Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/423

  of his note-books, official and private, now preserved at the National Portrait Gallery, is of the highest value. Scharf was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1852, and became one of its most active members, frequently serving on the council and the executive committee, and reading papers at the meetings; of these seventeen were printed in ‘Archæologia,’ of which the most important were: ‘Observations on a Picture in Gloucester Cathedral, and other Representations of the Last Judgment,’ 1856; ‘On the Portraits of Arthur, Prince of Wales,’ 1861; ‘On a Portrait of the Duchess of Milan at Windsor Castle,’ 1863; ‘On a Picture representing the three Children of Philip, King of Castile,’ 1869; and ‘On a Portrait of the Empress Leonora,’ 1870. His many other essays include: ‘Characteristics of Greek Art,’ prefixed to Wordsworth's ‘Greece,’ 1859; ‘On the Principal Portraits of Shakespeare,’ 1864 (reprinted from ‘Notes and Queries’); ‘The Visit of Queen Elizabeth to Blackfriars, being a new interpretation of the Sherborne Castle Picture engraved by Vertue as a Royal Visit to Hunsdon House in 1571,’ 1866 (reprinted from the ‘Archæological Journal’); ‘Observations on the Westminster Abbey Portrait and other Representations of King Richard II,’ 1867 (reprinted from the ‘Fine Arts Quarterly Review’); ‘An Historical Account of the Pictures belonging to the Crown,’ published in the volume of the Archæological Institute, entitled ‘Old London,’ 1867; and ‘Description of the Wilton House Diptych, containing a Contemporary Portrait of King Richard II,’ issued by the Arundel Society, 1882. He published in the ‘Fine Arts Quarterly Review’ an excellent descriptive catalogue of the pictures belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, which was reprinted in 1865.

In 1858 Scharf was elected a corresponding member of the Archæological Institute of Rome. In 1866 and 1868, when the series of exhibitions of national portraits was being held at South Kensington, he delivered courses of lectures on the subject at the Royal Institution. In 1882, on the completion of his twenty-fifth year of service as keeper and secretary of the Portrait Gallery, he was accorded the additional title of director; in that year also he was elected a life governor of University College. In 1885 he received the companionship of the Bath. In 1892, when he had passed the age prescribed for compulsory retirement in the civil service, a special arrangement was made whereby his services were retained for a further period, in the hope that he might be able to superintend the final establishment of the gallery (which had been removed from Great George Street to South Kensington in 1870, and thence to the Bethnal Green Museum in 1885), in the handsome building then being erected for its reception, through the liberality of Mr. W. H. Alexander, in St. Martin's Place; but this he did not live to see. A complication of distressing ailments, which had already begun to grow upon him, compelled him to relinquish his post early in 1895; he was then made a K.C.B., and appointed a trustee of the gallery he had so ably served, but these honours he enjoyed for a few weeks only. He died, unmarried, on 19 April 1895, at 8 Ashley Place, Westminster, where he had resided for nearly twenty-five years, and was buried with his parents in the Brompton cemetery. A portrait of him, privately subscribed for, was painted by Mr. W. W. Ouless, R.A., in 1885, and presented to the trustees of the Portrait Gallery, to be hung in their board-room; after his death it was incorporated with the collection which he had himself formed, and with which his name must ever be associated. Scharf went much into society, and throughout life enjoyed the esteem and affection of a wide circle of friends. He bequeathed his collection of note-books and many annotated volumes to the National Portrait Gallery, and his correspondence and antiquarian drawings to the British Museum and the Society of Antiquaries.

 SCHARPE, GEORGE (d. 1638), professor of medicine, was born in Scotland, and studied medicine at Montpellier. He graduated there in 1607, and in 1619 was the successful candidate out of eleven applicants, one of them Adam Abernethy, a fellow countryman, for the chair vacant by the death of Varandé. He had published his theses as a candidate, entitled ‘Quæstiones Medicæ,’ at Montpellier in 1617. In 1632, in the absence of Ranchin, he was vice-chancellor of the faculty. He was not popular with his colleagues. In 1631, when proctor, he was admonished for fomenting quarrels, for arrogance at public examinations, and for personalities in conversation. He was threatened with a fine and deposition if he again transgressed; yet in 1634, at a meeting of the faculty, he denounced André, who had charge of the botanical garden, as an ignoramus, and, though ordered to remain till