Sir Frederic William Burton RHA (8 April 1816 – 16 March 1900) was an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 born in Corofin, County Clare

County Clare

-History:There was a Neolithic civilisation in the Clare area — the name of the peoples is unknown, but the Prehistoric peoples left evidence behind in the form of ancient dolmen; single-chamber megalithic tombs, usually consisting of three or more upright stones...

. He was the third director of the National Gallery, London.

Artistic career

Educated in Dublin, he was elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy

Royal Hibernian Academy

The Royal Hibernian Academy is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823.-History:The RHA was founded as the result of 30 Irish artists petitioning the government for a charter of incorporation...

 at the age of twenty-one and an academician two years later. In 1842 he began to exhibit 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...

. A visit to Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

 in 1842 was the first of a long series of trips to various parts of Europe, which gave him a profound knowledge of the works of the Old Masters. From 1851 he spent 7 years working as a painter in the service of Maximilian II of Bavaria

Burton worked with George Petrie on archaeological sketches and was on the council of the Royal Irish Academy

Royal Irish Academy

The Royal Irish Academy , based in Dublin, is an all-Ireland, independent, academic body that promotes study and excellence in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is one of Ireland's premier learned societies and cultural institutions and currently has around 420 Members, elected in...

 and the Archaeological Society of Ireland. He was elected an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1855, and a full member in the following year. He resigned in 1870, and was reelected as an honorary member in 1886. A knighthood

Knight Bachelor

The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...

 was conferred on him in 1884, and the degree of LL.D. of Dublin in 1889. In his youth he had strong sympathy with the Young Ireland

Young Ireland

Young Ireland was a political, cultural and social movement of the mid-19th century. It led changes in Irish nationalism, including an abortive rebellion known as the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848. Many of the latter's leaders were tried for sedition and sentenced to penal transportation to...

 Party. He died in Kensington

Kensington

Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...

, 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...

 and is buried in Mt Jerome Cemetery, Dublin.

Burton's best known watercolours, The Aran Fisherman's Drowned Child, 1841, and the Meeting on the Turret Stairs, 1864 (also known as Hellelil and Hildebrand) are exhibited at The National Gallery of Ireland.

Directorship of the National Gallery

In 1874 Burton was appointed director of the National Gallery, London, in succession to Sir William Boxall

William Boxall

Sir William Boxall was an English painter and museum director.He was born in or near Oxford and educated at Abingdon grammar school, before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1819. Between 1827 and 1845 he made a number of trips to Italy to study the old masters...

, RA.In June 1874, he obtained a special grant to acquire the art collection of Alexander Barker, which included Piero della Francesca's Nativity and Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli

Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance...

's Venus and Mars

Venus and Mars (Botticelli)

Venus and Mars is a c. 1483 painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli. It shows the Roman gods Venus and Mars in an allegory of Beauty and Valour. Venus watches Mars sleep, while two infant satyrs play carrying his armour while another rests under his arm...

. In 1876 a bequest of 94 paintings, mainly by Dutch artists but also including works by Pollaiuolo

Antonio Pollaiuolo

Antonio del Pollaiolo , also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiolo, was an Italian painter, sculptor, engraver and goldsmith during the Renaissance.-Biography:...

, Bouts

Dirk Bouts

Dieric Bouts was an Early Netherlandish painter. According to Karel van Mander in his Het Schilderboeck of 1604, Bouts was born in Haarlem and was mainly active in Leuven , where he was city painter from 1468...

 and Canaletto

Canaletto

Giovanni Antonio Canal better known as Canaletto , was a Venetian painter famous for his landscapes, or vedute, of Venice. He was also an important printmaker in etching.- Early career :...

, was made by the haberdasher Wynne Ellis

Wynne Ellis

Wynne Ellis was a wealthy British haberdasher, politician and art collector.-Biography:Ellis, son of Thomas Ellis, by Elizabeth Ordway of Barkway, Hertfordshire, was born at Oundle, Northamptonshire, in July 1790, and after receiving a good education came to London...

. Also in this year an extension to the Gallery by E. M. Barry was completed.

During the twenty years that he held this post he was responsible for many important purchases, among them Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

's Virgin of the Rocks

Virgin of the Rocks

The Virgin of the Rocks is the name used for both of two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, of the same subject, and of a composition which is identical except for two significant details...

, Raphael's Ansidei Madonna, Anthony van Dyck

Anthony van Dyck

Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next...

's equestrian portrait of Charles I, Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...

's Ambassadors, and the Admiral Pulido Pareja, by Diego Velázquez

Diego Velázquez

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...

 (this subsequently attributed to Velázquez's assistant Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo

Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo

Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo was a Spanish Baroque portrait and landscape painter, the most distinguished of the followers of Velázquez, whose style he imitated more closely than did any other artist...

). He also added to the noted series of Early Italian pictures in the gallery. The number of acquisitions made to the collection during his period of office amounts to more than 500.

Burton died in London in 1900 and is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery

Mount Jerome Cemetery

Mount Jerome Cemetery is situated in Harold's Cross on the south side of Dublin, Ireland. Since its foundation in 1836, it has witnessed over 300,000 burials...

in Dublin.