Artists – M

Daniel Maclise was born in Ireland and trained at the Cork Drawing Academy. In 1827 he went to London and entered the Royal Academy Schools where he received a silver medal for a drawing after the antique in 1829 and began submitting works for the Academy’s annual exhibition. Through these regular exhibition works Maclise built a practise as a history painter on a grand scale which cemented his reputation.He also worked as an illustrator supplying eighty-one drawings of celebrated literary and political figures to Fraser’s Magazine and illustrations for Charles Dickens’ second and third ‘Christmas Books’ as well as to works by Tennyson, Milton and Thomas More amongst others. He was commissioned in 1846 to paint murals in the new House of Lords.His work can be found in the National Gallery of Ireland, Tate, the Yale Center for British Art and many other important institutional collections. Additional InformationTateNational GalleryArt UK

An Italian portrait painter, the son of the painter Guiseppe Mancinelli who taught him to paint. He lived for most of his life in Naples where he was honorary Professor of the Institute of Fine Arts. His subjects included Umberto I and Margherita di Savoia (1884) and other Italian aristocrats. The artist also painted Orientalist landscape and historical work and created frescoes.He exhibited widely in Naples, Rome, Milan and Turin.Additional InformationWikipedia

The artist was born in London, the fourth child of John Isaac Marks, a solicitor. He studied in London at the Royal Academy Schools and later in Paris. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere from 1853. He was elected ARA in 1870 and became a full RA in 1878.

Edith Martineau, together with her sister Gertrude, was one of a small group of female artists associated with the Pre-Raphaelites.The daughter of Dr James Martineau, a Unitarian minister and theologian, the artist was born in Liverpool. After studying at the Liverpool School of Art and Leigh's Academy, she became one of the first women to be admitted to the Royal Academy Schools in 1862, regularly exhibiting there and at the Royal Watercolour Society (where she was elected an associate member in 1862), the Grosvenor Gallery and the New Water-colour Society. Her work was also exhibited at the Palace of Fine Arts in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She died in Hampstead.Martineau worked in watercolour primarily and is known for her delicately painted and meticulous landscapes which owe much to the Pre-Raphaelites, and genre paintings. Examples of her work can be found in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and other institutions.

The artist, who was known as Florrie, was born in Birmingham, and raised in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, the daughter of Robert Crump Mason a dispensing chemist.Mason studied at the Royal College of Art in London and was influenced for a time by the Pre-Raphaelites. She painted portraits, oriental and Indian subjects, decorative pictures and also worked as an illustrator.The artist left London and returned to Bromsgrove where she had an established artist’s practise by the age of 30 and taught art for a time at Howell’s School, Llandaff, Cardiff. She lived in London again later in life.She travelled to India and for a time was Honorary Secretary of the Ceylon Society of Arts.Mason’s work was exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the Royal West of England Academy, the Royal Institute, The Cardiff Art Society, and the Birmingham Art Gallery. In 1921 she exhibited four works at the Society of Women Artists.Kailasanathar Temple in Srivaikuntam, a village in Tamil Nadu 30 km from Tirunelveli, is dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva. The Dravidian temple has three precincts. Shiva is worshipped as Kailasanathar and his consort Parvati as Sivakami. A granite wall surrounds the temple, enclosing all its shrines. The temple has an unusual flat gateway tower, unlike other South Indian temples that have a pyramidal entrance tower. The temple was originally built by Chandrakula Pandya Vijayanagar and Nayak kings commissioned pillared halls, sculptures and major shrines in the temple during the 16th century.

Mason was brought up at Wetley Abbey near Leek and articled to a surgeon. Without finishing his medical training he travelled to Rome with his brother in 1843 following his desire to become a painter. Self-taught, he drew the Italian peasantry and their surroundings and, once war broke out and his brother joined Garibaldi’s army, he helped tend the wounded. After the 1848 Revolution he went on expeditions in the Roman Campagna.His close friendships with Giovanni Costa and Frederick, Lord Leighton were important and influential to the development of his art, particularly the importance of sketching from nature, so important to Costa.After his return to England to marry his cousin Mary he settled at the family home in Staffordshire which he inherited in 1859. He had considerable influence on British landscape painting after Pre-Raphaeliteism had begun to wane. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, where he was elected ARA in 1869 and at the Dudley Gallery.

