Sir William Blake Richmond, painter, was born at 10 York Street, London on the 29th November 1842. In 1858 he entered the Royal Academy Schools. In 1866 he moved to Rome where for three years he studied the old masters under Professor Giovanni Costa, and learning the technique of fresco. He then returned to England, exhibiting a Procession in Honour of Bacchus at the Academy in 1869, the first of a series of large imaginative compositions, including Ariadne Lamenting the Desertion of Theseus (1872), Prometheus Bound (1874), An Audience at Athens (1874), Venus and Anchises (1890).Richmond also was responsible for the mosaic decorations in St Paul's Cathedral, and worked to some extent as a sculptor. His works in this medium include a Greek Runner in St Peter's Square, Hammersmith, a funerary monument to Bishop King in Lincoln Cathedral, and monuments to Gladstone and his wife at Howarden, North Wales. Richmond was Slade Professor at Oxford from 1879 to 1882, became ARA in 1888 and was elected full Academician in 1895. He died on 11 February 1921 at Beavor Lodge, London.