Robert thorburn ross biography
Robert Thorburn (painter)
Scottish miniature painter (1818–1885)
Robert Thorburn, ARA (1818–1885) was a Scottish miniature-painter and associate of the Royal Academy.
Life
Robert Thorburn, born at Dumfries in March 1818, was the son of a tradesman. He received his early education at Dumfries High School. He soon developed a love of art, and, owing to the kindness of a neighbouring lady, was at the age of fifteen sent to Edinburgh to draw at the Academy, where he made rapid progress and gained distinction. About three years later he came to London and entered the classes of the Royal Academy. As a native of Dumfries he enjoyed the special patronage of the Duke of Buccleuch, whereby he obtained many commissions.
Thorburn's success as a miniature-painter was soon secured, and for many years he shared the patronage of fashionable society with Sir William Charles Ross. In 1846 he received his first commission from Queen Victoria; many followed. Miniature-portraits of the Queen, and of the queen with Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, are reproduced in Sir R. R. Holmes's Queen Victoria (1897).
Thorburn's miniatures were of a larger size than usual, showing more of the figure and often accompanied by a landscape background. They are painted on large pieces of ivory, sometimes on pieces joined together. Their extreme finish produces a sense of monotony and flatness where the colours have lost their freshness. They were, however, very much admired at the time of their production, and at the Paris International Exhibition of 1855 Thorburn was awarded a gold medal. One of his most widely known miniatures is that of the Duchess of Manchester, a reproduction of which is given in J. J. Foster's British Miniature Painters (1898). The same work contains a portrait of Thorburn from a miniature by himself and a list of Thorburn's principal sitters, comprising most of the beautiful ladies of the time.
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Robert Thorburn Ross
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Robert Thorburn Ross
1 artworks
Romantic artist
Born 1816 - Died 1876
Ross RSA, Robert Thorburn (1816-1876)
Debuted at the Royal Society of British Artists with ‘A Lover’s Tiff’.
Lived in Edinburgh.
1876
Died
Obituary
The Art Journal
“In the Art Journal of 1871 is a notice of the life and works of this artist, whose death occurred about the middle of the month of July last. Mr. Ross, a very popular painter of genre subjects - Scottish life in the cottage, on the seacoast, and by the riverside - was born in Edinburgh, in 1816, and studied under G. Simson, R.S.A., at that time considered the principal Art teacher in the city; he also attended the schools of the Trustees' Academy, where so many excellent artists of Scotland learned the rudiments, and something beyond the rudiments, of their art: there he studied for three years under the superintendence of Mr. (after Sir William) Allan, R.A., and R.S.A.
Mr. Ross first appeared as an exhibitor at the Scottish Academy in 1845, and constantly contributed to its annual exhibitions three or four works on an average, which generally passed from the gallery into the possession of some of the best local collectors; for example, his ‘Cottage Children’ was bought by Captain M. Innes, of Ayton Castle; ‘The Broken Pitcher’ by Mr. Wilson, of Glasgow; ‘The Thorn in the Foot’ by Sir John Marjoribanks; ‘Highland Pets,’ engraved in the Art Journal, by Sir Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks; ‘Wha's at the Window?’ also engraved by us, by Mr. Gibbons, of Liverpool. Several of the deceased artist's pictures were purchased, as prizes, by the Glasgow Art Union and the Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland. His works in water colours were as much in request as his oil pictures. Mr. Ross was elected Associate of the Scottish Academy in 1852, and Member in 1869.”
Joseph Thorburn Ross
English painter
Joseph Thorburn RossARSA (15 May 1849 – 28 September 1903) was an English artist.
Biography
He was born at Berwick-on-Tweed, the youngest child of two sons and two daughters of Robert Thorburn Ross, R.S.A. (1816–1876), by his wife Margaret Scott. The parents removed to Edinburgh for good when Joseph was a baby. Having been educated at the Military Academy, Hill Street, Edinburgh, he was engaged for a time in mercantile pursuits in Leith and Gloucester, but eventually, after a successful career as a student in the Edinburgh School of Art and the life school of the Royal Scottish Academy (1877–80), he devoted himself to painting as a profession. He first exhibited in 1872, but an unconventional strain in his work retarded its official recognition, and it was not till 1896 that he was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy.
Portraiture, incident (but not anecdote), fantasy, landscape, and the sea were all treated by him, and if at times decorative intention and realism were imperfectly harmonised, and the execution and draughtsmanship, though bold, lacked mastery, the colour was nearly always striking and the result novel and interesting. But it was in sketches made spontaneously for themselves or as studies for more ambitious pictures that he was at his best. He worked in both oil and water-colour and possessed instinctive feeling for the proper use of each medium. Ross was familiar with the best art on the Continent, travelling much in Italy, and he was a frequent exhibitor at some of the leading exhibitions abroad, his 'Serata Veneziana' winning a diploma of honour at Dresden in 1892. He was unmarried and resided at Edinburgh with his sisters. He died from the effects of a fall in his Edinburgh studio on 28 September 1903.
Shortly after his death, at a memorial exhibition of his work held in Edinburgh, his admirers purchased 'The Bass Rock,' on