William Riviere

William Riviere (1806–1876) sometimes Rivière, was an English painter and art educator.

Life

Born in the parish of St Marylebone, London, on 22 October 1806, was son of Daniel Valentine Riviere, a drawing-master; and brother of Henry Parsons Riviere, another painter, and Robert Riviere. After receiving instruction from his father, he became a student at the Royal Academy. He was noted as a draughtsman, and as a student of Michaelangelo and the Roman and Florentine artists. He exhibited first in 1826, when he sent to the Royal Academy a portrait and a scene from Shakespeare's King John.[1]

Later Riviere concentrated on teaching, and in 1849 he was appointed drawing-master at Cheltenham College, where he created a drawing-school. After ten years, he went to Oxford, where he promoted his view that the study of art should form an essential part of higher education.[1]

Riviere died suddenly, at 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford, on 21 August 1876. A miniature of him when a young man, by Charles William Pegler, went to his son Briton Riviere, R.A., one four children with his wife from 1830 Ann Jarvis, a still-life painter.[1][2]

Works

During the 1820s Riviere exhibited at the Royal Academy and the British Institution a number of portraits, domestic subjects, and landscapes. In 1843 he sent to the Westminster Hall competition a cartoon, the subject of which was a "Council of Ancient Britons", and in 1844 a fresco An Act of Mercy, and a painting in oils Council of Ancient Britons. In 1845 he sent to Westminster Hall a sketch Prince Henry, afterwards Henry V, acknowledging the authority of Chief Justice Gascoigne, with a portion of the subject in fresco; and in 1847 an oil-painting The Acts of Mercy.[1]

Riviere was also a landscape-painter, both in oil and in watercolours, and a sculptor. His last exhibited work was a portrait of Philip Wynter, president of St John's College, Oxford, which was at the Royal Academy in 1860.[1]

Notes
  1. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). "Riviere, William" . Dictionary of National Biography. 48. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. Sperling, Della Clason. "Riviere, William". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/23695. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). "Riviere, William". Dictionary of National Biography. 48. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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