Sir Joseph Noel Paton FRSA

Royal Scottish Academy

The Royal Scottish Academy is a Scottish organisation that promotes contemporary Scottish art. Founded in 1826, as the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, the RSA maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by eminent artists and...

, LL. D. (13 December 1821 – 26 December 1901) was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 artist, born in Wooer's Alley, Dunfermline

Dunfermline

Dunfermline is a town and former Royal Burgh in Fife, Scotland, on high ground from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. According to a 2008 estimate, Dunfermline has a population of 46,430, making it the second-biggest settlement in Fife. Part of the town's name comes from the Gaelic word...

, Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

.

Born to a family of weavers who worked with damask

Damask

Damask is a reversible figured fabric of silk, wool, linen, cotton, or synthetic fibers, with a pattern formed by weaving. Damasks are woven with one warp yarn and one weft yarn, usually with the pattern in warp-faced satin weave and the ground in weft-faced or sateen weave...

, Joseph continued the family trade for a short time. He had strong artistic inclinations however and studied briefly at the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1843.

He painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style and became a painter of historical, fairy, allegorical and religious subjects.

The first picture to be shown to the public was 'Ruth Gleaning' which was shown at the Royal Scottish Academy

Royal Scottish Academy

The Royal Scottish Academy is a Scottish organisation that promotes contemporary Scottish art. Founded in 1826, as the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, the RSA maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by eminent artists and...

 in 1844. He won a number of prizes for his work including for two of his most famous works The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania (1846 – exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy) and The Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania (1847 – Westminster Hall), both of which are available to public view at the National Gallery of Scotland

National Gallery of Scotland

The National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is the national art gallery of Scotland. An elaborate neoclassical edifice, it stands on The Mound, between the two sections of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens...

.

Made an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy

Royal Scottish Academy

The Royal Scottish Academy is a Scottish organisation that promotes contemporary Scottish art. Founded in 1826, as the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, the RSA maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by eminent artists and...

 in 1847 and a fellow in 1850. In 1858, he married Margaret Gourlay Ferrier and had seven children (six sons and a daughter), the eldest being Diarmid Noel Paton (1859–1928) who became a regius professor of physiology in Glasgow in 1906. His second son Frederick Noel Paton (b. 1861) was to become director of commercial intelligence to the government of India (1905). In 1865, he was appointed Queen's Limner for Scotland

Painter and Limner

The Painter and Limner is a member of the Royal Household in Scotland. Appointments of Court Painters are recorded from 1581 onwards, and the post of Painter and Limner was created in 1702 for George Ogilvie. The duties included "drawing pictures of our [the Monarch's] person or of our successors...

. He also published two volumes of poetry and produced a number of sculptures. Two years later he received the knighthood and in 1878 was conferred the degree LL.D by the University of Edinburgh.

One cannot conclude a potted biography of Sir Noel without mentioning that he was a well known antiquary, whose specialty was arms and armour. He died in Edinburgh on the 26th of December 1901.

He receives a mention in Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh

Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...

's Sword of Honour

Sword of Honour

The Sword of Honour trilogy by Evelyn Waugh is his look at the Second World War. It consists of three novels, Men at Arms , Officers and Gentlemen and Unconditional Surrender , which loosely parallel his wartime experiences...

 trilogy. In the 'Happy Warriors' chapter, Guy Crouchback visits Cape Town Art Gallery and sees 'two remarkable Noel Patons'.

His Work

• Cymocles Discovered By Atis In The Bowre Of Blisse, Spencer's Fairie Queene, Book II, Chapter V (1848)
  (Type : Pen, ink and wash Size : 8¼ × 12 inches (21 × 30.5 cm) Location : Public collection)

• Calvary (1849)
  (Type : Pencil on paper Size : 4⅛ × 6½ inches (10.5 × 16.8 cm) Location : Private collection)

• Sermon on the Mount (1849)
  (Type : Pencil on paper Size : 4⅛ × 6½ inches (10.5 × 16.8 cm) Location : Private collection)

• The Pursuit of Pleasure (1855)

• The Bluidie Tryst (1855)
  (Type : Oil on Canvas Size : 28⅝ × 25½ inches (73 × 65 cm) Location : Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland)

• Home (ca. 1855–56)
  (Type: Oil on Panel Location: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA)

• Hesperus (1857)
  (Type : Oil on canvas Size : 35¾ × 27⅛ inches (91 × 69 cm) Location : Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland)

• Hesperus – detail (1857)
  (Type : Oil on canvas Size : 35¾ × 27⅛ inches (91 × 69 cm) Location : Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland)

• In Memoriam (1858)
  (Type : Oil on panel Size : 48⅜ × 37⅞ inches (123 × 96.5 cm) Location : Private collection)

• By a Painter (1861) Poem

• Mors Janua Vitae (1866)

• Spindrift (1867) Poem

• Oskold and the Ell-maids (1874)

• The Man with the Muck-Rake (1875–9)
  (Location : Ferens Art Gallery, Hull City Museums collection, also a study for the same work (1872))

• In Die Malo (1882)

• How an Angel rowed Sir Galahad across the Dern Mere (1888)
  (Type : Oil on canvas Location : Private collection)

• Oberon and the Mermaid (1888)
  (Type : Oil on canvas Location : Private collection)

• The Spirit of Religion (cartoon) at Dunfermline City Chambers
  Dunfermline City Chambers
  Dunfermline City Chambers is a building historically designed to be the centre of local government in Dunfermline, Fife. In more recent times most of these functions have been devolved to other locations, but [as of 2008] the impressive edifice still houses the Council Chambers, the Burgh Court and...
  
  
• Sir Galahad
  (Type : Oil on canvas Location : Private collection)
• Warriors
  (Type : Oil on canvas Size : 23 × 27⅞ inches (58.5 × 71 cm) Location : Private collection)

External links

• National Gallery Of Scotland