Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cumming, William (fl.1797-1823)
CUMMING, WILLIAM (fl. 1797–1823), portrait-painter, was a painter of repute in Dublin towards the close of the eighteenth century, and his female portraits were much admired. Some of his portraits have been engraved, notably James Cuffe, Lord Tyrawley, engraved in mezzotint by John Raphael Smith, Edward Cooke, under-secretary for Ireland, and John Doyle, both engraved in mezzotint by W. Ward. He painted a picture of Christ and Zebedee's Children, which was engraved for Macklin's bible by J. Holloway, and published in 1798. In 1821, when the Royal Hibernian Academy, after a protracted controversy, succeeded in obtaining a charter, Cumming was one of three artists elected by ballot to choose eleven others, and thus form the first fourteen academicians.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits; W. B. Sarsfield Taylor's History of the Fine Arts in Great Britain and Ireland.]