Henry Peters Gray (June 23, 1819 - November 12, 1877) was an American portrait and genre painter.

Early life

thumb|150px|Watercolor miniature portrait of Gray by Henry Colton Shumway (1807–1884), at the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1842]]

thumb|200px|L to R.: [[Henry Kirke Brown, Henry Peters Gray and Asher Brown Durand, 1850]]

Born in New York City he was a pupil of Daniel Huntington in New York, and subsequently studied in Rome and Florence.

Career

Elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1842, he succeeded Huntington as president in 1870, holding the position until 1871.

The Pride of the Village was based on Washington Irving’s story of the same name and is about a beautiful and simple country girl, the proverbial "pride of the village," who fell in love with an army officer. When the officer is transferred to another post, he asks that she accompany him, however, her pure mind was so upset by this indecorous suggestion that she pined away, surrounded by her devoted family. The painting shows her in her decline, possibly "thinking of her faithless lover?—or were her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose bosom she might soon be gathered?"

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File:The Greek Lovers - Henry Peters Gray.jpg|The Greek Lovers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1846

File:The Wages of War - Henry Peters Gray.jpg|The Wages of War at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1848

File:The Pride of the Village - Henry Peters Gray.jpg|The Pride of the Village at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1858–59

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References

  • 1893 Biographical Sketch
  • Find A Grave