Edmund Thomas Parris (3 June 1793 – 27 November 1873) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this ...

, subject, and

panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined i ...

painter, book

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complic ...

, designer and art restorer. He was appointed history painter to

Queen Adelaide , house = Saxe-Meiningen , father = Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen , mother = Princess Louise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg , birth_date = , birth_place = Meiningen, Saxe-Meiningen, Holy ...

, Queen Consort of William IV, and painted

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

's coronation in 1838 and the

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister ...

's funeral in 1852. He supervised the painting of the huge panorama in the

London Colosseum The London Colosseum was a building to the east of Regent's Park, London. It was built in 1827 to exhibit Thomas Hornor's "Panoramic view of London", the largest painting ever created. The design of the Colosseum was inspired by the Pantheon ...

Regent's Park Regent's Park (officially The Regent's Park) is one of the Royal Parks of London. It occupies of high ground in north-west Inner London, administratively split between the City of Westminster and the Borough of Camden (and historically betwee ...

, London, and was the inventor of "Parris's medium".

Life and work

Parris, was born in the parish of St.

Marylebone Marylebone (usually , also , ) is a district in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. Oxford Street, Europe's busiest shopping street, forms its southern boundary. An ancient parish and latterly a metropolitan borough, it ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

on 3 June 1793, the son of Edward and Grace Parris. He showed an early talent for art and was placed with Jewellers "Ray and Montague" (John Ray and James Montague), to learn enamel-painting and metal-chasing. During his apprenticeship, his leisure time was given to the study of mechanics, which subsequently proved to be of great use to him. In 1816 he entered the schools of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

, and commenced the study of anatomy under Dr. Carpue. His first important picture, "Christ blessing little Children", was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1824. In that year, when the proposal was first made to undertake the restoration of

James Thornhill Sir James Thornhill (25 July 1675 or 1676 – 4 May 1734) was an English painter of historical subjects working in the Italian baroque tradition. He was responsible for some large-scale schemes of murals, including the "Painted Hall" at the ...

's paintings in the

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

of St. Paul's Cathedral, Parris devised an ingenious apparatus for gaining access to them which attracted much attention, and led to his engagement by Thomas Hornor to assist him in the production of his

of London at the

Colosseum The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world to ...

, for which he had been making sketches since 1820. Upon this immense work, which covered nearly an acre of canvas and presented formidable artistic and mechanical challenges, Parris laboured incessantly for four years, completing it in November 1829. Soon after he painted, in conjunction with

William Daniell William Daniell (1769–1837) was an English Landscape art, landscape and Marine art, marine painter, and printmaker, notable for his work in aquatint. He travelled extensively in India in the company of his uncle Thomas Daniell, with whom he ...

, R.A., a panorama of

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, for which he also constructed a building. A wholly different class of art, in which Parris gained a great temporary reputation, was the portrayal of female beauty, and he was for some years a fashionable portrait painter. His picture "The Bridesmaid", which was exhibited at the

British Institution The British Institution (in full, the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; founded 1805, disbanded 1867) was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it w ...

in 1830, and purchased by Sir

Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer ...

, became very popular through the engraving by James Bromley (engraver); and many of his single figures and groups, composed in the same weak, sentimental style, were engraved in the "Keepsake" and similar publications. In 1836 and 1838 three sets of plates from his drawings were published, entitled respectively, "Flowers of loveliness", "Gems of Beauty", and "The Passions", with illustrative verses by

Lady Blessington Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (née Power; 1 September 1789 – 4 June 1849), was an Irish novelist, journalist, and literary hostess.''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English'', eds Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and ...

; he also provided illustrations for her "Confessions of an Elderly Gentleman" (1836), and "Confessions of an Elderly Lady" (1838), to much popular approval. His illustrations were also used in several other books.Anon.
The blue silk work-bag and its contents
' (G. Walker, 1817). On

's first state visit to

Drury Lane Theatre The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drur ...

in November 1837, Parris, from a seat in the orchestra, made a sketch of her as she stood in her box, and from this painted a portrait, of which an engraving, by Charles Edward Wagstaff, was published by Hodgson &

Graves A grave is a location where a dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as gravey ...

