,
British Museum Henry Thoby Prinsep was a friend of the painter
George Frederic Watts, under whom his son first studied, and travelled with Watts in 1856–57 to Sir
Charles Thomas Newton's excavation of
Halicarnassus. Valentine then went to
Charles Gleyre's atelier in Paris. There
James Abbott McNeill Whistler,
Edward Poynter, and
George du Maurier were among his fellow students, and he was later the original for Taffy in Du Maurier's novel
Trilby. After Paris, Prinsep passed to Italy. With
Edward Burne-Jones he visited
Siena and there made the acquaintance of
Robert Browning, of whom he saw much in Rome during the winter of 1859–60. Prinsep was a close friend of
John Everett Millais, and of Burne-Jones, with whom he travelled further in Italy. He had a share with
Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others in the
decoration of the hall of the
Oxford Union. With other members of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he taught at the
Working Men's College during the mid-19th century. He first exhibited at the
Royal Academy of Arts in 1862 with his
Bianca Capella, his first picture, which attracted notice as a portrait (1866) of
General Gordon in Chinese costume. Prinsep lent the costume to Millais who used it in his own painting
Esther. From 1862 to his death Prinsep was an annual exhibitor at the Royal Academy. He was elected
A.R.A. in 1879 and
R.A. in 1894. His marriage in 1884 made Prinsep a wealthy man, and he became a company director and landowner. He was an enthusiastic
volunteer and one of the founders of the
Artists Rifles in 1859. ==Death and monument==