PAGE, WILLIAM

born Jan. 23, 1811, Albany, N.Y., U.S. died Oct. 1, 1885, Tottenville, Staten Island, N.Y. American painter known for his sedate portraits of prominent mid-19th-century Americans and Britons. Page was trained and initially influenced by the famed inventor and Romantic painter Samuel F.B. Morse. From 1849 to 1860 he lived in Rome, where he painted portraits of friends such as Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. His best-known works, Self-Portrait (1860; Detroit Institute of Arts) and Portrait of Mrs. William Page (186061; Detroit Institute of Arts), typify the serene dignity of his likenesses, his monumental and sculptural handling of the figure, and his use of warm, resonant tonalities of dark colours. All these stylistic hallmarks show Titian's influence upon him.