Sir Frederic William Burton

The watercolourist, Frederick William Buton was born at Corofin House in Co. Clare, the son of a gentleman landowner and amateur landscape painter. The family moved to Dublin where Burton attended Brocas' drawing classes at the Dublin Society Schools. He was a precocious pupil, had his first work accepted at the Royal Hibernian Academy when he was only sixteen and became an Academician in 1839. Burton's early works were mainly miniatures but he soon changed to larger figure pieces, portraits and romantic genre scenes, the material for which was gathered during a number of journeys around the West of Ireland in the company of such friends as the antiquarian George Petrie and Samuel Lover, The most famous of these, The Aran Fisherman's Drowned Child, (National Gallery of Ireland) is painted with close attention to detail, carefully observed from life but with a real understanding and sympathy for the folk ritual. Despite his closeness to Thomas Davis, the founder/editor of The Nation, Burton refused to fulfil the role of painter of Irish nationalism which Davis thrust at him, although did agree to design the title page of The Spirit of the Nation. The 1840s, difficult years, for famine struck Ireland, saw Burton pay two visits to Germany where he worked on the Duke of Bavaria's Old Master collection. He returned for an extended stay from 1851 to 1857, expanding his knowledge of art history and painting subject and genre pictures relating to life there, many of which he exhibited with the Old Watercolour Society in London of which he became a member in 1855. Burton is sometimes referred to as Pre-Raphaelite, incorrectly, as he never belonged to the Brotherhood but his work is sympathetic to theirs, not least in his insistence on drawing and his interest in colour. He avoided the use of oil paint but achieved effects with watercolours on a large scale which were hitherto unknown in the medium. The Meeting on the Turret Stairs (N.G.I.) is perhaps the most perfect example of this. He ceased to paint after he was appointed Director of the National Gallery in London in 1874 but compensated for this by buying some 450 paintings during his 20 years in the position, including Leonardo's Virgin of the Rocks, Raphael's Ansidei Madonna and two panels by Duccio. He was knighted in 1884.