PHILLIPS, THOMAS, an eminent portrait-painter, was born at Dudley in Warwickshire in 1770. Having acquired the art of glass-painting at Birmingham, he visited London in 1790 with an introduction to Benjamin West, who found him employment on the glass-paintings in St George's chapel at Windsor. In 1792 Phillips painted a "View of Windsor Castle," and ere the two succeeding years had passed, he exhibited "The Death of Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, at the Battle of Cassilon," "Ruth and Naomi,"
"Elijah restoring the Widow's Son," "Cupid disarmed by Euphrosyne," and other pictures of that class. From the year 1796, however, he seems to have mainly confined himself to portrait-painting; and it was in this walk he was destined to acquire his reputation as an artist. It was not long before he became the chosen painter of men of genius and talent, notwithstanding the rivalry of such distinguished artists as Koppner, Owen, Jackson, and Lawrence. He has left behind him, accordingly, portraits of nearly all the illustrious characters of his day, which will serve to justify the laudatory epithet of "the English Vandyck" bestowed upon him by the eminent foreign artist Nicaise de Keyser. In 1824 Phillips succeeded Fuseli as professor of painting to the Royal Academy, an office which he held till 1832. During this period he delivered ten Lectures on the History and Principles of Painting, which were published in 1833. He likewise wrote a large number of the articles on the fine arts in Rees's Cyclopaedia. He died on the 20th of April 1845.