Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sanders, George
SANDERS, GEORGE (1774–1846), portrait-painter, was born at Kinghorn, Fifeshire, in 1774, and educated at Edinburgh. There he was apprenticed to a coach-painter named Smeaton, and afterwards practised as a miniature-painter and drawing-master, and designer of book illustrations. At that period he executed a panorama of Edinburgh taken from the guardship in Leith roads. Before 1807 Sanders came to London, where, after working as a miniaturist for a few years, he established himself as a painter of life-sized portraits in oil. Though of limited abilities, he was for a time a very fashionable artist, and obtained high prices, as much as 800l. being paid for his portrait of Lord Londonderry. He usually represented his male sitters in fancy dress. His portraits of the Dukes of Buckingham, Devonshire, and Rutland, Lord Dover, Lord Falmouth, the Duchess of Marlborough, Mr. W. Cavendish, and Sir W. Forbes, were well engraved by J. Burnet, C. Turner, H. Meyer, and others. Sanders painted several portraits of Lord Byron; one, dated 1807, was engraved whole-length by E. Finden as a frontispiece to his ‘Works,’ 1832, and half-length for Finden's ‘Illustrations to Lord Byron's Works,’ 1834; another, representing the poet standing by his boat, of which a plate by W. Finden was published in 1831, is well known. He also painted a miniature of Byron for his sister, Mrs. Leigh, which was engraved for the ‘Works,’ but cancelled at Byron's request. Sanders exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1834 only, sending then five portraits, which were severely criticised at the time (Arnold, Library of the Fine Arts, iv. 143). He frequently visited the continent, and made watercolour copies of celebrated pictures by Dutch and Flemish masters; twenty-three of these are now in the National Gallery of Scotland. He died at Allsop Terrace, New Road, London, on 26 March 1846.
George Sanders has been confused with George Lethbridge Saunders (1807–1863), miniature-painter, frequently exhibiting at the Royal Academy between 1829 and 1853; he was living in 1856.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Cat. of the Scottish National Gallery; Royal Academy Catalogues; Conolly's Fifeshire Biography, 1866, p. 390; Byron's Works, 1832, ii. 175, 180, 187; Times, 28 March 1846.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.241
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 258 | ii | 34 | Sanders, George: after Saunders insert (1807-1863) |
| 37 | for he was living in 1856. read he died at Bristol on 25 Aug. 1863. |