Robert Ker Porter

Robert Ker Porter studied at Durham School and Royal Academy of Arts. Training under William Frederick Wells is recorded. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are history and landscape. Work by Robert Ker Porter is recorded in the collections of National Gallery of Victoria, Art Institute of Chicago, Tate, Victoria Memorial and Yale Center for British Art. Distinctions recorded are Knight Commander of the Royal Order of the Welfs and Officer of the Order of the Lion and the Sun.

Porter was born in Durham, England in 1777, one of the five children of the Scotsman William Porter, an army surgeon. His sisters were the writers Jane Porter and Anna Maria Porter. His father died in 1779, and the following year his mother took him to Edinburgh, although he attended Durham School. He decided that he wanted to become a painter of battle scenes, and in 1790 his mother took him to see Benjamin West, who thought enough of his sketches to procure him admission as a student at the Royal Academy. In 1792 he received a silver palette from the Society of Arts for a drawing entitled The Witch of Endor. In 1793, he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for Shoreditch church; in 1794 he painted Christ allaying the Storm for the Roman Catholic chapel at Portsea, Portsmouth; and in 1798 St. John Preaching for St John's College, Cambridge.

In 1804 Porter was appointed historical painter to Tsar Alexander I of Russia. In St Petersburg he was employed upon some vast historical paintings for the Admiralty Hall. During his residence in the city he won the affections of a Russian princess, Mary, daughter of Prince Theodor von Scherbatoff, but complications connected with their courtship necessitated his leaving Russia, whereupon he travelled in Finland and Sweden, where he was knighted by King Gustav IV Adolf in 1806. He then visited several German courts, and in 1807 was created a knight of St Joachim of Würtemberg. While in Sweden, Porter had got to know General Sir John Moore, whom he accompanied to Spain. He was with the military expedition throughout, was present at the Battle of Coruña and the death of the general, and made many sketches of the campaign. In the meantime his Travelling Sketches in Russia and Sweden during the years 1805–1808 had appeared in 1809, elaborately illustrated by the author. It was soon followed by Letters from Portugal and Spain, written during the march of the troops under Sir John Moore. In 1811 he returned to Russia, and on 7 February 1812 he married his Russian princess (who was to die of typhus at St Petersburg in September 1826). He mixed in Russian military and diplomatic circles, and became well acquainted with the Russian version of the events of 1812–13, of which he gave an account in his Narrative of the Campaign in Russia during 1812. • Illustration — 1818 drawing of the tomb of Cyrus the Great by Porter Porter had returned to England before the appearance of this book, and on 2 April 1813 he was knighted by the Prince Regent. He was soon abroad again, and in August 1817 he left from St Petersburg on a long journey which took him through the Caucasus to Tehran, and then southwards via Isfahan to the site of the ancient Persepolis, where he made drawings and transcribed a number of cuneiform inscriptions. After a stay at Shiraz, he returned to Isfahan, and proceeded to Ecbatana and Baghdad, and then, following the route of Xenophon's Katabasis, to Scutari. He was the first person to locate the tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae near Shiraz. He published an account of his journey in Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, 1817–1820. At Tehran, he had an audience with the Persian monarch Fath-Ali Shah Qajar, whose portrait he drew, and from whom in 1819 he received the Order of the Lion and the Sun.

After returning to England, he soon left again for Russia, but in 1826 he was appointed British consul in Venezuela, a position he held for fifteen years. He continued to paint during this period, his works including several large religious pieces, and a portrait of Simón Bolívar.

He returned to England in 1841. After a short stay with his brother at Bristol, he went to visit his daughter, who had married a Russian army officer, in St Petersburg. On 3 May 1842 he wrote from St Petersburg to his brother that he was about to sail for England, but died suddenly the next day as he was returning in his droshky (carriage) from a farewell visit to Emperor Nicholas I. He was buried in St Petersburg, and a monument was erected to his memory in Bristol Cathedral.

He also worked under the name Reynold Steinkirk. The authorities additionally record the headings Sir R. Porter, Sir Carr Porter, J. Porter, Sir Robert Ker Porter and Robert Kerr Porter. His recorded language was English. His recorded confession was Lutheranism.

Robert Ker Porter is recorded as having received Knight Commander of the Royal Order of the Welfs and Officer of the Order of the Lion and the Sun.