BIRTH: 1830 WALLIS |
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Born on 21 February 1830: Henry
Wallis, English Pre-Raphaelite
painter who died in December 1916. Wallis studied at the Royal Academy Schools of Art, and also at Gleyre's studio and the Beaux Arts in Paris between 1840-50. He was a prolific painter and in later years painted in Italy, Sicily and Egypt. His most famous work is The Death of Chatterton, which portrays the death of the 17 year old poet Thomas Chatterton, who committed suicide by taking arsenic. Chatterton was a brilliant young poet, influencing Keats and Wordsworth, who called him 'the Marvellous Boy'. The model for the dead poet was George Meredith, then aged about 28. Two years later Meredith's wife eloped with Wallis. Wallis painted the picture in the actual attic in Gray's Inn where Chatterton died. LINKS Elaine The Death of Chatterton (1856, 61x91cm) _ The painting was exhibited with the following quotation from Marlowe: 'Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight And burned is Apollo's laurel bough.' |