After training in his uncle’s atelier in Karlsruhe, Melling travelled in Italy, Egypt and to Smyrna, before finally arriving in Constantinople circa 1784 in the retinue of the Russian ambassador, Count Yakov Ivanovich Bulgakov. He spent time in the Russian palaces at Pera and Büyükdere and also taught drawing to the son of the Dutch ambassador (Walter, op cit., chap. 4 note 4). It was his design of the garden for the Danish ambassador Baron Frederik von Hübsch, native of Pera and head of the Galata Bank Hübsch and Timoni, a friend of Selim III, which led to his introduction to his sister Hatice Sultane.Melling worked for Hatice for most of his time in Constantinople, designing the garden for her Bosphorus palace and a pavilion for it with all its interior decoration. Elisabeth Fraser describes him as a ‘kind of artistic director in residence’ (op. cit. p. 131), overseeing everything from flowers to the design of luxury items. He lived in the wing of Hatice’s palace occupied by her husband Sayyid Ahmed Pasha and was as close to her as a court servant could become. Their correspondence records that Melling taught her the Latin alphabet and they communicated in an invented script of Ottoman Turkish transcribed into Latin characters based on Italian phonetics with a few Italian words.Sultan Selim then asked Melling to renovate his favourite palace on the Bosphorus at Besiktas where he built a kiosk, a gallery, an apartment for the Valide Sultana and a quay with a balustrade. There were plans for Melling to build a kiosk at Sarayburnu, and he expected to be named Selim’s official architect and designer, but the project was abandoned when the French invaded Egypt in 1798 and Melling lost his position around 1800. His unique position as an imperial insider, patronised by Hatice Sultane and Selim III himself, gave him a profound and rare insight into Ottoman society, and this privileged position allowed him to draw the imperial residences as well as the opportunity to draw and paint many views of the city.Melling moved to France with an introduction to Talleyrand, French minister of foreign affairs in Paris, and his lavish travel book, conceived in 1801, received significant official support in 12,000 francs worth of shares. This ambitious book, unusually large in size, (each print is 2 1/2 x 3 1/4 feet) comprises forty-eight prints (in etching and engraving) and special attention was taken over the quality of the engravings, text and paper. He contracted with the experienced engraver François Denis Née, who had worked with Choiseul-Gouffier, Cassas and d’Ohsson, in March 1803, to supervise the engraving process. On 7 December that year they signed a second contract with Treuttel and Würtz, the libraires-imprimeurs. In it Melling agreed to produce two versions of each image, an engraver’s version in black and white and a watercolour. Melling was forbidden from producing any competing work on Constantinople until a bound copy of his original watercolours was sold (see Boschma and Perot, op cit. pp.38-9). The publishers then took over the control of the book production of which 700 copies were projected. ‘Voyage pittoresque’ was sold by subscription and in thirteen livraisons from 1807-1819, three prospectuses were also produced in 1804, 1816 and 1819 as was a subscribers list which included many sovereigns; the kings of France, Spain and Sweden, the emperors of Austria and Russia, aristocrats, diplomats, dragomans and booksellers (see E. Fraser, op cit. pp 132-4).Melling and his publishers cultivated official connections