Octavius Oakley 

 

Octavius Oakley RWS (27 April 1800, in Bermondsey – 1 March 1867, in London), was an English watercolour portrait, figure and landscape artist.

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Oakley worked for a Leeds textile company. He developed into a specialist of portraits in watercolour and was given commissions by the Duke of Devonshire. Whilst living in Derby where he painted rustic scenes until he moved to Leamington Spa in Warwickshire in 1836, but returned to London in the 1840s and worked there until his death, producing paintings of street scenes and gypsies and their lifestyle. His emphasis on gypsy paintings which he exhibited at the Royal Watercolour Society earned him the name 'Gypsy Oakley'.