Francis Grant

Sir Francis Grant (18 January 1803 – 5 October 1878) was a Scottish portrait painter who painted Queen Victoria and many British aristocratic and political figures. He served as President of the Royal Academy.

Life

Grant was the fourth son of Francis Grant, Laird of Kilgraston, near Bridge of Earn, Perthshire, and his wife Anne Oliphant of Rossie. Grant was educated at Harrow School and Edinburgh High School. His father, a plantation owner in Jamaica, died in 1818, leaving money to his seven children.

Initially Grant intended to become a lawyer, but he left his studies after a year, and took up painting. He possibly spent time in the Edinburgh studio of Alexander Nasmyth.

Elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1842, Grant in 1851 became an academician. In 1866, on the death of Charles Eastlake, Edwin Landseer turned down the seat of Academy president, and Grant was elected instead. He was knighted that year.

Works In March 1831 on a visit to Abbotsford House, Grant painted a cabinet painting of Sir Walter Scott (now held by the National Galleries of Scotland accession number PG 103) for Scotts's friend Lady Ruthven. It depicts Scott at his desk, armour on the wall and his two noble staghounds Nimrod and Bran. Scott writing in his diary of Grant said "Frank will, I believe, if he attends to his profession, be one of the celebrated men of the age" In 1837 Grant exhibited at the Royal Academy The Meeting of His Majesty's Staghounds on Ascot Heath, painted for George Stanhope, 6th Earl of Chesterfield, and in 1839 The Melton Hunt, purchased by the Duke of Wellington (both of these were engraved, the former by Frederick Bromley, the latter by William Humphrys). In 1841, he painted A Shooting Party at Rawton Abbey for Thomas Anson, 1st Earl of Lichfield, and in 1848 The Cottesmore Hunt for Sir Richard Sutton, 2nd Baronet.

Between 1834 and 1879 Grant contributed 253 works, many of which were full-length portraits, to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy. Among those were equestrian portraits of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort, painted for Christ's Hospital; the Prince of Wales; an equestrian group of the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort; Sidney Herbert; Lord John Russell; Benjamin Disraeli; John Hick and Mrs Hick; General Sir James Hope Grant; Sir George Grey, 2nd Baronet; Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, prime minister; Lord Clyde; Viscount Palmerston, painted for Harrow School; Viscount Gough; Lord Truro, lord high chancellor; Sir Frederick Pollock, 1st Baronet, Chief Baron of the Exchequer; Sir William Erle, lord chief justice of the common pleas; John Sumner, archbishop of Canterbury; George Moberly, bishop of Salisbury; and John Gibson Lockhart. and of Mrs Markham (his daughter Daisy Grant – see below), exhibited in 1857.

Family

Grant married, firstly, Amelia Farquharson (died 1827), the daughter of a Scottish laird, in 1826; she died after giving birth to their son. He married again, in 1829, Isabella Elizabeth Norman, daughter of Richard Norman and his wife Lady Elizabeth Isabella, and a niece of John Manners, 5th Duke of Rutland; they had three sons and four daughters. One of the daughters was Anne Emily Sophia Grant (also known as Daisy Grant or Mrs. Colonel William Thomas Markham), whose portrait, by her father, hangs in the National Gallery of Scotland, and has been noted for its depiction of Victorian womanhood.

Grant was the brother of General Sir James Hope Grant.

Gallery