25 Facts About George Dury

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

George Dury was born and educated in Wurzburg, Bavaria, and Munich, where he began his career as an artist.

In 1849, after the Revolutions of 1848, George Dury emigrated to the United States with his sister and their respective spouses, whom they had married shortly before departure.

George Dury became a bespoke gallery artist in Nashville, Tennessee.

An 1870 review in a Nashville newspaper said George Dury was an artist "who has caught his inspiration from the old masters".

George Dury's work is on display in the US White House, the National Portrait Gallery, the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, and the Tennessee State Museum.

George Dury was born in Wurzburg in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1817, the first of Nicholas and Augusta Dury's three children.

George Dury graduated eight years later at the age of 21.

King Ludwig I of Bavaria became George Dury's patron, hiring the artist as court painter.

George Dury charged Dury to paint Ludwig I's Irish-born mistress Eliza Gilbert.

George Dury brought a copy of the painting of Gilbert with him when he immigrated to the US.

George Dury painted a miniature of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia.

George Dury emigrated to the United States in 1849, after the Revolutions of 1848, with his 19-year old fiancee Katherine Schaeffer, and his sister Josephine and her fiance Augustin Gattinger.

George Dury quickly relocated to the more promising city of Nashville, Tennessee, the following year, in 1850.

George Dury set up a second-story studio at No 43 Union Street, accepting commissions as a portrait artist.

George Dury lost his job teaching when the Nashville Academy closed at the beginning of the US Civil War.

One soldier died of typhoid fever in Mrs George Dury's arms, thinking she was his mother.

But, George Dury continued to paint portraits of both Union and Confederate officers during the Civil War, including Gen.

George Dury painted James D Porter, Robert Armstrong, Governor William Gannaway Brownlow, President Andrew Johnson, Queen Consort Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, and Tennessee GovernorWilliam Brimage Bate.

George Dury was seventy-five years old when she sat for the artist.

George Dury completed another portrait of Sarah Childress Polk in 1883,34 years after President Polk's term had ended.

George Dury's painting hangs in the East Wing of the White House.

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

George Dury had been paralyzed for six years before his death, likely by a stroke.

George Dury was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville.