Sir Edward Poynter was second only to Frederic Leighton as an exponent of Victorian neo-classicism. He studied painting partly in Europe; he coincided with Leighton in Rome in 1853 and spent the years 1856-59 as a student at Gleyre's atelier in Paris. In 1860 Poynter commenced upon a career in London which was to bring him much prestige and many honours. His great Royal Academy exhibition successes were mainly reconstructions of events or situations set in ancient history, attempts to give a visual account of the appearance of the Ancient World. The most famous of these are Israel in Egypt and The Catapult. A parallel group were his mythological subjects, In both types Poynter took great trouble to make the details of the paintings as archaeologically accurate as possible.Poynter long outlived his great contemporaries. He succeeded Millais as President of the Royal Academy in 1896 and then lived on into a very different age when his-most celebrated paintings were no longer appreciated or understood.