Martin Archer Shee

John Zephaniah Bell is recorded as having studied under Martin Archer Shee. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Places of work recorded in the authority are London. Positions recorded include President of the Royal Academy of Arts. Work by Martin Archer Shee is recorded in the collections of Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museo del Prado, Art Institute of Chicago, Tate and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Distinctions recorded are Fellow of the Royal Society and Knight Bachelor.

• Honorific Prefix — Sir • Name — Martin Archer Shee • Office — President of the Royal Academy • Term — January 1830 – 13 August 1850 • Predecessor — Sir Thomas Lawrence • Successor — Sir Charles Lock Eastlake • Born — 23 December 1769 • Birthplace — Dublin, Ireland • Died — 13 August 1850 • Place of death — Brighton, Sussex, England • Known for — Portraiture, literature Sir Martin Archer Shee (23 December 1769 – 13 August 1850) was an Irish painter and writer. He specialised in portrait painting. He enjoyed success during the Regency era. From 1830 he served as the president of the Royal Academy in succession to Thomas Lawrence.

He was born in Dublin, of an old Irish Roman Catholic family, the son of Martin Shee, a merchant, who regarded the profession of a painter as an unsuitable occupation for a descendant of the Shees. His son Martin nevertheless studied art in the Royal Dublin Society and came to London. There, in 1788, he was introduced by Edmund Burke to Joshua Reynolds, on whose advice he studied in the schools of the Royal Academy of Arts.

• Illustration — Portrait of the Duke of Clarence. Portrait of William, Duke of Clarence, 1800 In 1789, he exhibited his first two pictures, the Head of an Old Man and Portrait of a Gentleman. Over the next ten years he steadily increased in practice. He was chosen an associate of the Royal Academy in 1798. In 1789, he married Mary, eldest daughter of James Power of Youghal. In 1800 he was elected a Royal Academician. He moved to George Romney's former house at 32 Cavendish Square, and set up as his successor. He was acknowledged as one of the In addition to his portraits he executed various subjects and historical works, such as Lavinia, Belisarius, his diploma picture Prospero and Miranda, and the Daughter of Jephthah. In 1809 he donated his history painting Belisarius as his diploma work to the Royal Academy of Arts, as portraits were not permitted. It depicts a scene from Byzantine Empire, popular with artists of the era. During the Regency era he continued to produce portraits of leading figures, but was often overshadowed by his friend and rival Thomas Lawrence. Amongst the notable figures who sat to him were his fellow Irishmen the politician Henry Grattan and the author Thomas Moore, both paintings now in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.

• Illustration — Portrait of the Irish politician Henry Grattan, a friend of Archer Shee. In 1805 he published a poem consisting of Rhymes on Art, and a second part followed in 1809. Lord Byron spoke well of it in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Shee published another small volume of verse in 1814, entitled The Commemoration of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and other Poems, but this was less successful. He also produced a tragedy, Alasco, set in Poland. The play was accepted at Covent Garden, but was refused a licence, on the grounds that it contained treasonable allusions, and Shee angrily resolved to make his appeal to the public. He carried out his threat in 1824, but Alasco was still on the list of unacted dramas in 1911. He also published three novels – Oldcourt (1829, in three volumes), Cecil Hyde (1834) and Harry Calverley (1835).

Shee died in Brighton in 1850 and was buried in the western extension to St Nicholas' Churchyard in Brighton. His headstone remains, but has been laid flat and moved to the perimeter of the site.

Shee had three sons, who became successful barristers, and three daughters. One of his descendants was George Archer-Shee, whose story inspired The Winslow Boy, a play written by Sir Terence Rattigan; another descendant was Martin Archer-Shee, a member of parliament in England. Shee's descendant, Mary Archer-Shee, supports the campaign for the fulfilment of Turner's wishes for his bequests.

• Elements of art, a poem; in six cantos (1809) • Rhymes on Art; Or, The Remonstrance of a Painter: in Two Parts (1809) • The Commemoration of Reynolds: In Two Parts (1814) • Oldcourt: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3 (London: H. Colburn, 1829) • Alasco: A Tragedy, in Five Acts (Sherwood, Jones, and co., 1824). • Cecil Hyde (1834) • Harry Calverley (1835)

• Illustration — John Philip Kemble, c.1795 • Illustration — Duchess of Cumberland, c.1795 • Illustration — Anna Larpent, c.1800 • Illustration — John Henry Johnstone, 1803 • Illustration — Marquess of Hartington, 1806 • Illustration — Belisarius, 1809 • Illustration — Thomas Picton, 1812 • Illustration — Henry Vassall Webster, c.1814 • Illustration — Edward Kerrison, 1814 • Illustration — Portrait of William Roscoe, c.1815-17 • Illustration — Sharon Turner, 1817 • Illustration — Thomas Munro, 1819 • Illustration — Lady Munro, 1819 • Illustration — The Painter's Son, 1820 • Illustration — Alexander Macdonell, 1823 • Illustration — Portrait of Thomas Denman, 1832 • Illustration — Marquess Wellesley, 1832 • Illustration — Portrait of William IV, 1833 • Illustration — Lord Brownlow, c.1835 • Illustration — Portrait of the Marquess of Anglesey, 1836 • Illustration — Portrait of Queen Adelaide, 1836 • Illustration — Portrait of Queen Victoria, 1843 • Illustration — Portrait of Sir Francis Burdett, 1843