George Morland
Nationality: British
Born: 1763-06-26, London, England
Died: 1804-10-29

George Morland was born in his father's house in the Hay market, London, on June 26, 1763. He was the son of Henry Robert Morland, and the grandson of George Henry Morland, both well-known painters. George Morland's mother was an excellent woman, and also an artist, exhibiting at the Royal Academy. If ever boy was well brought up, Morland was. He received a good education, and from the age of seven showed such a talent for sketching, that his father had no difficulty in choosing his profession. Besides, all his relations were artists. At the age of fourteen he was articled to his father for seven years, and worked hard. At fifteen he exhibited as 'Master G. Morland ' at the Royal Academy, 'two Landscapes, stained drawings.' Next year 'A Drawing with a Poker' was exhibited by him at the Academy.

His father permitted him no youthful associates, so Morland spent his leisure in reading, violin-playing, and country rambles. The only person to whom his parents would entrust him was Mr. Philip Dawe, painter and mezzotint engraver, who had been articled to Morland's father, and was the father of Morland's biographer, George Dawe, RA. Morland's apprenticeship ended in 1784, when he was twenty-one years old. He then received a proposal from George Romney, the celebrated portrait painter, to take him on articles for three years, but Morland said he had had enough of apprenticeships, and went to an Irish picture-dealer and offered to paint pictures for him. He painted a sufficient number of pictures to fill a room, and the Irishman charged half-a-crown admission to this very early 'Morland Picture Gallery.' Morland afterwards painted portraits successfully at Margate and at St. Orner in France, but portrait painting was never his forte.

Owing to the ease with which Morland sold his paintings, and the constant demand for engravings of them, he made a great deal of money, but, as his biographer Hassell remarks: 'Gay, unsuspecting, and generous, George was quickly surrounded by parasites—shameless, unprincipled men'—who united 'to deprive him of his well-earned property, and deteriorate his health and morals.' After a residence opposite the White Lion, Paddington, where he had every opportunity of studying postboys, cattle and horses, and where, at one time, he had himself nearly a dozen horses standing at livery, for he was very fond of riding, Morland removed to a house in Winchester Row, Paddington, in the garden of which he kept all sorts of animals: foxes, goats, pigs, dogs, monkeys, squirrels, guinea pigs, and dormice, besides a donkey, and an old horse which frequently appears in his pictures. Morland's published studies of animals prove his devotion to and mastery of this side of his art. He was particularly successful in representing pigs, and occasionally painted portraits of himself in their company. He spent too much money at Paddington, however, and had to retire to Enderby in Leicestershire, where, living in a farm-house, he gave full rein to his powers as a painter of rustic nature during 1791.

Returning to London towards the end of 1799, Morland thought he might escape the bailiffs, but was mistaken. He was arrested, and had to live in a district allotted to debtors. His industry at this time was extraordinary, for, from his brother's books, we learn that he executed seven hundred and ninety-two paintings during the last eight years of his life, besides making over one thousand drawings, as it was customary for him to produce one every evening. Released from his creditors in 1802, he had a stroke of apoplexy which stopped all work, and not long afterwards he was re-arrested for debt. He was hurried off to a sponging-house in Eyre Street Hill, and there he expired, October 29, 1804, in the forty-second year of his age. His wife on hearing the news, gave a loud shriek and expired four days afterwards. They were buried side by side in the burial-ground of St. James' Chapel.

Source: George C. Williamson. "Morland, George," Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1925.