Henry Tanworth Wells (1828-1903), Miniature and portrait painter

Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Sitter in 8 portraits
Artist associated with 107 portraits
Trained as an artist from a young age, exhibiting at the Royal Academy from the age of eighteen. He specialised in painting miniatures, but the development of photography rapidly made this form of artistic production obsolete, and he turned his attention to painting in oils. He exhibited his first oil portrait at the Royal Academy in 1861, became an associate five years later and was elected a full academician in 1870. Wells was chiefly known as the painter of groups of regiments and volunteers. He also produced about fifty crayon portraits of political and society figures. His best know work is Victoria Regina (1880), which depicts Princess Victoria receiving the news of her accession.