Sir David Wilkie (1785 –1841)

National Gallery

Nearly a quarter of our paintings are on display thanks to gifts in wills. This month we are celebrating the stories behind some of these acquisitions: http://bit.ly/1RIGktV
In 2014 we were able to purchase David Wilkie’s 'Young Woman Kneeling at a Prayer Desk' thanks to Marcia Lay – an art teacher who taught at Lordswood Girls School, Harborne, for more than 20 years. She passed away in June 2012, leaving a generous gift in her will to the National Gallery, which fully funded the purchase of one of Wilkie’s finest example of portraiture.

Sir David Wilkie (18 November 1785 – 1 June 1841) was a Scottish painter.

Contents

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• 1 Early life
• 2 Into the paths of historical art
• 3 Honours
• 4 Travels on the Continent
• 5 The visit of King George IV to Scotland
• 6 Three more years of foreign travel
• 7 Wilkie's latter years
• 8 Achievements
• 9 Legacy
• 10 In fiction
• 11 Notes
• 12 References
• 13 Further reading
• 14 External links

British Museum

Born ‪#‎onthisday‬ in 1785: Scottish artist David Wilkie http://ow.ly/Ef2rk

Born ‪#‎onthisday‬ in 1785: Scottish artist David Wilkie. Wilkie began his artistic training in 1799 at the Trustees Academy in Edinburgh under the instruction of the history painter John Graham (1754–1817). While continuing his studies at the Royal Academy in London he began to exhibit. Influenced by Dutch 17th-century genre painting, Wilkie developed a talent for depicting scenes from everyday life. This is one of the very few nude studies he made.