at the highest level and in 1802 he met with the the three consuls then ruling France and presented two watercolours to Consul Bonaparte (now in the Musée Bonaparte at château Arenenberg on the Bodensee, see Boppe, op. cit, p. 252-255, ill.). They kept Napoleon abreast of the project, even sending the first livraision to him at his military camp in Poland and asking for his sponsorship and permission to dedicate the work to him. The plan seems to have worked as Napoleon’s personal interest in the project is recorded and evidence of its significance. Josephine was also presented with drawings from the first livraision at an audience at Saint Cloud in 1807 and she bought further watercolours by Melling the following year (of which four are now in the château Arenenberg). Drawings for the project were shown at Salon exhibitions in 1804, 1806, 1810 and 1812 and Melling won a gold medal in 1810.The ‘Voyage pittoresque’ was a departure from the other Ottoman travel books of the period in its detailed focus on Constantinople and its environs, linked by the Bosphorus. Choiseuel-Gouffier in his ‘Voyage picturesque de la Grèce’ focussed on Greece and antiquity, the Swedish diplomat and author d’Ohsson in his ‘Tableau General de l’Empire Othoman’, 1790, was primarily interested in Ottoman institutions,mosques, tombs, religious practices and history. The text of the ‘Voyage pittoresque’ makes frequent references to Melling’s long stay in Constantinople and his proximity to the court to add authority and authenticity to the work. The book made Melling’s reputation if not his fortune.Melling’s work is neatly described by Elisabeth Fraser (op cit. p. 136) as a ‘navigational narrative’, with over half the prints illustrating views along Istanbul’s major waterways, the Bosphorus Strait and the Golden Horn, reinforced by the descriptions of arrival in the accompanying text. The sequence of the images take the reader on a journey through the city and its environs approaching it via the water route from the Mediterranean. From Tenedos (Bozcaada) and the Aegean, continuing via the Dardanelles at the end of which Constantinople can be seen in the distance. The the city is approached and then about six plates show places within it, Galata, Pera, Eyüp, Tophane, Besiktas, Scutari and Topkapi. Then the voyage continues along the water onto the Golden Horn, up the Bosphorus and to the Black Sea, which defines the northern end of the river and the end of suburban Istanbul. The size of the prints reflect the panoramas and their uniformity increases the drama of the voyage. It also reflects the secular eighteenth century city with the Imperial centre firmly based around the Bosphorus (see S. Hamade, op cit.)BibliographyAuguste Boppe, ‘Les Peintres du Bosphore au XVIIIe siècle, Paris 1911, reprint Paris: ACR 1989;Stanford J. Shaw, Between old and new: the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim III, 1789-1807, Cambridge, Mass., 1971;Shrine Hamadeh, ‘The City’s Pleasures: Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century’, Seattle’: University of Washington Press, 2008;Cornelis Boshma and Jaques Perot, eds. Antoine-Ignace Melling, (1763-1831): Artiste voyageur, Paris, 1992;Elisabeth A. Fraser, ‘Mediterranean Encounters- Artists between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1774-1839’, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017I am grateful to Professor Elisabeth Fraser, for her comments about this watercolour from an image. My account owes much to her recent scholarship on the subject.

