Edmund Thomas Parris
Edmund Thomas Parris (3 June 1793 – 27 November 1873) was an English painter and designer who worked on history pictures, portraits, panoramas, book illustrations, and art restoration. He served as a history painter to Queen Adelaide and painted important royal events, including Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838 and the Duke of Wellington’s funeral in 1852. He also supervised a huge panorama at the London Colosseum in Regent’s Park and invented a painting medium known as Parris’s Medium.
Parris was born in St. Marylebone, London, the son of Edward and Grace Parris. He showed early talent and trained with jewelers Ray and Montague to learn enamel painting and metal chasing. He also studied mechanics, which later helped his large-scale projects. In 1816 he joined the Royal Academy schools and studied anatomy under Dr. Carpue. His first major picture, Christ blessing little Children, was shown at the Royal Academy in 1824.
That same period he helped with the restoration of Thornhill’s paintings in the cupola of St. Paul’s Cathedral. He then worked with Thomas Hornor on his London panorama at the Colosseum, a project he had sketched for years. The panorama covered a huge area of canvas and took four years to complete, finishing in 1829. Afterward he and William Daniell painted a panorama of Madras, for which he also built the building.
Parris also gained fame as a portrait painter, especially of female beauty. His picture The Bridesmaid (1830) was popular and reproduced in engravings. He published drawings in books such as Flowers of Loveliness, Gems of Beauty, and The Passions (1836–1838) with verses by Lady Blessington, and he illustrated her Confessions of an Elderly Gentleman (1836) and Confessions of an Elderly Lady (1838).
In 1837 he sketched Queen Victoria from a seat in the theatre and painted a portrait from the resulting study; a print followed in 1842. He painted the Queen’s coronation in 1838 after taking sittings from Victoria and others. In 1843 he won £100 at a Westminster Hall cartoon competition for Joseph of Arimathsea converting the Britons. In 1852 he painted the Duke of Wellington’s funeral and the restoration of Thornhill’s St. Paul’s paintings began again, with Parris leading the work from 1853 to 1856. Views on the restoration were mixed.
Parris was a prolific exhibitor at the Royal Academy and the British Institution from 1816 onward. He became historical painter to Queen Adelaide in 1832 and worked on many projects for nobility, including stained glass, carpets, and screens. He helped Robert Smirke prepare Westminster Abbey for William IV’s coronation and even created designs for tapestry, including a 40-foot piece for the Paris exhibition of 1867. He ran a life-drawing school in Grafton Street and invented Parris’s Medium, a dull fresco-like surface produced when mixed with oil.
Edmund Thomas Parris died at 27 Francis Street, Bedford Square, London, on 27 November 1873. One of his pupils was John Haslem.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 11:29 (CET).