Valentine Cameron Prinsep

Valentine Cameron Prinsep (14 February 1838 – 4 November 1904) was a British painter of the Pre-Raphaelite school.

Early life Born in Calcutta, India, he was the second child of Henry Thoby Prinsep, a civil servant of the British Raj, and his wife Sara Monckton Pattle. His home was shared by the painter George Frederick Watts and the Little Holland House salon. His mother was a sister of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron He first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1862 with his Bianca Capella, his first picture, which attracted notice as a portrait (1866) of General Gordon in Chinese costume. Prinsep lent the costume to Millais who used it in his own painting Esther.

From 1862 to his death Prinsep was an annual exhibitor at the Royal Academy. He was elected A.R.A. in 1879 and R.A. in 1894. His marriage in 1884 made Prinsep a wealthy man, and he became a company director and landowner. He was buried with his wife Florence. Their distinctive monument lies on the western path between the north entrance and the central buildings. It has a stepped plinth with bronze plaques surmounted by a tomb chest on eight columns. The chest is carved with 14th-century style figures in a colonnade of ogee arches. The monument is Grade II listed.

Works Prinsep's major paintings were Miriam watching the infant Moses (exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1867), A Venetian lover (1868), Bacchus and Ariadne (1869), News from abroad (1871), The linen gatherers (1876), The gleaners, and A minuet.

In 1877, Prinsep returned to India and painted a huge picture of the Delhi Durbar. It was a commission from Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, the Viceroy of India. It was exhibited in 1880 at the Royal Academy, presented to Queen Victoria and afterwards hung at Buckingham Palace. This "colossal work" attracted press comment, positive and negative. Nicholas John Andrew Leyland (1894–1983), a stockbroker. He married Anita Elson in 1930, they divorced in 1936. He married Celia Glyn in 1938, she survived him.

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