Portrait of Philip Speakman Webb. 1873. Brown watercolour wash. 12 ½ x 10 inches (31.8 x 25.4 cm). Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, accession no. NPG 4310, given by wish of Sir Sydney Cockerell in 1963. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) Deed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
This three-quarter profile head and shoulder drawing of Webb in brown watercolour wash, with him looking to the left, is apparently the second and the later of two drawings Murray made of his friend. The initial drawing dates from c.1869 and is a frontal portrait (Kirk 57). The two men had met in about 1866 through their joint involvement with the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. Both were close friends of William Morris, whom Webb had initially met in 1856 when both were training as architects in the office of George Edmund Street in Oxford.
Upon receiving this drawing Webb wrote to Murray on 13 March 1878: "You brought me last evening the most graceful, as well as the most delightful present you could have made me – namely the portrait of my life's friend. In sending you £10 I only wish to recognise the value of your gift in a way that cannot intend that such a gift should even appear to be repaid, only that my present shall cost me some thing; to show my gladness. The mere money will defray (perhaps) the cost of the antiquarian print but cannot in anyway represent the value of the gift. Yours in the flesh you have kindly laboured to represent" (qtd. Marsh, NPG website). The drawing later belonged to Sir Sydney Cockerell who, along with Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, had supported Webb in finding a suitable place for his retirement due to Webb's limited financial resources.
Bibliography
Kirk, Sheila. Philip Webb. Pioneer of Arts & Crafts Architecture. Chichester: Wiley-Academy, 2005. 7 and 57.
Marsh, Jan. Insights: The Pre-Raphaelite Circle. London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2005. 98-99.
Marsh, Jan. Extended catalogue entry. Philip Speakman Webb. National Portrait Gallery. Web. 24 February 2026.
_____. The Pre-Raphaelite Circle. London: National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2013, 103.
Philip Speakman Webb. National Portrait Gallery. Web. 24 February 2026.
Rose, Andrea. Pre-Raphaelite Portraits. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. 82.
Saywell, David and Jacob Simon. National Portrait Gallery. Complete Illustrated Catalogue. London: National Portrait Gallery, 2004. 648.
Created 24 February 2026