Henry Peters Gray (June 23, 1819 - November 12, 1897) was an American portrait and genre painter.

Early life

Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

he was a pupil of Daniel Huntington in New York, and subsequently studied in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

and

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

Career

Elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1842, he succeeded Huntington as president in 1870, holding the position until 1871. The later years of his life were devoted to portrait work. He was strongly influenced by the old Italian masters, painting in mellow colour with a classical tendency. One of his notable canvases was an allegorical composition called "The Birth of our Flag" (1875). He died in

Major works

''The Greek Lovers'' was painted by Gray after a trip to Italy, where he was greatly influenced by the art of the

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

. This painting was very well received in its day, and reflects the nineteenth-century fascination with Greco-Roman antiquity. ''The Pride of the Village'' was based on

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legen ...

’s story of the same name and is about a beautiful and simple country girl, the proverbial "pride of the village," who fell in love with an army officer. When the officer is transferred to another post, he asks that she accompany him, however, her pure mind was so upset by this indecorous suggestion that she pined away, surrounded by her devoted family. The painting shows her in her decline, possibly “thinking of her faithless lover?—or were her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose bosom she might soon be gathered?”

Gallery

File:The Greek Lovers - Henry Peters Gray.jpg, ''The Greek Lovers'' at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, 1846 File:The Wages of War - Henry Peters Gray.jpg, ''The Wages of War'' at the

, 1848 File:The Pride of the Village - Henry Peters Gray.jpg, ''The Pride of the Village'' at the

, 1858–59

References

;Attribution *

External links

1893 Biographical Sketch
1819 births 1897 deaths 19th-century American painters American male painters American genre painters Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery American portrait painters Painters from New York City 19th-century American male artists {{US-painter-1810s-stub