NAM.1955-03-20-1

General Sir Alexander Taylor GCB, Royal (late Bengal) Engineers (1826-1912), 1898. Oil on canvas, signed and dated upper left ‘F. Reilly 1898’, by Frederick Reilly (1855-1905), 1898. Bust-length, with greatcoat over uniform with medals, bare headed, with white beard, in profile to left. After his retirement from the Army in 1878, Taylor served as president of the Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper’s Hill, Egham from 1881-1896. His biography was written by his daughter and published the year following his death. The artist, Frederick Reilly, was an engineer who studied at the Royal Indian Engineering College from 1874-1877, before serving with the Public Works Department of India until 1894. He then trained as an artist in Paris, and exhibited some works at the Paris Salon before returning to England to set up a studio. Reilly exhibited works at the Society of Portrait Painters and the Institute of Painters in Oil Colours. A very similar portrait of Taylor by Edmond Brock (1882-1952) was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1913 (no. 577), having been painted for the Corps of Royal Engineers where it resides today, and is often confused with this earlier portrait by Reilly.