Friedrich Julius Georg Dury (1817–1894) was a well-regarded Bavarian-American portrait artist who worked in both oil and pastel.

Showing early talent, Dury was admitted as a student at the age of 13 to the Academy of Fine Arts (Akademie der Bildenden Künste München) in Munich.

While a student at the Academy of Fine Arts, Dury developed a technique of using encaustic painting that closely resembled the highly popular portraiture on ivory.

[3] But, Dury continued to paint portraits of both Union and Confederate officers during the Civil War, including Gen. Robert E. Lee.

A smaller copy painted by Dury hangs in Lee's historic home "Arlington", just across the Potomac River from Washington, DC.

[3] In May 1866, the Tennessee state legislature passed a resolution to pay Dury a $1,000 commission for a portrait of Gen. George H. Thomas, commander of Union forces during the Battle of Nashville.

The state legislature later commissioned Dury to paint portraits of presidents Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated in 1865, and his successor, Andrew Johnson.

Plans were discussed to purchase and display copies of important European works of art, including statues and paintings.

[15][16][17][18] He also painted James D. Porter,[19] Robert Armstrong,[20] Governor William Gannaway Brownlow,[21] President Andrew Johnson,[22] Queen Consort Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen,[23] and Tennessee GovernorWilliam Brimage Bate.

Frances Willard, national president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, created a committee to commission Dury to paint a life portrait of Mrs. Polk.

[27][28] Dury died of "old age", December 2, 1894, at the home of his married daughter Augusta Brengelman, at 711 Russell Street in Nashville, Tennessee.