Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cox, David (1809-1885)
COX, DAVID, the younger (1809–1885), water-colour painter, only child of David Cox, the famous water-colour painter [q. v.], and Mary Ragg, his wife, was born in the summer of 1809 in the cottage on Dulwich Common, where his parents had settled after their marriage. In 1812 he accompanied his father to Hastings, and in the following year, on the break-up of their home at Dulwich, spent some time with his grandfather, Joseph Cox, at Birmingham, and also with an aunt at Manchester. In the autumn of 1814 he rejoined his father in his new home at Hereford, and was partly educated at the grammar school in that town. He became his father's constant companion and his pupil, and was seldom parted from him, accompanying him on his excursions at home and abroad. In 1826 he resolved to become an artist himself, and in the following year removed with his parents from Hereford to London, in that year exhibiting for the first time at the Royal Academy. About 1840 he married, but still continued to be his father's helpmate, and the sharer in all his domestic anxieties or good fortune. In 1849 he was elected an associate of the Society of Painters in Water-colours. Through his devoted admiration for the works of his father's genius, and the careful study he continually made of his father's method, Cox managed, with the moderate ability that he possessed, to produce some very creditable paintings. As might have been expected, they seem but a reflection of his father's work, and show a marked deterioration after he lost his father's guidance. Among these were ‘Near Bala,’ ‘Moon Rising,’ and ‘View on the Menai’ (1872); ‘Loch Katrine’ and ‘Ben Lomond’ (1873); ‘Sunday Morning in Wales’ and ‘Rain on the Berwyn’ (1875); ‘The Path up the Valley’ (1877); ‘Penshurst Park’ (1878). Specimens of his work may be seen in the national collections at the South Kensington Museum and the Print Room, British Museum. Cox died at Streatham Hill on 4 Dec. 1885. He possessed a valuable collection of his father's works.
[Times, 14 Dec. 1885; Athenæum, 12 Dec. 1885; Solly's Memoir of David Cox; Clement and Hutton's Artists of the Nineteenth Century; private information.]