Thomas Musgrave Joy

The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait. Places of work recorded in the authority are London. Work by Thomas Musgrave Joy is recorded in the collections of National Galleries Scotland, Victoria and Albert Museum, York Art Gallery, Leighton House and McManus Gallery.

• Name — Thomas Musgrave Joy • Birth Name — Thomas Musgrove Joy • Born — 9 July 1812 • Birthplace — Boughton Monchelsea, England • Died — 7 April 1866 • Place of death — Pimlico, England • Field — Painting

Joy was born on 9 July 1812 in Boughton Hall in Boughton Monchelsea where his father was the squire. His parents, Thomas and Susanah, were not keen on his choice of career but he was allowed to leave Kent to study with Samuel Drummond in London. By 1831 he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy. The McManus Galleries in Dundee today exhibit Joy's substantial commissions to paint Grace Darling and her father William, who had become Victorian heroes after rescuing sailors from the distressed Forfarshire paddle steamer. Joy also painted a re-creation of the wreck for his patron Lord Panmure and this is also in the same galleries in Dundee. Panmure was generous with this good-looking artist, encouraging him to visit the continent and paying for John Phillip to become his student briefly in 1836. • Illustration — Detail from Joy's portrait of Grace Darling Joy married Eliza Rohde Spratt in 1839 and two years later received a Royal Commission that recognised him as an established artist. The newly married couple lived at No. 8 Fitzroy Street in the London parish of St Pancras. He painted the Queen's dogs as well as the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge and the Princess Royal. These paintings are in the Royal Collection. Joy was in demand as a portrait painter and he created paintings of General Sir Charles James Napier who had achieved victories in what is now called Pakistan. A large group painting exhibited in 1864 records the most important people at Tattersalls before a race. Joy's habits of overwork are said to have led to a bout of bronchitis that resulted in his death in 1866. In the same year his eighteen-year-old eldest daughter, Mary Eliza, exhibited her first painting at the Royal Academy. Joy died in Pimlico at 32 St Georges Square.