National Portrait Gallery - Person

Sir William Boxall (1800-1879), Painter and Director of the National Gallery

Sitter in 7 portraits
Artist associated with 18 portraits
The son of an Oxford taxation official, William Boxall entered the Royal Academy schools in 1819. He worked in London between 1823 and 1833, chiefly as a portrait painter but occasionally exhibiting history and subject pictures in an attempt to gain recognition. Between the mid-1830s and the 1860s he enjoyed a reputation as a society painter and also for his likenesses of leading literary, artistic and intellectual figures of the day. To further his ambition to succeed as a history painter he travelled and studied in Italy (1833-6), but portraiture remained his principal employment, accounting for most of his exhibited works. Boxall was elected ARA in 1851 and RA in 1863.

List Thumbnail

William Wordsworth

by Sir William Boxall
oil on panel, 1831
NPG 4211

John Frederick Lewis

by Sir William Boxall
oil on panel, 1832
NPG 1470

Antony Vandyke Copley Fielding

by Sir William Boxall
oil on canvas, exhibited 1843
NPG 601

Lewis Cubitt

by Sir William Boxall
oil on panel, 1845
NPG 4099

David Cox

by Sir William Boxall
oil on canvas, 1856
NPG 1986

John Charles Herries

by William Walker, after Sir William Boxall
mezzotint, 1830s-1840s
NPG D8065

William Wordsworth

by R.C. Roffe, after Sir William Boxall
stipple engraving, circa 1831-1835
NPG D8812

William Wordsworth

by James Bromley, published by Moon, Boys & Graves, published by James Ryman, published by Robert Roe, after Sir William Boxall
mezzotint, published 10 June 1832
NPG D36297