Irish historical painter whose fame rests chiefly on a series of lithograph portraits of contemporary celebrities and on two vast frescoes that he painted in the Royal Gallery in the House of Lords.

At the age of 16 he left the employ of a local bank to enter the Cork school of art, maintaining himself by portrait sketching. He went to London in 1827 and entered the Royal Academy schools, where he carried off the highest honours. He exhibited subject pictures and portraits regularly at the Royal Academy and in 1835 was elected associate and in 1840, academician.

The 72 lithograph portraits of literary and other contemporary celebrities for which he is best known first appeared in Fraser's Magazine (1830–36) under the pseudonym Alfred Croquis (later published as the Maclise Portrait Gallery, 1871). Of the two frescoes, “The Meeting of Wellington and Blucher” was unsuccessfully begun in fresco in 1859 and completed in a new German technique in 1861. Its companion “The Death of Nelson” was executed between 1861 and 1864. Maclise painted these large murals alone, under lamentable conditions. By the time of their completion, he was exhausted and never fully regained his health. Maclise's colours are harsh, but this weakness is considered to have been largely offset by his unusually retentive visual memory, vigorous draftsmanship, and gift for large-scale composition.