William B Richmond (1842–1921)

Sir William Blake Richmond was a portrait painter and a designer of stained glass and mosaic, whose works include mosaic decorations below the dome and in the apse of St Paul’s cathedral in London. He was the Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford from 1879 to 1883. William received some coaching from Ruskin.

In 1857 at the age of 14 he entered the Royal Academy schools, where he studied for about three years. A visit to Italy in 1859 gave him opportunity for studying the works of old masters and had an effect on his development. His first Academy picture was a portrait group (1861); and to this succeeded, during the next three years, several other pictures of the same class.