Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/60

 being held at St. Margaret's, Westminster. He married on 3 Feb. 1875 Florence Coulston Gardner, elder daughter of Alan Legge, third Lord Gardner, and had two sons and two daughters. His portrait, painted by the Hon. John Collier, is at 7 Richmond Terrace, and an engraving of it at Grillion's Club. A cartoon portrait by ’Spy' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1883.

 ORCHARDSON, WILLIAM QUILLER (1832–1910), artist, born in Edinburgh on 27 March 1832, was only surviving son of Abram Orchardson, tailor, by his wife Elizabeth Quiller. The artist traced his father's family to a Highland sept named Urquhartson. His mother's family of Quiller was of Austrian origin.

On 1 Oct. 1845, when thirteen and a half, he entered the art school in Edinburgh known as the Trustees' Academy on the recommendation of John Sobieski Stuart [q. v.]. He enrolled himself as an 'artist.' The master of the Academy, Alexander Christie, A.R.S.A., taught ornament and design, and John Ballantyne, R.S.A., took the antique, life and colour classes. They were not inspiring teachers, but Orchardson made rapid progress. Erskine Nicol, Thomas Faed, James Archer, Robert Herdman and Alexander Eraser were amongst his fellow students, and gave him the stimulus of friendly rivalry. In February 1852 Robert Scott Lauder [q. v.] succeeded Christie as master, and Orchardson, whose name remained without a break on the roll until the close of the session 1854-5, enjoyed in his final years of pupilage the benefits of Lauder's fine taste and wide knowledge of art. The younger students who gathered about Lauder — Chalmers, McTaggart, Cameron, Pettie, MacWhirter, Tom and Peter Graham — while they influenced Orchardson's work, regarded him as their leader. At this period Orchardson was neither a very regular attendant nor a very hard worker. It is said that he seldom finished a life-study; but when he did it was masterly and complete, and it evoked the applause of his fellows. He took an active part in the sketch club founded by Lauder's early pupils, and formed enduring friendships with the members, more especially with Tom Graham [q. v. Suppl. II] and John Pettie [q. v.].

Orchardson began to exhibit at the Royal Scottish Academy as early as 1848, and his pictures showed great promise 'George Wishart's Last Communion' (exhibited in 1853) was a wonderful performance for a youth of less than twenty-one, yet his work failed to impress academicians. His temperament combined ambition with a certain aloofness; and after a short trial of residence in London, he settled there for good in 1862. Within a few months he was joined by his friend John Pettie, and from 1863 to 1865 these two, with Tom Graham who had also gone south, and Mr. C. E. Johnston, another Edinburgh friend, shared a house, 37 Fitzroy Square.

For some time the art of Orchardson and Pettie, while each possessed qualities of its own, was very similar in character. Both found their subjects in past history, with its picturesque costumes and accessories, and shared the technical qualities due to Scott Lauder's training. Their work soon attracted the attention of connoisseurs, Orchardson's 'Challenged' (1865) being his first popular triumph. Orchardson's pictures proved subtler and more distinguished than Pettie's, and in a greater degree he devoted himself to subjects directly suggested by literature. Shakespeare and Scott were favourite sources, and amongst his work of this kind were 'Hamlet and Ophelia' (1865), 'Christopher Sly' (1866), 'Talbot and the Countess of Auvergne' (1867), 'Poins, Falstafif and Prince Henry' (1868), and 'Ophelia' (1874). Like most of his early associates, Orchardson was no mere illustrator of his text. His pictures had always a true pictorial and aesthetic basis for the dramatic situations they embodied. In 1868 Orchardson was elected A.R.A., and in 1870 he paid along visit to Venice — his only stay abroad of any duration. The result was a number of pictures, 'The Market Girl from the Lido' (1870), 'On the Grand Canal' (1871), and 'A Venetian Fruit-Seller' (1874), of a more realistic kind than any of his previous paintings. 'Toilers of the Sea' (1870) and 'Flotsam and Jetsam' (1876) showed a like character and suggested a growing independence of literary suggestion. To the Academy of 1877 he sent 'The Queen of the Swords,' which, while originating in a description in 'The Pirate,' belonged in conception and sentiment to the painter alone. In it his earlier style culminated and it inaugurated the work on which his reputation finally rested. Orchardson was at once made R.A. When the picture was exhibited in the Paris Exhibition next year, together with his 