Ebenezer Butler Morris; William Wyon

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed (bottom left): Morris and (lower right): Wyon

This portraitback to top

This drawing was done in the life school of the Royal Academy, where Lear was a student, and was sent by him with an undated letter to his mother (copy in NPG archives, communicated by donor):

'Enclosed he [his father] will find one or two more. The bald head to the right is Wyon of the Mint who executes the dies for the coin of the realm. The other curious head is E. B. Morris. He got the gold medal some years ago, since when he has failed in various attempts to paint historical pictures, and is, as you will read in his face, a disappointed man. I dare say he is talented but some dark spirit has led him into the wrong path & he is far away from where he ought to be. His brow & eye tell you how deeply conscious he is of the fact ... He is a long gaunt unearthly looking creature clad entirely in rusty black ... Contrast these two heads, the sensual contentedness of the one, the dark anxious mental agony of the other.'
Morris won the Royal Academy Gold Medal for painting in 1837 with his 'Horatius Returning from his Victory over the Curiatii'.

Provenanceback to top

The artist; bequeathed to John Elliot, and presented by him, 1907.

Reproductionsback to top

R. L. Ormond, 'Victorian Student's Secret Portraits', Country Life, CXLI (1967), 288-9.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Ormond, Early Victorian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1973, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

View all known portraits for William Wyon