Thomas Musgrave Joy

Thomas Musgrave Joy (9 July 1812 – 7 April 1866) was a British portraitist.

Life Joy was born on 9 July 1812 in Boughton Hall in Boughton Monchelsea where his father was the squire. His parents, Thomas and Susanah, were not keen on his choice of career but he was allowed to leave Kent to study with Samuel Drummond in London. By 1831 he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy. The McManus Galleries in Dundee today exhibit Joy's substantial commissions to paint Grace Darling and her father William, who had become Victorian heroes after rescuing sailors from the distressed Forfarshire paddle steamer. Joy also painted a re-creation of the wreck for his patron Lord Panmure and this is also in the same galleries in Dundee. and paying for John Phillip to become his student briefly in 1836.

Joy married Eliza Rohde Spratt in 1839 and two years later received a Royal Commission that recognised him as an established artist. He painted the Queen's dogs as well as the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge and the Princess Royal. These paintings are in the Royal Collection.

Joy was in demand as a portrait painter and he created paintings of General Sir Charles James Napier who had achieved victories in what is now called Pakistan. A large group painting exhibited in 1864 records the most important people at Tattersalls before a race. Joy's habits of overwork are said to have led to a bout of bronchitis that resulted in his death in 1866.

Joy died in Pimlico at 32 St Georges Square.