Sir William Boxall, 'Self Portrait at the Age of about Nineteen', about 1819

William Boxall painted this self-portrait when he was around 19 and about to enter the Royal Academy Schools. He gave it to his sister Anne. The head is rather less than three-quarters life-size. The picture may have been made as a preparatory study for the life-sized self portrait painted at about the same time, which was hanging in Boxall’s house when he died and was recorded as: ‘Oil portrait (bust) of Mr Boxall by himself – painted in 1818 or 1820 – framed (life size).’

Boxall’s ambition was to paint scenes from literature, such as Milton’s reconciliation with his Wife (exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1829) or Lear and Cordelia (exhibited in 1831). But, as he wrote to his sister in 1827, ‘Portraiture seems the only sure means, at all events less precarious than any other, in the point of getting a good living and I think I had better dedicate myself as much as possible to it.’

Most of his portraits are small half-lengths that are serious, unrelieved by decorative detail and almost invariably gloomy. Boxall’s portrait of the poet William Wordsworth was particularly dour; Wordsworth wrote ‘I cannot get any of my Friends and Acquaintances to be pleased [with it] ... much too dark and gloomy.’ The seriousness of Boxall’s portraits was particularly popular with clergymen and dignitaries. The Portraits of a Man and Woman may be by Boxall of his parents. He was not very outgoing but appears to have been liked by his fellow artists, although they seem not to have rated his talents very highly.

Boxall’s closest friends by the early 1850s were probably Sir Charles Eastlake, who was the first Director of the National Gallery from 1855 to 1865, and Lady Eastlake, whose portrait Boxall painted in 1854. Boxall accompanied the Eastlakes on picture-hunting tours in Italy. Both of them probably had Boxall in mind to become Eastlake’s successor as Director of the National Gallery.

Sir Charles died in Italy on 24 December 1864. Various proposals for the directorship were circulated. Queen Victoria suggested Mr Robinson, who was Superintendent of Art at the South Kensington Museum. Austen Henry Layard and the artist Landseer were also recommended. William Gladstone, then at the Treasury, who may have discussed the matter with Eastlake before his death, suggested Boxall. On 9 February 1866 the Queen approved Boxall’s appointment as Director.

After his appointment, Boxall exhibited no further work and instead threw himself into the task of travelling in search of purchases for the National Gallery. Lady Eastlake continued to keep a kind eye on him and sold 15 pictures from her late husband’s private collection to the Gallery at the prices Eastlake had paid for them.

Boxall was to prove an able and forceful Director, purchasing Michelangelo’s Entombment and his Madonna and Child with Saint John and Angels for the Gallery. He negotiated the purchase of 77 paintings from the Peel collection in 1871, including ‘Le Chapeau de Paille’ by Rubens and Hobbema’s The Avenue, Middelharnis. He was knighted in 1871 and died on 6 December 1879.