Maclise, Daniel

Maclise, Daniel (1806–70), Ireland's most important practitioner of history painting in the 19th century. Born in Cork, he began his education by drawing plaster casts of the Vatican marbles. His enthusiasm for Irish antiquities and folk‐life, developed under the influence of Richard Sainthill and Thomas Crofton Croker, can be seen in his book illustrations, paintings, and antiquarian drawings. He sketched Sir Walter Scott on a visit to Cork in 1825, which led to his success as a portraitist. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools, London, from 1828 to 1831, when he was awarded the gold medal for history painting. He became a friend of the young Benjamin Disraeli and subscribed to his Young England Toryism. He was much affected by the Victorian theatre, as seen in his paintings of Shakespearian subjects. During the 1830s he supplied caricature portraits to Fraser's Magazine and became friendly with Charles Dickens, whose books he illustrated. His finest illustrations were for Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies (1845). During the 1840s and 1850s he was deeply involved with the commissions for the new Houses of Parliament, Westminster Palace, providing murals for the House of Lords and the Royal Gallery, where his work shows the influence of French and German monumental painting. He produced a number of related paintings on the history of Britain and Ireland, notably King Alfred in the Camp of the Danes (1852), The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife (1854), and his series of drawings (1857) on the Norman conquest of England, published as engravings in 1866. He also made designs for the applied arts. He had a strong sense of Irish identity, but for him, as for Moore, this was within a larger United Kingdom context.

John Turpin