{{short description|British artist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2015}} {{Use British English|date=November 2015}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = Sir | name = William Boxall | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|RA|size=100%}} | image = Sir William Boxall by Michel Angelo Pittatore.jpg | image_size = | caption = Portrait of William Boxall by Michelangelo Pittatore, 1870 | birth_date = {{Birth date|1800|6|29|df=yes}} | birth_place = Oxford, England | death_date = {{Death date and age|1879|12|6|1800|6|20|df=yes}} | death_place = London, England }}
'''Sir William Boxall''' {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|RA}} (29 June 1800 – 6 December 1879) was an English painter and museum director.
==Early life and education== He was born at Oxford on 29 June 1800, and baptised 29 July at St Michael's Church, to Thomas Boxall (d. 1847) and his wife Diana (nee Perrett, d.1841). He had an older sister Anne (1794–1846) and a younger sister Emma (1807–1850). He was educated at John Roysse's Free School in Abingdon-on-Thames (now Abingdon School), before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1819.
==Career== Between 1827 and 1845 he made a number of trips to Italy to study the old masters. Initially hoping to make his name as a history painter, Boxall later had to turn to the more lucrative genre of portraiture. Among his friends were William Wordsworth, whose portrait he painted, the sculptor John Gibson and the painter Sir Edwin Landseer. He was the executor of the will of Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, his predecessor as Director of the National Gallery.
Following his appointment in February 1866, as the director of the National Gallery, Boxall practically gave up painting. His directorship lasted eight years, during which he oversaw the construction of Edward Middleton Barry's celebrated eastern extension. In 1869, Boxall negotiated the purchase of Sir Robert Peel's collection of Flemish and Dutch paintings for £7,500. With this purchase the Dutch Golden Age became one of the strengths in the Gallery's holdings.<ref>{{cite book | first=Charles Saumarez | last=Smith | author-link=Charles Saumarez Smith | year=2009 | title=The National Gallery: A Short History | url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780711230439 | url-access=registration |publisher=Frances Lincoln |location=London | isbn=9780711230439 }} pp. 84–5</ref> Both of the Gallery's paintings by Michelangelo were bought by Boxall, ''The Entombment'' in 1868 and the ''Manchester Madonna'' in 1870. The authenticity of the former was called into question by the House of Lords in 1869, but is now generally regarded to be genuine – unlike another of Boxall's controversial acquisitions, the "Suermondt Rembrandt" 7, now attributed to Nicolaes Maes.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}
He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1851 and a full Royal Academician (RA) in 1863.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.racollection.org.uk/ixbin/indexplus?_IXACTION_=file&_IXFILE_=templates/full/person.html&_IXTRAIL_=Academicians&person=5534|title=William Boxall, R.A|website=Royal Academy of Arts Collections|accessdate=15 October 2016}}</ref> He was knighted in 1867.
==See also== * List of Old Abingdonians
==References== {{reflist}}
==Sources== * Avery-Quash, Susanna, "Boxall, William (1800–1879)." ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004.
==External links== * {{Art UK bio}} * An engraving by Edward Finden of the painting, {{ws|The Maiden Astrologer}} with illustrative verse by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in The Literary Souvenir annual for 1831. * An engraving of the painting, {{ws|Moonlight}}, with illustrative verse by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in The Amulet annual for 1832. * An engraving by James Thomson of the painting, {{ws|Meditation}}, with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833. * {{ws|The Pleasing Thought}}, engraved by Richard Austin Artlett for Finden’s Gallery of the Graces, 1834, together with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon (A Pleasant Memory). * An engraving by William Henry Mote of the portrait of {{ws|The Lady Egerton}} for Heath’s Book of Beauty, 1836, with a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
{{National Gallery directors}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boxall, William}} Category:1800 births Category:1879 deaths Category:19th-century English painters Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy Schools Category:Artists from Oxford Category:Directors of the National Gallery, London Category:English curators Category:English male painters Category:People educated at Abingdon School Category:Royal Academicians Category:19th-century English businesspeople Category:19th-century English male artists