Edward Arthur Fellowes Prynne (1854–1921) was a leading British late Pre-Raphaelite painter of portraits and subject pictures, who in later life became one of the country's best-known creators of decorative art for churches.

After preliminary training in art schools in London, he travelled to Antwerp, where he studied with the Belgian painter Charles Verlat.

By command of Queen Victoria, he attended Osborne House to show this portrait, which was later hung in the Royal Naval Barracks at Devonport.

In many instances, Prynne's painted altar and reredos panels and stained-glass grace the churches designed and restored by his brother.

One of Prynne's most striking and original works is his altar piece, 'Benedicite Domino Laudate Et Superexaltate Eum in Saecula', which includes five painted panels illustrating separate lines from the canticle of creation.

Here Prynne's mythological and religious worlds combine, notably in the panel depicting a sub-marine angel garbed in scales and delicate fish fin wings.

It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895, the reviewer in The Antiquary magazine noting that the painting would be suitable for display in a church setting.

[5] The copyrights of both the 'Magnificat' and 'The Desire of all Nations' were purchased by the Berlin Photographic Company in 1896, and subsequently reproduced in photogravure and widely circulated in all parts of the world.

The last altar panels painted by Prynne were for St Mary's Church, East Grinstead, representing Jesus' entombment, with adoring angels on each side.

The cerulean ground at the top of the composition, and the ringed gold of the halos, recalled the joyously ecstatic art of Fra Angelico, and formed a rich harmony with the multi-hued draperies, giving also the keynote to the layers of violet cloud that separated the rows of figures.

This included John J Jennings (as at St Peter's Church Staines), whose glassworks were on Clapham Road in South London,[24] and Percy Bacon Brothers.

Prynne thought that the church "afforded a unique opportunity by reason of the splendid wall-space'' and regarded the commission as "a very great pleasure and high privilege," and over the next few years he and the Fathers wrangled over the details.

'[5] On 29 January 1921, Prynne's eldest daughter, Beatrice, was married to Yule Crosby (1889–1977) at St Peter's Church, Ealing.

Crosby was a South African mining engineer who met the Prynne family whilst he was working as a billeting officer in London during the First World War.

The newly married couple emigrated to South Africa, and Edward never saw his daughter again, nor meet his grandchild (also called Beatrice), born the following year.

[30] (In 1947, one of Prynne's daughters additionally donated a set of photographic reproductions of his Stations of the Cross for the Cowley Fathers – now lost).

[30] In 1934, Beatrice, Yule and their three children visited Emma Fellowes Prynne, who still lived at number 1 Woodville Road in Ealing.