Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Day, Alexander

by Warwick William Wroth ‎

DAY, ALEXANDER (1773–1841), painter and art dealer, was born in 1773, and spent the early part of his life in Italy, studying painting and sculpture. He was living at Rome in 1794, and was for some time detained by the French during their war with Naples. In painting, Day chiefly confined himself to medallions showing only the head. Nagler and Redgrave especially notice the graceful treatment of his female heads. Day was a good judge of art. He recognised the high merit of the Elgin marbles when examined before the parliamentary committee in 1816, and imported into England many valuable pictures, several of which have now found their way into the National Gallery, e.g. Titian's ‘Rape of Ganymede,’ and ‘Venus and Adonis;’ Raphael's ‘St. Catherine,’ and the ‘Garvagh’ Raphael; Caracci's ‘Flight of St. Peter;’ G. Poussin's ‘Abraham and Isaac.’ He died at Chelsea on 12 Jan. 1841, in his sixty-ninth year. [Obit. notice in the Art Union, quoted in Gent. Mag. 1841, new series, xvi. 101–2, and in Ann. Register, lxxxv. 181; Nagler's Künstler-Lexikon; Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists of Eng. School; Michaelis's Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, p. 148; Catalogue of National Gallery.]

W. W.