Sir William Quiller Orchardson

Painter, born in Edinburgh, EC Scotland, UK. He studied at the Trustees' Academy, and went to London in 1862. He is best known for historical and social subject paintings. Particularly famous is the scene of Napoleon on board the Bellerophon (1880, London).

Sir William Quiller Orchardson (1835 - April 13, 1910) was a Scottish painter. Orchardson was born in Edinburgh, where his father was engaged in business. "Orchardson" is a variation of "Urquhartson," the name of a Highland sept settled on Loch Ness, from which the painter is descended. At the age of fifteen he was sent to the Trustees' Academy, then under the mastership of Robert Scott Lauder, where he had as fellow-students most of those who afterwards shed lustre on the Scottish school of the second half of the 19th century. By the time he was twenty, Orchardson had mastered the essentials of his art, and had produced at least one picture which might be accepted as representative, a portrait of Mr John Hutchison, the sculptor. For seven years after this he worked in Edinburgh, some of his attention being given to "black and white," his practice in which had been partly acquired at a sketch club, which included among its members Mr Hugh Cameron, Mr Peter Graham, Mr George Hay, Mr McTaggart, Mr John Hutchison and others.

The English public was not immediately attracted by Orchardson's work. It was too quiet to compel attention at the Royal Academy, and Pettie, Orchardson's junior by four years, stepped before him for a time, and became the most readily accepted member of the school. Orchardson confined himself to the simplest themes and designs, to the most reticent schemes of colour. Among his best pictures during the first eighteen years after his migration to London were "The Challenge," "Christopher Sly," "Queen of the Swords," "Conditional Neutrality," "Hard Hit" - perhaps the best of all - and portraits of Mr Charles Moxon, his father-in-law, and of his own wife. During these same years he made a few drawings on wood, turning to account his early facility in this mode.

The period between 1862 and 1880 was one of quiet ambitions, of a characteristic insouciance, of life accepted as a thing of many-balanced interests rather than as a matter of sturm und drang. In 1868 Orchardson was elected A.R.A.

Orchardson's wider popularity dates from 1881. To that year's Academy he sent the large "On Board the Bellerophon," which now hangs in the Tate Gallery. Its success with the public was great and instantaneous, and for ten or twelve years Orchardson's work was more eagerly looked for at the Academy than that of any one else. it was followed, in 1884, by the "Manage de convenance," perhaps the most popular of all Orchardson's pictures; in 1885, by "The Salon of Madame Récamier "~ in 1886, by " After," the sequel to the " Manage de convenance," and "A Tender Chord," one of his most exquisite productions; Subsequently he exhibited a series of pictures in which fine pictorial use was made of the furniture and costumes of the early years of the 19th century, the subjects, as a rule, being only just enough to suggest a title.

"An Enigma," "A Social Eddy," "Reflections," "If music be the food of love, play on!" Between such things and Orchardson's methods as a painter, the sympathy is close, so that the best among them, A Tender Chord," for instance, or "Music, when sweet voices die," have a rare distinction.

As a portrait-painter Orchardson must be placed in the first class. "Master Baby," a picture, connecting subject-painting with portraiture, is a masterpiece of design, colour and broad execution.

Mrs Joseph," "Mrs Ralli," "Sir Andrew Walker, Bart.," "Charles Moxon, Esq.," "Mrs Orchardson," "Conditional Neutrality" (a portrait of Orchardson's eldest son as a boy of six), "Lord Rookwood," "The Provost of Aberdeen," and, above all, "Sir Walter Gilbey, Bart.," would all deserve a place in any list of the best portraits of the 19th century. In this branch of art the "Sir Walter Gilbey" may fairly be called the painter's masterpiece, although the sumptuous full-length of the Scottish provost, in his robes, runs it closely. had the picture been exhibited at the time of the Second Boer War of 1900 the colour would have been called khaki; The painter hit upon a happy notion for the bringing of the four figures together, and as time goes on and the picture slowly turns into history, its merit is likely to be better appreciated. He continued painting to the end of his life, and had three portraits ready for the Royal Academy in 1910.

Orchardson's method was that of one who worked under a creative, decorative and subjective impulse, rather than under one derived from a wish to observe and record.