Henry William Pickersgill

Henry William Pickersgill, a painter, was born in London on 3 December 1782. He was adopted early in life by Mr. Hall, a silk manufacturer in Spitalfields, who sent him to a school at Poplar, and at the age of sixteen placed him in his own business. The war with France, however, caused a decline in the silk trade and in Mr. Hall's business, so that Pickersgill, who had already imbibed a love of painting and displayed some skill in draughtsmanship, determined to adopt painting as a profession. He was a pupil of George Arnald, A.R.A., from 1802 to 1805, when he was admitted as a student in the Royal Academy, having obtained an introduction to Fuseli, then keeper, through a surgeon who attended on him during a severe illness.

Pickersgill at first painted, besides portraits, historical subjects or those from poetry and mythology. He exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1806, sending a portrait of Mr. Hall, in 1808 one of himself, and in 1809 one of Mrs. W. Hall. Subsequently he devoted his time almost entirely to portrait painting. He was for over sixty years a constant and prolific exhibitor at the Royal Academy, where nearly four hundred paintings of his were shown at one time or another. He was elected an associate in 1822 and a royal academician in 1826. After the death of Thomas Phillips, R.A. in 1845, Pickersgill obtained almost a monopoly of painting the portraits of men and women of eminence in every walk in life. In this way he painted nearly all the most celebrated people of his time.