Elizabeth Thompson

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Elizabeth Thompson, Lady Butler (3 November 1846–2 October 1933) was a British painter. She was married to Lieutenant General Sir William Butler.

Born at Villa Claremont in Lausanne, Switzerland, she specialized in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles. These included the Crimean War and the Battle of Waterloo. The Roll Call 1874 (purchased by Queen Victoria), The Defence of Rorke's Drift and Scotland Forever! 1881 (in Leeds City Art Gallery) are among her better-known works.

She wrote about her military paintings in an autobiography published in 1922: "I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism."

She was the daughter of Thomas James Thompson (1812–1881) and his second wife Christiana Weller (1825–1910). Her sister is the famous essayist and poet Alice Meynell. Elizabeth began receiving art instruction in 1862, while growing up in Italy. In 1866 she went to South Kensington, London and entered the Female School of Art. She became a Roman Catholic along with the rest of the family after they moved to Florence in 1869. While in Florence, under the tutelage of the artist Giuseppe Bellucci (1827–1882), Elizabeth attended the Accademia di Belle Arti. She signed her works as E.B.; Elizth. Thompson or Mimi Thompson.

Initially she concentrated on religious subjects like The Magnificat (1872), but upon going to Paris in 1870 she was exposed to battle scenes from Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier and Édouard Detaille, and switched her focus to war paintings. With the painting Missing (1873) a Franco-Prussian War battle scene, depicting the common solders' suffering and heroism, she earned her first submission to the Royal Academy. After The Roll Call was shown in 1874 at the Academy, she became a nineteenth century celebrity, due to the paintings' immense popularity. As the paintings toured Europe, along with photographs of Elizabeth, she gained even more notice because people found out that she was both young and pretty, something normally not associated with painters of battle scenes. It also helped that during this time there was an incredible amount of Victorian pride and romanticism for the growing British Empire.

Her career and fame peaked with her 11 June 1877 marriage to Sir William Francis Butler (1838–1910), a distinguished officer of the British Army, from Tipperary in Ireland. Not only was this beauty now married, breaking the heart of many a young man, but also she would now travel to the far reaches of the Empire with her husband and raise their five children. During this time she also came under the influence of her husband's Irish-inclined beliefs that the colonial imperialism of countries like Great Britain may not be in the best interest of the native people in far-off lands.

She would continue to paint and hold true to the valour of the ordinary British soldier, despite the policy of Parliament and Crown. On her husband's retirement from the army, she moved with him to Ireland, where they lived at Bansha Castle, County Tipperary. She was widowed in 1910, but continued to live at Bansha until 1922, when she took up residence with her daughter, Eileen, Viscountess Gormanston, at Gormanston Castle, County Meath. She died there shortly before her 87th birthday and was interred at nearby Stamullen graveyard.


[edit] List of paintings (chronological)


[edit] Literature

  • Elizabeth Thompson - Letters from the Holy Land, London 1903.
  • Elizabeth Butler - From Sketch-book & Diary, London 1909.
  • Elizabeth Butler - An Autobigraphy, London 1922.
  • Eileen Gormanston - A Little Kept, London & New York 1953.
  • J. Crompton Walker - Irish Life & Landscape Dublin 1922.
  • M.K. O'Byrne - 'Lady Butler' Irish Monthly. Dec. 1950
  • Michael Lee - 'A Centenary of Military Painting' Army Quarterly, Oct. 1967.
  • Irish Arts Review - Winter, 1987; The Royal Scottish Academy Exhibitors 1826-1990; Calne 1991.


[edit] External links

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