19th September 1806 saw the birth of William Dyce, the painter and educator.
William was born in Aberdeen, where his father, a fellow of the Royal Society, was a physician of some repute. He attended Marischal College, took earned an M.A. at sixteen years of age, and was destined for one of the learned professions, but showing a turn for design instead, he them studied in the school of the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, and later as a probationer (not a full student) in the Royal Academy of London. In 1825, he proceeded to Rome, where he spent nine months.
He returned to Aberdeen in 1826, and painted several pictures of biblical themes, one of these, Bacchus nursed by the Nymphs of Nysa, was exhibited in 1827 was much admired. In the autumn of that year he went back to Italy, showing from the first a strong sympathy with the earlier masters of the Florentine and allied schools. A Virgin and Child which he painted in Rome in 1828.
Dyce settled in Edinburgh, taking at once a good rank in his profession, and showing considerable versatility in subject-matter. Portrait-painting for some years occupied much of his time; and he was particularly prized for likenesses of ladies and children. In February 1837 he was appointed master of the school of design of the Board of Manufactures, Edinburgh. In the same year he published a pamphlet on the management of schools of this description, which led to his transfer from Edinburgh, after eighteen months service there, to London, as superintendent and secretary of the then recently established school of design at Somerset House.
He was then sent by the Board of Trade to the continent to examine the organization of foreign schools; and a report which he eventually printed, 1840, led to a remodelling of the London establishment. In 1842 he was made a member of the council and inspector of provincial schools, a post which he resigned in 1844. In this latter year, being appointed professor of fine art in Kings College, London.
His finest productions are said to be the frescoes in the robing-room in the Houses of Parliament, as seen in the second pic. the other pics are, The Knights of the Round Table about to Depart in Quest of the Holy Grail, View of Loch Lomond and The Highland Ferryman. The final pic is Mrs John Clerk Maxwell and Her Son, Jame, who became the eminent Scottish physicist and mathematician
Dyce was an elegant scholar in more ways than one. In 1828 he obtained the Blackwell prize at Aberdeen for an essay on animal magnetism. In 1843-1844 he published an edition of the Book of Common Prayer, with a dissertation on Gregorian music, and its adaptation to English words. He founded the Motett Society, for revival of ancient church-music, was a fine organist, and composed a selection of music.
Dyce was working on the frescoes in Westminster when he collapsed, and later died at his home in Streatham on 14th February 1864.