Born in Edinburgh, More settled in Rome in 1773 where he lived for twenty years, elected to the Accademia di San Luca in 1784. He achieved a reputation which surpassed all other British artists then working in Italy. More was hailed as the English Claude and charged increasingly high prices for his work. He sent paintings back to the Royal Academy in London regularly for exhibition.Waterfalls were much painted by More, their inherent drama suiting the concept of the Sublime (see Patricia R. Andrew, Jacob More Biography and a Checklist of Works: The Volume of the Walpole Society, 1989/1990, Vol. 55 (1989/1990), pp. 105-196).The cascades at Tivoli were one of the best-known sites of Italy. J.R. Cozens also sketched there in 1778, and many visitors marvelled at the huge quantity of water which crashed onto the black rocks below. Neptune’s Grotto or Lair was situated below the cascades, its cluster of mossy rocks a highly picturesque spot. More chose to paint himself in front of the Grotto in his self-portrait, which hangs in the Vasari Corridor of the Uffizi in Florence, its acceptance further enhancing his reputation.

George Morland (1763 – 1804) is best known for his rural scenes and landscapes, inspired by the art of the Dutch Golden Age. Morland attained widespread popularity through the dissemination of engravings of his work.Morland was born in London, the son of Henry Morland, also an artist, who recognised his precocious talent and encouraged his drawing, as a way to restore the family fortunes. Morland was an honorary exhibitor of sketches at the RA in 1773, at the age of ten. He was subsequently apprenticed to his father from 1777 to 1784. Romney invited him to join his studio at this time, but he chose instead to enrol at the RA Schools, although his attendance was erratic, as, while very gifted, he was also naturally dissolute, which, ultimately, led to his premature death. He was astonishingly prolific, in many cases to keep his creditors at bay, as a result of which the quality of his later work deteriorated, while some of his paintings were completed by lesser hands.Morland first specialised in smaller paintings, typically of sentimental genre or childhood subjects, aping the style of Francis Wheatley (1747 – 1801). In the 1790s, a period when he produced some of his best work, he began painting larger rustic scenes and pictures of smugglers and wreckers, the latter showing the influence of Philippe de Loutherbourg (1740 – 1812). Morland regularly exhibited at the RA from 1784 until his death. Morland’s work can be seen in many museums in the United Kingdom.Additional InformationArt UKGovernment Art CollectionRoyal AcademyTate

Mulready was elected to the R.A. in 1816 and became an Attending Visitor (teacher) at the Royal Academy Life School, where he was noted as still hard at work, like any young student, at the age of 73. His life drawings are acclaimed for the fineness of their execution and the level of detail and understanding of anatomy which they display.Queen Victoria, on her visit to the 1864 R.A. exhibition commented favourably on his ‘fine chalk drawings of the naked figure which dear Albert so admired’.The full pencil inscription on the sheet reveals a close observation of the working of the joint:These sketches are not worth one moments consideration (either in)/ point of form, taste, or execution, but they are well enough to illus trate a mode of study that would be found more useful than any other that I am acquainted with. T he student should first be able to draw from casts.No 1 & No 2The same limb in the very same view.The knee perfectly strait, (sic) but the mus:s (muscles) of No 1 with the least possible action, and the muscles of No 2 in a very strong action, supporting the weight of the body, the centre of gravity being supported near the heel.No 3The same limb in the same view but the knee a little bent supporting the weight of the body.

This spirited painting executed with great bravura was done shortly after the artist’s return from Egypt in 1839. Müller arrived in Egypt by steamer in November 1838. He was one of the first established European artists to visit Egypt and was there at the same time as David Roberts, although neither knew of the other’s presence there.Müller was exhilarated by his arrival in the bustling metropolis of Cairo and was particularly intrigued by the slave market, which he described as ‘one of my most favourite haunts’ (W. J. Müller, ‘An Artist’s Tour of Egypt’, Art-Union 1, London, 1839, pp. 131-2).Müller is the best-known artist of the Bristol School. His German father settled in the city and was the first curator of the Bristol Institution, the forerunner of the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. His early exposure to art led to a short apprenticeship with James Baker Pyne and a friendship with the Reverend James Bulwer (1749-1879), a pupil of John Sell Cotman, whose collection of Norwich School drawings Müller would have known.In 1833 Müller was one of the founders of the Bristol Sketching Club and his travels began the following year with visits to Holland, Germany and Venice. His 1838 trip started in Athens before he continued to Cairo. In 1840 he visited France and in 1843 he went to Lycia at the same time as Sir Charles Fellows’ expedition, during which he produced some of his finest watercolours. He died at the age of 43 after his return from Turkey.Following Müller’s death, prices of his oil paintings rose dramatically in the salerooms. Articles on his work appeared regularly and in 1875 N. Neal Solly, the biographer of David Cox, wrote a long biography. In 1896 the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery held a retrospective of 192 of Müller’s paintings, watercolour and drawings. His reputation was kept alive in Bristol where the 150th anniversary of his birth in 1962 was celebrated with an exhibition at Bristol Art Gallery, while in 1984 Tate Gallery held a show of his French and Lycian watercolours. In 1991 a major retrospective was held at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, who hold the most comprehensive collection of his work, organised by Francis Greenacre, the renowed authority on Müller and the Bristol School.