Henry Courtney Selous

Who was Henry Courtney Selous?

Henry Courtney Selous, was an English painter, illustrator and lithographer. He was the son of Gideon "George" Slous, a Flemish portrait and miniature painter, and a pupil of John Martin who was an important and influential English painter of the 19th century. He was an occupant of Keats House in Hampstead, from 1835 to 1838. Selous had two brothers, Frederick Lokes Slous and Angiolo Robson Slous, a playwright who wrote True to the Core: A Story of the Armada and whose daughter Alice married the novelist Morley Roberts.

In 1818 Selous entered the Royal Academy Schools and also exhibited his first work, a Portrait of a Favourite Cat, location untraced, at the Academy. He submitted animal portraits for the next three years before embarking on human portraiture. His early works were exhibited under the name "Slous", but at sometime between 1831 and 1838 he adopted the name "Selous".

In the 1840s he began to paint historical subjects, initially inspired by the renewed interest in history painting prompted by the New Palace of Westminster cartoon competition for the designs of frescoes on the new building in 1843.