Arthur Boyd Houghton

1836-1875

British (London, England)

Arthur Boyd Houghton was a popular Victorian oil painter and watercolorist. He was perhaps best known as an illustrator, working between 1860 and his early death in 1875 during the resurgence of the wood engraved illustration. Heavily influenced by the art and the idealism of the Pre-Raphaelites, his work is often notable for the sense of drama he manages to convey. He worked for magazine titles such as The Graphic, Good Words and the Sunday Magazine and became a fixture in the public imagination with his plates for 'The Arabian Nights' and 'Don Quixote'. Of his oils, which are scattered among private and public collections throughout Britain, including two examples in the Tate, he most frequently painted genre scenes, often using his wife and children as models.