William Etty RA

19TH CENTURY YORK BORN ARTIST AND HERITAGE CAMPAIGNER

1787-1849

One of York Art Gallery's largest collection of paintings celebrate the work of William Etty.  A whole room in the Gallery could be made up of his art work. A major exhibition is being held at the Gallery in 2011.

Etty did not come from an artistic or high cultural background.   He had distant gentry connections and was descended (there is a doubt about this); from a sister of that other 'Son of York' Richard III.  His father Matthew Etty was at the time a miller and baker in Feasegate, York, famous for sales of 'Ginger Bread'.  He began his artistic career as a child sketching on the shop floor in chalk.  Through his mother Esther Calveley he was connected to old gentry families.  Esther's family had inherited the lands and taken the name of the Rudston family. Her great grandmother was claimed to be Esther Rudston, and the author is carrying out further research to prove her existence. William Etty the Artist was born on 10 March 1787 and died in York on the 13 Nov 1849.   He was the seventh child of a large family.

He was apprenticed in 1798 to the printer Robert Peck but seven years later he left him to go to London to be a 'proper' artist..  Etty had a banker uncle who helped him to support himself in London and finance his entering of the Royal Academy in Somerset House.  He received cash from his brother Walter Etty to assist his living and studying expenses.  In 1807 he became a pupil painter of Thomas Lawrence, and later when he entered the Royal Academy he moved into Thomas Lawrence's house at Greek Street, Soho.  All this enabled by the £100 given to him by an uncle. 

Further funds came to assist Etty's career when in 1808 he inherited a legacy from the same benevolent banker uncle, his previous sponsor.  It enabled him to continue to study and in 1811 he was accepted to exhibit at the Royal Academy and the British Institution.

The end of the Napoleonic War in Europe in 1815 enabled intercontinental travel and Etty could set out on a tour in Europe.  In 1816 he was able to attend the studio of Jean-Baptiste Regnault in Paris and this was to influence his style and subject.   He went further on his journeys to Italy, but did not get any further than Florence.  But here he found his inspiration that was to lead to his well received paintings for the 1820 Royal Academy exhibition.  In 1820 Etty completed his 'The Coral finders' and 'Venus and her Youthful Satellites Arriving at the Isle of Paphos'.

Etty went on tour, France, Italy and the Low Countries and in  1822-4 he embarked on a prolonged grand tour of France and Italy, nine months of which were in Venice. During this time he used the access to the great primary sources of the grand masters as an opportunity to copy their works and style.  He copied works by the Great Masters, Titian, Veronese and Rubens.

Etty was influenced by the Masters in his use of colour, his being rich and warm and modelled on the Venetian painting, though his composition derived from Rubens. His paintings lacked the depth of Rubens. He was influenced in his arrangements by Poussin and John Flaxman.  In 1825 met Delacroix who he is often compared to.

In 1824 his career progressed when he was elected ARA.  In 1825 he was elected to the Royal Academy, defeating John Constable by 18 votes to five. By this time Etty was becoming known for his large history paintings like 'The Combat' 1825 and 'Benaiah 1829'.

He was a very rare artist for his time in that he could make a living out of the type of paintings that he sold. Though admittedly he was always poor and owed money to Walter as late as 1841.  He was not an expensive painter. He charged £60 for a full length portrait in 1835 but he lived simply.  He had a very good housekeeper, his niece, and she managed his finances well.  In later years he did managed to charge £2500 for the triad 'Joan of Arc'.   The Classical or biblical subjects that he painted involved the painting of a large number of nudes. He himself could defend this on moral grounds. During the 1830s and 1840s he tended to concentrate on smaller less ambitious works, tending to lead people to criticise him for having sold out to the dealers. Changes in patronage brought financial improvement so he moved from the patronage of the nobility and gentry of the 1820s to that of the professional, merchant class and wealthy industrialists.

Etty did paint portraits all his career, and many citizens of York appeared in these – fully dressed.  He also painted landscapes which have been praised on a par with Constable. 

  St Olave's Church York, Etty is buried here.