Francis Alexander (February 3, 1800 – March 27, 1880) was an American portrait-painter.

Biography

Alexander was born in Windham county

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

in February 1800. Brought up on a farm, he taught himself the use of colors, and in 1820 went to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and studied painting with Alexander Robertson. He spent the winters of 1831 and 1832 in Rome. Afterwards, he resided for nearly a decade in Boston, Massachusetts, where he had considerable vogue, and where he painted a portrait of

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

(1842). In 1840 he was elected to the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...

as an honorary member. There is a tradition that when Dickens visited Boston, a line of New England portraitists was already fawning on shore, hoping to be the first to capture the great novelist's image on canvas. But Francis Alexander reached the writer well ahead of his peers—by traveling in a small advance boat to greet Dickens as his vessel entered the harbor. American poet

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include " Paul Revere's Ride", '' The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely tran ...

(whom Alexander also painted) would later coin the verb ''Alexandered'' (as in, wangled), sniffing that such and such a person had ''Alexandered'' his way into a highly coveted invitation to a party. Francis Alexander died in 1881 in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

Family

Alexander married Lucia Grey Swett in 1836. Their daughter Francesca Alexander was a popular illustrator, author, and translator.

Works

One of Alexander's best portraits is that of Mrs. Fletcher Webster, formerly in the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

. This romantic portrait, in which the sitter appears swathed in ermine, was deaccessioned from the Museum early in the 20th century and returned to descendants in the Sargent family.

Notes

References

* * Attribution: *

External links

Francis Alexander at American Art Gallery

Museum of Fine Art, Boston
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexander, Francis 1800 births 1881 deaths People from Killingly, Connecticut 19th-century American painters American male painters American portrait painters Artists from Boston American expatriates in Italy 19th-century American male artists