Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/154

 ill, and that it was then generally believed that she had died on her voyage at one of the Orkneys. The report was true. Nothing is known of the circumstances of her death or burial. About ten years later a young woman came to Norway from Germany declaring herself to be Margaret, Eric's daughter. She said that she had been kidnapped at the Orkneys by a woman of high rank, Ingebiorg, the wife of Thore Hakonsson, and had been sold by her. Many believed her story. The king, Hakon V, who had succeeded his brother Eric, caused her to be tried, and she was burnt alive at Bergen in 1301. Her cruel death excited much compassion; she was believed by many to have been Eric's daughter, and was for a time reverenced at Bergen as a saint.



MARKS, HENRY STACY (1829–1898), artist, the youngest of four children, was born on 13 Sept. 1829 in Great Portland Street, West, and baptised in All Souls', Langham Place. His father, Isaac Daniel Marks, after practising for a time as a solicitor in Bloomsbury, took to his father's business of a coach-builder in Langham Place. The artist's father was a devoted student of Shakespeare, which accounts for the subjects of some of his earliest paintings. The firm, Marks & Co., prospered at first, and it was understood that Henry should carry it on. His talent for drawing was shown very early, and when he left school he studied heraldry, so that he might be able to paint the crests and coats of arms on carriage doors and panels. Sufficient employment of this kind was quickly found for him in his father's business, but at the same time he attended evening classes at the well-known art school in Newman Street of [q. v.] In 1851, having failed in the previous year, he obtained admission to the Academy schools, but continued his studies with Leigh. A picture called 'Hamlet, Horatio, Osric,' painted in 1851, was hung in the Portland Gallery with Rossetti's 'Annunciation.' (Hatherley, Leigh's successor, sat for the Hamlet.) The possessor of much dry humour, and a good comic actor, Marks was deservedly popular and never wanted friends among artists. The closest in those early days were Philip Hermogenes Calderon, Mr. Val Prinsep, Mr. W. W. Ouless, Mr. G. A. Storey, and Mr. Alfred Parsons.

In January 1852 he stayed for five months in Paris with Calderon. He studied first with M. Picot, pupil of David, and afterwards in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In his absence his father's firm failed, and from that time forward he had to depend solely on his own exertions.

In 1853 he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy. His work was a half-length of 'Dogberry.' 'With many other students,' Marks wrote, 'I was much influenced by the pre-Raphaelite school, and that influence was very evident in the picture.' It was placed next to Holman Hunt's 'Strayed Sheep,' had the advantage of being very well hung, and found a purchaser. Henceforth Marks was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy, and he soon found a generous admirer in [q. v.], the founder of Mudie's Library. Before 1860 Mudie bought two of his most important paintings, 'Toothache in the Middle Ages' (1856), and 'Dogberry's Charge to the Watch' (1859). To the same period belonged the 'Gravedigger's Riddle,' which he also sold. Next in point of interest came the 'Franciscan Sculptor's Model,' a very humorous subject: the matter in hand a gargoyle; the model a country bumpkin, with features burlesqued to convey the idea of spouting. In 1860 Mudie invited Marks to accompany him to Belgium, and in 1863 he repeated the visit with his friends Yeames and Hodgson. In the 'Jester's Text,' painted in 1862, there are traces of Flemish influence.

In order to supplement his resources Marks did much besides painting pictures. He practised drawing on wood, contributed cuts to a paper called 'The Home Circle,' and illustrated some books. He also taught drawing for a short time, was largely employed by the firm of Clayton & Bell, the makers of stained glass, and did decorative work of all sorts. He designed the proscenium both for the Gaiety Theatre, London, and the Prince's Theatre, Manchester. The merit of his varied work attracted Ruskin's attention, and letters from Ruskin show how sincere was his appreciation of Marks's work. The studies in natural history, in which Marks in course of time specialised, particularly appealed to Ruskin, who saw in Marks's animals characteristics not unlike those which he discerned in Turner and Bewick. Marks all his life was a close observer of the ways of birds, and his excellent