Portret van John Arthur Roebuck

1837

First exhibition at the Royal Academy

In 1837 Watts exhibits at the Royal Academy for the first time: “The Wounded Heron” and two portraits. He soon left the Academy Schools, which he had entered at eighteen, and went on learning by himself, taking ancient Greek sculpture as his standard; his portrait career begins too, under the patronage of his close contemporary Alexander Constantine Ionides, later a close friend.

1843

First prize in the Parliament murals competition

His drawing “Caractacus”, submitted to the competition for murals in the new Houses of Parliament at Westminster, wins Watts a first prize of £300 and his first public attention. He ends up contributing little to the murals themselves, but the experience gives rise to his vision of a building covered in frescoes about the spiritual and social development of humanity.

1847

Second Parliament competition: “Alfred the Great”

While still in Italy, Watts enters a new Parliament competition with the picture “Alfred Inciting the Saxons to Prevent the Landing of the Danes by Encountering Them at Sea” — a patriotic subject treated with an eye to Phidias. The picture wins a first-class prize of £500; the government buys it and hangs it in one of the committee rooms of the House of Commons.

1847

Leaves Florence and stays in London

In April 1847 Watts leaves Florence for what was meant to be a brief return to London, but he ends up staying there.

1864–1865

Separation from Ellen Terry

Introduced to Ellen Terry by their mutual friend Tom Taylor, Watts marries the actress, thirty years his junior, seven days before her seventeenth birthday; within a year they separate. He does not divorce her at once and makes her allowance, paid to her father, conditional on her never returning to the stage.

1867

Elected a Royal Academician

Watts once left the Royal Academy Schools soon after entering them, but in 1867 the Academy finally elects him a member — an Academician.