Note: This article is about an American painter and portait artist. For the West Virginia civil engineer and industrialist who co-founded the Virginian Railway, see featured article on William Nelson Page (1854-1932).

William Page (3 January 1811 in Albany, New York-1 October 1885 in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York) was an American painter and portrait artist. Page originally studied for the ministry at the Andover Theological Seminary (1828-1830), though in later life he became a Swedenborgian. He received his training in art from Samuel F. B. Morse at the National Academy of Design, and in 1836 he became a National Academician.

Living in Rome from 1849 to 1860 he befriended Robert and Elizabeth Browning, whose portraits he painted. He was also a friend of William Wetmore Story and of

In 1873, Page became president of the National Academy of Design. His work includes a painting of Admiral David Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay, the Holy Family (now at the Boston Athenaeum) and The Young Merchants (now at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia), as well as countless portraits, including portraits of William Shakespeare, based on the Becker death mask. He also wrote A New Geometrical Method of Measuring the Human Figure (1860). He died in 1885.

References

• This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, a publication in the public domain.