Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/142

 were those of Miss Tonks and Miss Harvey. The latter picture (now the property of the Rev. Alfred J. Harvey) was exhibited at the Royal Academy in the winter of 1889.

Holl was of an anxious temperament, and the strain of continuous work told upon his health. He lived chiefly in London, but spent much time in his favourite county of Surrey, and at Gomshall Mr. Norman Shaw, R.A., built a house for him in 1885. In April 1888, after his pictures were painted for the exhibitions, he went, on medical advice for a few weeks to Spain, but his health was not permanently improved. On 14 July he was taken ill with disease of the heart, and died on 31 July, at his house in Fitzjohn's Avenue, London (designed for him by Mr. R. Norman Shaw in 1881–2). He was buried at Highgate cemetery on 7 Aug.

Velazquez and Rembrandt were Holl's favourite old masters, but he was sensible of the grace and refinement of Vandyck, whom in a few portraits, like those of Lord Spencer and Sir George Stephen, he approached. He held the first place among contemporary portrait-painters, and probably no portrait-painter of any age has executed so much first-rate work in so short a time. His pictures gained medals at Philadelphia and Melbourne, and he was asked to paint his own portrait for the Uffizi gallery at Florence, but did not live to undertake it.

Holl's subject-pictures illustrate his strong religious feeling and his deep sympathy with the miseries and sorrows of the poor. In private life he was always ready to do all he could to relieve distress. Wealthy in later life, and courted by the leaders of society, the cordiality of his relations with early and less fortunate friends never changed.

Holl married, in 1867, Annie Laura, daughter of Charles Davidson, the well-known water-colour painter, whom he met during his stay in Wales in 1866. His widow and four daughters, Ada, Olive, Madeline, and Phillis, survived him. The portrait of himself which he painted in 1884 for Mr. J. Macdonald of Aberdeen, is too frowning. An excellent sketch of him at work by M. Renouard was given in the ‘Universal Review,’ 15 Aug. 1888.

Holl exhibited ninety-one pictures in all at the Royal Academy. These include, besides those already mentioned, in 1865 ‘A Fern-gatherer;’ in 1866 ‘The Ordeal’ (the property of Mrs. Harry Stewart); in 1867 ‘Convalescent’ and ‘Faces in the Fire’ (the property of Miss Gertrude Agnew); in 1868 ‘Francis Holl, Esq.;’ in 1870 ‘Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith’ (Proverbs, xv. 17); in 1871 ‘Winter;’ in 1872 ‘A Milkmaid’ and ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’ (the property of Mr. John Akroyd); in 1873 ‘Leaving Home;’ in 1874 ‘Deserted;’ in 1876 ‘Her First-born;’ in 1877 ‘Going Home;’ in 1879 ‘The Gifts of the Fairies’ (the property of Mr. F. C. Pawle), ‘Signor Piatti,’ ‘The Daughter of the House,’ and ‘Absconded;’ in 1880 five portraits and ‘Ordered to the Front’ (the property of Sir Thomas Lucas, bart.); in 1881 ‘Home Again’ (also the property of Sir T. Lucas), and four portraits, including Major-general Sir Henry Rawlinson, K.C.B., and the Rev. Edward Hartopp Cradock, D.D. (now at Brasenose College, Oxford); in 1882 seven portraits, including Lieutenant-general Sir Frederick Sleigh Roberts, painted for the queen; in 1883 eight portraits, including Lord Wolseley, the Duke of Cambridge, and John Bright; in 1884 seven portraits, including the Prince of Wales (for the Middle Temple) and Viscount Cranbrook; in 1885 eight portraits, including Viscount Hampden, as speaker of the House of Commons, William Connor Magee, bishop of Peterborough (afterwards archbishop of York), and the Marquis of Dufferin); in 1886 six portraits, including the Duke of Cleveland, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P., and Sir J. E. Millais, bart., R.A.; in 1887 eight portraits; and in 1888 eight portraits, including the Prince of Wales, as an elder brother of the Trinity House, Earl Spencer, Sir William Jenner, bart., and Mr. W. E. Gladstone. Twenty-four of Holl's portraits were exhibited at the Grosvenor gallery between 1880 and 1888. Holl's portrait of John Bright, painted in 1887, is at the Reform Club.

Fifty-four of Holl's chief pictures were exhibited at the Royal Academy in the winter of 1889. A committee was formed in January 1889 to place a memorial-tablet to Holl's memory in St. Paul's Cathedral, and to purchase some of his works for the National Portrait Gallery. 

HOLL, WILLIAM, the elder (1771–1838), engraver, born in 1771, was apparently of German origin. He was a pupil of Benjamin Smith, the engraver, and practised in