Edmund Thomas Parris

Edmund Thomas Parris (3 June 1793 – 27 November 1873) was an English history, portrait, subject, and panorama painter, book illustrator, designer and art restorer. He was appointed history painter to Queen Adelaide, Queen Consort of William IV, and painted Queen Victoria's coronation in 1838 and the Duke of Wellington's funeral in 1852. He supervised the painting of the huge panorama in the London Colosseum in Regent's Park, London, and was the inventor of "Parris's medium".

Parris, was born in the parish of St. Marylebone, London on 3 June 1793, the son of Edward and Grace Parris. He showed an early talent for art and was placed with Jewellers "Ray and Montague" (John Ray and James Montague), to learn enamel-painting and metal-chasing. During his apprenticeship, his leisure time was given to the study of mechanics, which subsequently proved to be of great use to him.

In 1816 he entered the schools of the Royal Academy, and commenced the study of anatomy under Dr. Carpue. His first important picture, "Christ blessing little Children", was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1824. In that year, when the proposal was first made to undertake the restoration of James Thornhill's paintings in the cupola of St. Paul's Cathedral, Parris devised an ingenious apparatus for gaining access to them which attracted much attention, and led to his engagement by Thomas Hornor to assist him in the production of his panorama of London at the Colosseum, for which he had been making sketches since 1820. Upon this immense work, which covered nearly an acre of canvas and presented formidable artistic and mechanical challenges, Parris laboured incessantly for four years, completing it in November 1829.

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