Frederick Richard Say

Frederick Richard Say (30 November 1804 – 30 March 1868) was a notable society portrait painter in London between 1830 and 1860, undertaking commissions for portraits of figures such as Earl Grey, Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington and the Royal family. Family The Say family was notable in the early Middle Ages (Geoffrey de Say was one of the barons who made King John sign Magna Carta). In Burke’s Landed Gentry of 1862/63, there is an entry for “Say of Tilney”, describing the medieval ramifications and mentioning that “a branch of the family finally settled at Tilney Islington”, followed by an extended genealogy from the sixteenth century down to Frederick Richard Say. Frederick’s parents were William Say, a London engraver, and Eleanor Francis, who married on 30 December 1790 at St Mary Marylebone in London. William died on 24 August 1834 in London, aged 66. Frederick was born on 30 November 1804 and baptized at St Mary Marylebone on 1 February 1805. An elder brother born in October 1802 probably died in infancy. There were also three elder sisters, all of whom married known figures in the contemporary art world. Mary Anne (born 24 August 1794) married in 1817 (as his second wife) the architect John Buonarotti Papworth (1775 – 1847), Leonora (born 4 February 1798) married in 1827 another architect, William Adams Nicholson (1803 – 1853), and Emma (born 4 May 1800) married also in 1827 George Morant (1770 – 1846), who ran a Bond Street business in furniture and picture-framing.