Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Munn, Paul Sandby
MUNN, PAUL SANDBY (1773–1845), water-colour painter, born at Thornton Row, Greenwich, on 8 Feb. 1773, was son of James Munn, carriage decorator and landscape-painter, and Charlotte Mills, his wife. His father was an occasional exhibitor at the Old Society of Painters in Water-colours and at the Society of Artists from 1764 to 1774. Munn was named after his godfather, Paul Sandby [q. v.], who gave him his first instructions in water-colour painting. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798, sending some views in the Isle of Wight, and was subsequently a frequent contributor of topographical drawings to that and other exhibitions. He was elected an associate exhibitor of the old Society of Painters in Water-colours in 1806, and was for some years a contributor to their exhibitions. He was an intimate friend of John Sell Cotman [q. v.], and they made several sketching tours together at home and abroad. He drew some of the views in Britton's ‘Beauties of England and Wales.’ Munn's drawings are delicately and carefully executed, usually in pale and thin colours, resembling the tinted drawings of the early school of water-colour painting. There are examples in the South Kensington Museum and the print room, British Museum. Munn painted little after 1832, when he devoted himself chiefly to music. He married Cecilia, daughter of Captain Timothy Essex, but died without issue at Margate on 17 Feb. 1845.
[Roget's Hist. of the Old Society of Painters in Water Colours; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; information from the Rev. C. J. Rowland Berkeley and Major-general Emeric Berkeley.]