EDWARD MATTHEW WARD (1816—1879) became a student at the Academy by the advice of Wilkie, who had seen his first picture, a portrait of Mr. O. Smith as Don Quixote. In 1836 Ward was a student in Rome. Thence he proceeded to Munich, and studied fresco-painting with Cornelius. In 1839 he returned to England, and exhibited Cimabue and Giotto. Joining in the competition for the decoration of the Houses of Parliament, he produced Boadicea, which was commended, but did not obtain a premium. Dr. Johnson reading the MS. of Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield", first brought him to notice. It was followed by Dr. Johnson in Lord Chesterfield's Ante-Room, and the painter was elected an A.R.A. This work as well as The Disgrace of Lord Clarendon, The South-Sea Bubble, and James II. receiving the news of the landing of William of Orange, are in the National Gallery. In 1852 and later Ward executed eight historic pictures in the corridor of the House of Commons. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1855. His pictures are too well known to need description; most popular among them are Charlotte Corday led to Execution, The Execution of Montrose, The Last Sleep of Argyll, Marie Antoinette parting with the Dauphin, The Last Moments of Charles II., The Night of Rizzio's Murder, The Earl of Leicester and Amy Robsart, Judge Jeffreys and Richard Baxter.
FREDERICK WALKER (1840—1875) died just as he had fulfilled the promise of his youth. After spending a short time in the office of an architect and surveyor, he left this uncongenial region to practise art. He occasionally studied in the Academy Schools, and began his artistic career by illustrating Thackeray's "Philip" in the "Cornhill Magazine," thus winning much praise. He became a member of the Old Water-Colour Society, and an A.R.A. A career full of promise was cut short by death at St. Fillan's, Perthshire, in 1875: the young painter was buried at his favourite Cookham, on the Thames. His chief works are The Lost Path, The Bathers, The Vagrants, The Old Gate, The Plough, The Harbour of Refuge, and The Right of Way. Mr. Redgrave said, "His genius was thoroughly and strikingly original. His works are marked by a method of their own; the drawing, colour, and execution, alike peculiar to himself. They are at once refined and pathetic in sentiment, and novel in their conception of nature and her effects. His figures have the true feeling of rustic life, with the grace of line of the antique."
GABRIEL CHARLES DANTE ROSSETTI (1828—1882), poet, and painter of sacred subjects and scenes inspired by the writings of Dante, was the son of an Italian patriot, a political refugee, who became Professor of Italian in King's College, London. He exhibited at the Portland Gallery his first picture, The Girlhood of the Virgin, in 1849, and became the founder of the pre-Raphaelite school, which included Millais, Holman Hunt, and other artists now celebrated. Rossetti's best-known pictures are Dante's Dream (now at Liverpool), The Damosel of the Sancte Graal, The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere, The Beloved (an illustration of the Song of Solomon), and Proserpina. He seldom exhibited his paintings in public, but they were seen by art-critics, one of whom wrote (in 1873)—"Exuberance in power, exuberance in poetry of a rich order, noble technical gifts, vigour of conception, and a marvellously extensive range of thought and invention appear in nearly everything Mr. Rossetti produces."
He was equally celebrated as a writer of sonnets and a translator of Italian poetry.
It is not within the province of this work to include notice of living artists. To give an account of all the celebrated painters would require another volume. During the past decade Art has advanced with steady progress, and we can confidently say that at no time have the ranks of the Royal Academicians and the two Water-Colour Societies been filled more worthily than at the present day. The last quarter of the nineteenth century is likely to be a golden era in the history of British Art.