Cave Thomas

He studied at the Royal Academy in the 1830s and in 1840 travelled to Munich, where for several years he attended the Academy of Fine Arts, learning the techniques of fresco painting, working at the basilica of St. Boniface's Abbey and elsewhere under Heinrich Maria von Hess,[1] and was influenced by "Nazarenes" Peter von Cornelius and Johann Friedrich Overbeck.

[2] In April 1842 H.M. Government established a competition to select British artists to create artwork on which to base frescoes for the new Houses of Parliament, then under construction.

A royal commission was formed with Sir Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865), as secretary, and a panel which included the Prince Albert,[a] various noblemen and connoisseurs, and such men as the historian Henry Hallam, the poet Samuel Rogers, and the painter William Etty.

The subjects Thomas chose for his entries were "St Augustine Preaching to the Britons", "The Bark of the Prosperous", "Justice", and "Philosophy".

[2] Thomas was described as a fringe member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, perhaps an understatement as although his output was not large, he was a friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and shared a studio with Ford Madox Brown in the 1840s.