Edward Matthew Ward

Edward Matthew Ward, , (14 July 1816 – 15 January 1879) was a British painter who specialised in historical genre. He is best known for his murals in the Palace of Westminster depicting episodes in British history from the English Civil War to the Glorious Revolution.

Life Early career Ward was born in Pimlico, London. As a youth, he created illustrations for the well-known book Rejected Addresses, written by his uncles James and Horace Smith. He also illustrated the papers of Washington Irving.

In 1830, he won the "silver palette" from the Society of Arts. With support from David Wilkie and Francis Leggatt Chantrey, he became a student at the Royal Academy Schools. In 1836 he travelled to Rome, where in 1838 he gained a silver medal from the Academy of St Luke for his Cimabue and Giotto, which in 1839 was exhibited at the Royal Academy.

While a student at the Schools, Ward became a member of The Clique, a group of painters, led by Richard Dadd. Like other members of the Clique, Ward saw himself as a follower of Hogarth and Wilkie, considering their styles distinctly national. Many of his early paintings were set in the eighteenth century and were on Hogarthian subjects. He also painted episodes from seventeenth-century history, influenced by the thinking of his friend the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay. He also painted subjects from the history of the French Revolution.

In 1843, he entered the Palace of Westminster cartoon competition and failed to win a prize.

Opposition to Pre-Raphaelitism In the 1850s Ward came into conflict with the Pre-Raphaelites, especially Millais, whose style of art he considered un-British. Ward's painting of Charlotte Corday being led to execution beat Millais's Ophelia for a prize at Liverpool, leading to much debate at the time.

His historical paintings led to Ward's commission to paint eight scenes in the corridor leading into the House of Commons, despite the fact that he had won nothing at the original 1843 competition. Medical help arrived, but he died on 15 January at his home, 3 Queens Villas, in Windsor. The inquest in Windsor on 17 January found that he committed suicide while temporarily insane.

Family In 1843, Ward met the 11-year-old Henrietta Ward (her maiden and married names were the same, but she was no relation); they married secretly in May 1848, shortly before her 16th birthday, after an elopement aided by Ward's friend Wilkie Collins. Henrietta's mother never forgave the elopement, and disinherited her. Collins may have based the plot of his 1852 novel Basil on the Ward engagement. Henrietta also became a successful painter.

She became a notable art teacher after her husband's death and wrote two autobiographical memoirs about their life together. His son, Leslie, became a popular caricaturist for the magazine Vanity Fair, and later the journal The World, under the nickname "Spy".

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