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Born on the 23rd of April 1820 in Croydon, James Sant was a prolific and successful portrait painter and from 1892 was appointed principal painter-in-ordinary to Queen Victoria. He had many other patrons amongst the noble and landed families in England, hence he must have been a painter entrepreneur. He studied under John Varlye and Sir A.W. Callcott before entering the Royal Academy London Schools in 1840. Between 1840 and 1915 he regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy in London and presented his portraits as well as allegorical and genre scenes.
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Sant was favoured with commissions of portraits by a large aristocratic circle led by Lady Waldegrave, whose gallery at Strawberry Hill was filled with his portraits of her friends. Among them were many Duchesses and Countesses in abundance and his flattering paintings of these noble ladies were unsurprisingly liked by his sitters and their husbands.
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However, he himself and a world of admirers were better pleased with his idealized pictures of children and young women, especially those that had biblical or religious associations. His “The Infant Samuels” was a great success in 1853 and when Cousins made an engraving of it, the picture became popular in hundreds of homes. At the end of the nineteenth century he adopted a freer style, influenced by John Singer Sargent. “The Soul’s Awakening” was his 1888 entry to the Academy and is probably his best known painting. Alf Cooke of Leeds made an engraving of this picture, of which the sentimentality delighted the public. It was referred to in an interview with James Sant in Great Thoughts magazine in December of 1897.
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Sant was elected Associate Royal Academician in 1861 and Royal Academician in 1869. On his Royal appointment he was commissioned to paint Queen Victoria and the three eldest children of the Prince of Wales as well as a state portrait of the Turkish Embassy. Among others he also painted Archbishop Tate, Lord Russell and Adeline Patti.
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