It is the largest town in the Babergh local government d ...

, where he studied drawing, possibly under

Thomas Gainsborough Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of ...

's great nephew Gainsborough Dupont. At the age of 12 he was employed in the drawing office of the railway entrepreneurs Peto & Betts and was taken into Sir

Samuel Morton Peto Sir Samuel Morton Peto, 1st Baronet (4 August 1809 – 13 November 1889) was an English entrepreneur, civil engineer and railway developer, and, for more than 20 years, a Member of Parliament (MP). A partner in the firm of Grissell and Peto, he ...

's home to draw portraits of his family. Taken up by

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

at the age of 16, Fairfax Murray was installed as

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...

's first studio assistant in 1867. He rapidly became one of the circle of Pre-Raphaelite founder

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

, and the friend of

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

and

Philip Webb Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of commo ...

. He was given work as artist and glass-painter for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., working to Burne Jones's designs; he also illuminated Morris's manuscripts.Charles Fairfax Murray biography
Fitzwilliam Museum website
/ref>

Painter, connoisseur and dealer

In 1872, he left England for Italy, where he worked as a copyist for Ruskin in Rome, Siena, Pisa, and Venice, allowing him to advance his study of the Italian masters. Having married the 16-year-old Angelica Collivichi and settled in Florence, he depended on this work to support his young family. He contributed to Giovanni Cavalcaselle's ''History of North Italian Painting''. From Siena he maintained a lively correspondence with Morris, Webb and Burne-Jones; he also acted as agent for Sir Frederick Burton, Director of the National Gallery. From 1877 he also enjoyed a long connection with Dr. Wilhelm von Bode, Director of Berlin's Gemaldegalerie, and partnered the London dealers Thomas Agnew in bringing pictures to market there. The Sienese artist Ricciardo Meacci, a pupil of

Luigi Mussini Luigi Mussini (19 December 1813 – 18 June 1888) was an Italian painter, linked especially to the Purismo movement and to the Nazarene movement, Nazarenes. Life Mussini was born in Berlin, son of the composer Natale Mussini, ''Kapellmeister ...

, told

Helen Zimmern Helen Zimmern (25 March 1846 – 11 January 1934) was a naturalised British writer and translator born in Germany. She was instrumental in making European culture more accessible in English. Biography Zimmern and her parents emigrated in 1850 t ...

in 1899 that when he left his master (around 1880) and was trying to find his own path, it was Fairfax Murray who "first imbued him with the idea of painting in the style" of the medieval ''quattrocentisti'', and that it was with Murray as his guide that he mastered these methods, and found his future artistic direction.H. Zimmern, 'Ricciardo Meacci', ''The Magazine of Art'' (Cassell and Company, Ltd., London/Paris/New York/Melbourne 1899)
pp. 158-62
(Internet Archive).

Later years

In 1882 he returned to England, while his wife remained in Italy. He resumed his close friendships with Burne-Jones, Morris, Webb, and others of the Pre-Raphaelites and their patrons, and the Arts & Crafts movement. From 1888, he became intimate with Blanche Richmond, who had been sitting for him, and with whom he went on to father children. Murray was by then well respected as a connoisseur and advisor to private collectors. He also had a considerable and growing number of old master paintings of his own, including Rembrandt's ''Portrait of his Brother'', Botticelli's ''Infant Jesus with the Virgin and St. John ''and van Dyck's ''Lucas Vosterman''. His aim was always to put the works he possessed into public collections; in 1904 he sold his collection of more than eight hundred Pre-Raphaelite drawings to

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local ...

. He gave his Titian ''

Tarquin and Lucretia ''Tarquin and Lucretia'' is an oil painting by Titian completed in 1571, when the artist was in his eighties, for Philip II of Spain. It is signed, and considered to have been finished entirely by Titian himself. It is one of a series of grea ...

'', more than a dozen Constables, four early Gainsboroughs and a Corot to the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...

in Cambridge along with Morris proofs and manuscripts from William Morris's collection.

Dulwich Picture Gallery Dulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, South London, which opened to the public in 1817. It was designed by Regency architect Sir John Soane using an innovative and influential method of illumination. Dulwich is the oldest pub ...

benefited from a collection of 46 English portraits among many other gifts in his lifetime. He died in London on 25 January 1919, following a series of strokes.

References

External links

* * ''Catalogue of the pictures belonging to His Grace the Duke of Portland, at

Welbeck Abbey Welbeck Abbey in the Dukeries in North Nottinghamshire was the site of a monastery belonging to the Premonstratensian order in England and after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, a country house residence of the Dukes of Portland. It is o ...

, and in London'', by Charles Fairfax Murray, 1894
Charles Fairfax Murray
on Artnet
Charles Fairfax Murray Papers
at

John Rylands Library The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a Victorian era, late-Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to t ...

Manchester. {{DEFAULTSORT:Murray, Charles Fairfax 1849 births 1919 deaths 19th-century English painters English male painters 20th-century English painters English art historians People from Bromley-by-Bow English art collectors 19th-century English male artists 20th-century English male artists