in the following April. In 1838 he was commissioned by the same firm to paint a picture of the Queen's coronation, and he received sittings for this purpose from the Queen and all the chief personages who were present; a print of this, also executed by Wagstaff, appeared in 1842. At the

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

competition in

Westminster Hall The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...

in 1843, Parris gained a prize of £100. for his "Joseph of Arimathsea converting the Britons". In 1852, he painted the

's funeral. Also in that year, the proposal to restore Thornhill's paintings in St. Paul's was revived and the commission given to Parris, who, bringing into use the scaffold he had designed for the purpose nearly thirty years before, commenced the task in 1853, and completed it in July 1856. Opinions about the appropriateness of Parris's restoration were divided, with one critic W. A. J. Archbold commenting that "''the state of decay into which Thornhill's work had fallen rendered some kind of reparation necessary, but the complete repainting carried out by Parris almost wholly deprived it of such interest as it ever possessed''". Parris was a frequent exhibitor of historical and fancy subjects at the Royal Academy and British Institution from 1816 to the end of his life, and in 1832 received the appointment of historical painter to

. Throughout his career his untiring industry and great facility of invention led him to engage in almost every description of artistic work, and he made innumerable designs for stained-glass windows, carpets, screens, etc. He assisted Robert Smirke in preparing Westminster Abbey for the coronation of

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...

, and was much employed in decorating the mansions of the nobility. One of his last important undertakings was the preparation of a model for a piece of

tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...

, forty feet long, for the

Paris exhibition Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

of 1867. At one time Parris carried on a life-drawing school at his house in Grafton Street,

Bond Street Bond Street in the West End of London links Piccadilly in the south to Oxford Street in the north. Since the 18th century the street has housed many prestigious and upmarket fashion retailers. The southern section is Old Bond Street and the l ...

. He invented a medium which, when mixed with oil, produced a dull fresco-like surface; this was widely known as "Parris's Medium." Edmund Thomas Parris died at 27 Francis Street,

Bedford Square Bedford Square is a garden square in the Bloomsbury district of the Borough of Camden in London, England. History Built between 1775 and 1783 as an upper middle class residential area, the square has had many distinguished residents, inclu ...

, London, on 27 November 1873. John Haslem (1808-1884), a porcelain and enamel painter, was a pupil of Parris's.

Selected publications

Countess of Blessington Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (née Power; 1 September 1789 – 4 June 1849), was an Irish novelist, journalist, and literary hostess.''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English'', eds Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and ...

, ''Gems of Beauty Displayed in a Series of Twelve Highly Finished Engravings by E. T. Parris, Esq.'' (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1836)

References

External links

(ArtCyclopedia)

(Engraving by Ryall after Parris) * An engraving by Henry Thomas Ryall of the painting 'Grace St Aubyn' for Heath’s Book of Beauty, 1833, with a poetical illustration by

Letitia Elizabeth Landon Letitia Elizabeth Landon (14 August 1802 – 15 October 1838) was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L. The writings of Landon are transitional between Romanticism and the Victorian Age. Her first major breakthrough ...

. * engraved by Henry Thomas Ryall for Finden’s Gallery of the Graces (1834), with a poetical illustration by

. * engraved by George Adcock for Finden’s Gallery of the Graces (1834), with a poetical illustration by

. * engraved by Henry Chawner Shenton for The Cabinet of Modern Art, 1837, with a poetical illustration by

* engraved by

Lumb Stocks Lumb Stocks (29 November 1812 – 28 April 1892) was a British engraver. In a long career he produced engravings from paintings by notable artists of the day. Early life Stocks was born at Gawbert Hall, Lightcliffe, near Halifax, Yorkshire, th ...

for The Keepsake annual, 1837, with a poetical illustration by

*, engraved by

John Henry Robinson John Henry Robinson (1796–1871) was an English engraver. Life He was born at Bolton, Lancashire and was brought up in Staffordshire. At the age of 18 he became a pupil of James Heath (engraver), James Heath, for about two years. Robinson was ...

for Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839 with a poetical illustration by

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Parris, Edmund Thomas 1793 births 1873 deaths Artists from Marylebone 19th-century English painters English male painters English illustrators English interior designers British stained glass artists and manufacturers English portrait painters English enamellers 19th-century enamellers 19th-century painters of historical subjects 19th-century English male artists

Life and work

Selected publications

References

Further reading

External links