Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Somerville, Andrew
SOMERVILLE, ANDREW (1808–1834), painter, was the son of a wire-worker at Edinburgh, where he was born in 1808. He was educated at the Edinburgh High School, and received his art training at the Trustees' Academy. He also studied under William Simson [q. v.], whom he subsequently assisted in teaching drawing. He exhibited for the first time with the Royal Scottish Academy in 1830, and was elected an associate of that body in 1831; in 1833 he became a full member. He died at Edinburgh in January 1834. Somerville was an artist of great promise; he painted chiefly subjects drawn from border ballads, with a few humorous compositions such as ‘Donny brook Fair,’ and some portraits. His ‘Cottage Children’ is in the National Gallery of Scotland, and his ‘Flowers of the Forest’ was engraved by H. Haig for the Scottish Art Union.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists; Scottish Nation, 1834; information from James Caw, esq.]