Thomas Murray (artist)

Thomas Murray
Thomas Murray, self-portrait, engraving by John Smith
Born	1663
Died	1734

Thomas Murray or Murrey (1663 – 1734) was a prominent Scottish portrait-painter.

Life

He received his first lessons in art from one of the De Critz family. Subsequently he became a pupil of John Riley; like his master, Murray was just a face-painter, leaving the rest of the picture to be completed by others.^[1]

Murray was successful financially. He died in June 1734, leaving no children, and bequeathed his money to a nephew, with instructions that his monument, with a bust, should be erected in Westminster Abbey, provided that it did not cost too much. His nephew, however, taking him at his word, buried him in St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and found the monument too expensive to erect.^[1] ≠

Works

Murray contributed a self-portrait to the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, on a visit to Italy in 1708.^[2] Like many of his portraits, it was engraved.

Among his sitters were:

• King William and Queen Mary (hung in Fishmongers' Hall, London), and Queen Anne (full length, seated, hung in the town hall at Stratford-on-Avon);
• Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt;
• Bishops John Buckeridge and Edmund Gibson;
• Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle (an early work) and Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke;
• William Dampier, Sir John Pratt, Sir Hans Sloane (hung at the Royal College of Physicians), Edmund Halley (hung at the Royal Society), Philip Frowde, and others.^[1]

References

1. Cust 1894.
2. Director Richard H Saunders; John Smibert (1995). John Smibert: Colonial America's First Portrait Painter. Yale University Press. p. 128 note 2 on Ch. III. ISBN 978-0-300-04258-0. Retrieved 24 November 2012.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cust, Lionel Henry (1894). "Murray, Thomas (1663-1734)". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 39. London: Smith, Elder & Co.