Painting

Valentine Cameron Prinsep RA

(1838 - 1904)

• Watercolour on paper
  36 x 26 cms
  Circa 1877

Princep was a painter of portraits, historical subjects and genre, influenced by Pre-Raphaelitism and Lord Leighton. He was born in Calcutta, son of an Indian civil servant and educated at Haileybury. A close friendship with G.F Watts encouraged him to turn to painting instead of the Civil Service, and at first he studied under Watts. He met Rossetti, and became influenced by Pre-Raphaelitism, but soon came under the influence of Leighton, to whose work his own has a close similarity. Princep assisted in the decoration of the Oxford Union, 1857. He worked in Paris in the studio of Gleyre, 1859. There Whistler, Poynter and Du Maurier were his fellow students, and he was the model for Taffy in Trilby. He then went to Italy with Burne-Jones and met Browning in Rome, 1859-60. He exhibited annually at the RA from 1862-1904, and also at SS,GG, NG and elsewhere. In 1876 he was commissioned by the Indian Government to paint the historical durbar held by Lord Lytton to proclaim Queen Victoria Empress of India. This resulted in ‘At the Golden Gate’ 1882 – a large canvas, and also a number of smaller works on Eastern subjects. ARA 1878; RA 1894; Professor of painting from 1901. Prinsep was extremely versatile, socially gifted, and, after his marriage to Florence Leyland, very rich. He published an account of his visit to India, Imperial India; an Artist’s Journal 1879; he also rote two plays, and two novels' Virginie' - 1890, and 'Abibal the Tsourian' - 1893