Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Riviere, Briton

​RIVIERE, Briton, R.A., a distinguished animal painter, was born in London, Aug. 14, 1840, being the son of Mr. W. Riviere, who was head of the drawing school at Cheltenham College, and afterwards a teacher of drawing at Oxford. He found in his father an experienced and able master, under whom he studied during the nine years he was at Cheltenham and subsequently at Oxford. While studying art in the latter place the influences, other than artistic, by which he was always surrounded, prevailed to turn his attention to classical and other scholarly matters; he entered the University, took his B.A. degree in 1867, and that of M.A. in 1873. The first pictures he exhibited were home rural scenes, as "Rest from ​Labour," and "Sheep on the Cotswolds," in the Academy Gallery in 1858, and, in the next year, "On the Road to Gloucester Fair." From this date till 1864 he was absent from the Academy as an exhibitor, but in the last-mentioned year he sent "Iron Bars" and "Romeo and Juliet." Among his subsequent works are:—"The Poacher's Nurse," "Strayed from the Flock," a dead lamb lying in the snow, and "The Long Sleep," 1866; "Fox and Geese" (exhibited in the exhibition of water-colour painters at the Dudley Gallery in 1868, and now in the collection at South Kensington); "The Prisoners," 1869; "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Charity," 1870; "Come Back!" and "Circe transforming the Friends of Ulysses into Pigs," 1871; "Daniel" in the lions' den, 1872; "Argus" and "All that was left of the Homeward Bound," 1873; "Apollo," and "Genius Loci," 1874; "War Time," and "The Last of the Garrison," 1876; "A Stern Chase is always a Long Chase," and "Pallas Athene and the Swineherd's Dogs," 1876; "A Legend of St. Patrick," and "Lazarus," 1877; "An Anxious Moment," a flock of geese frightened at the sight of a hat on the ground; "Sympathy," "Victims," and "The Ruins of Persepolis," 1878; "In manus tuas Domine," "The Poacher's Widow," now in the public library, Birmingham, and "A Winter's Tale," 1879; "The Night Watch," "The Last Spoonful," and "Endymion," 1880; "A Roman Holiday," "Envy, Hatred, and Malice," "Hope Deferred," and "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie,"1881; "The Magician's Doorway," "Una," and "Portrait of Miss Potter," 1882; "The Unclean Spirits entering into the Swine," "Old Playfellows," "The Last of the Crew," and "Giants at Play," 1883. Many of the above have been engraved on steel by F. Stacpoole, A.R.A., S. Cousins, R.A., and C. J. Lewis; and other works have been etched by various hands. Mr. Riviere was elected A.R.A. Jan. 16, 1878, and R.A. May 5, 1881.