George Patten


George Patten was a British portraitist.

Life

Patten was born in 1801 the son of William Patten, a miniature-painter, whose works were exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1791 and 1844, and who died on 22 Aug. 1843. He received his early training in art from his father, and in 1816 became a student in the Royal Academy Schools, where he first exhibited a miniature of his father in 1819. In 1828 he again entered the schools of the academy, and took up oil painting in 1830.
In 1837 Patten went to Italy, visiting Rome, Venice, and Parma; and on his return to England he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. Early in 1840 he went to Germany to paint a portrait of Prince Albert which was exhibited at the Royal Academy, and engraved by Charles Eden Wagstaff. He was later appointed portrait-painter in ordinary to the Prince.
During the latter part of his life Patten lived at Goodrich Cross, Ross, Herefordshire, but before his death he returned to Winchmore Hill, Middlesex. He died suddenly at Hill House, his residence there, on 11 March 1865, aged sixty-three.

Works

Patten had patronage in the painting of presentation portraits, many of which appeared in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy. Among these were portraits of Richard Cobden, Lord Francis Egerton, Hugh Boyd M'Neile, Baptist Wriothesley Noel, and Paganini the violinist, exhibited in 1833. He exhibited his own portrait in 1858.
Patten painted also mythological, fancy, and scriptural subjects. Among them were:
Several of these appeared also at the British Institution, together with Returning Home, in 1833; A Bacchante in 1834; Venus caressing her favourite Dove in 1836; a Wood-Nymph in 1838; The Graces in 1840; and Bacchus consoling Ariadne for the Loss of Theseus in 1841.

Gallery

Family

By his wife Lucy, Patten had children including Alfred Fowler Patten, a genre painter, and Clara Maria, mother of Arthur Black, Clementina Black and Constance Garnett.