Dyce, WILLIAM, R.A.

Dyce, WILLIAM, R.A., painter, was born at Aberdeen in 1806, and at 16 graduated M.A. of Marischal College. After acquiring the rudiments of his art-education he went in 1825 to Rome, where he developed a tendency towards early Italian or pre-Raphaelite art. In 1830 he settled in Edinburgh, where, besides painting portraits, he contributed largely to the exhibitions. In 1837 he was appointed master of the 'Trustees' Academy'; and eighteen months later he left for London, where he held various appointments in connection with the New School of Design at Somerset House. In 1844 he was appointed professor of Fine Arts in King's College, London. He was one of the artists selected to decorate the Palace of Westminster and the House of Lords, and at Osborne House several works in fresco were executed by him. Dyce was elected an A.R.A. in 1844, an R.A. in 1848. The following are some of the works he exhibited in the Royal Academy: 'King Joash shooting the Arrow of Deliverance,' a 'Madonna and Child' (1846), a 'Meeting of Jacob and Rachel' (1850), 'Christabel' (1855), 'The Good Shepherd' (1856), 'Neptune assigning to Britannia the Empire of the Sea'—a study for a fresco at Osborne (1857), 'St John leading Home his Adopted Mother,' 'The Man of Sorrows' (1860), and 'George Herbert at Bemerton' (1861). Dyce was a man of singularly wide culture, and an accomplished musician. In 1842-43 he published a sumptuous edition of the Prayer-book, with a dissertation on Plain-chant, and its use in the English service. He died at Streatham, 14th February 1864.