OBITUARY - The Times Monday October 7 1878

Lord Chelmsford (born 1794, Solicitor General 1844-1M5 Atorney General 1845 and 1852, and Lord Chancellor in 1858 and 1866 and Sir Francis Grant have passed away on the same day, two men who, each in his own way were representative personages, and who in their very different walks of life had similar careers. Neither was intended for the profession he ultimately followed; it would be flattering to say that either was indebted for success to brilliancy of talent; yet each rose to the highest rank in his calling, and now that death has removed them, the one at the age of 75, the other at the age of 84, two considerable personages have disappeared from English society. For nearly half a century the pictures of Sir Francis Grant have been appearing in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, and he himself would not, perhaps, have disdained the compliment that he was a thoroughly English painter. The son of a Scotch country gentleman, he had a gentleman's love of field sports, and that partiality appeared in the earliest as well as the latest of his pictures. His reputation will mainly rest on his hunting scenes which he painted with sympathy and vigour. But be soon became a fashionable portrait painter, and the ordinary estimates of his power were mostly based on the multitude of canvasses on which he represented well-known men. Future generations will be indebted to his pencil for his likenesses of many of the personages who will then Illustrate the social and political life of our time. 

But it is as President of the Royal Academy rather than as an artist he will hr remembered by members of his own craft. At the death of Sir Charles Eastlake (1793-1865 PRA) his social position and gifts pointed him out as a peculiarly suitable successor to that eminent artist and he occupied a difficult position with admirable tact and skill. A President of the Royal Academy must he much more than a painter, and it is precisely because Sir Francis Grant was much more than that he achieved a success it will not be easy to rival.

My Comments

Francis Grant was a younger son of a Scotch nobleman, whose profligacy with his rather limited inheritance compelled him to work as a painter. Grant was a most successful PRA. though his later years were somewhat overshadowed by his sense of inferiority to his eventual successor Lord Leighton. Queen Victoria regarded him as an amateur country gentleman rather than an artist. The writer tells us that his reputation will ultimately rest in his hunting pictures, but it doesn't, his elegant portraits are becoming more highly regarded.

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