Royal Academy. Italy He spent some time in Italy, copying the old masters and painting portraits. In 1821 he was in Rome, making copies of Raphael's arabesque decorations in the Vatican loggia for John Nash's gallery in Regent Street and the following year he returned there, this time in the company of his friend William Etty, another a former pupil of Thomas Lawrence. Travelling overland via Paris they arrived in Rome on 10 August. After a fortnight, Etty moved on to Naples, leaving Evans in Rome. He returned a month later. Etty wrote in a letter that "an arrangement has been made that would preclude my staying with him... but I must ever feel much obliged to him. He has gone about with me, and shown me things I should not otherwise have seen". They travelled separately for a while, Evans basing himself in Rome, but also visiting Milan, while Etty spent seven months in Venice. In Rome Evans became a member of an academy set up by British artists, with Lawrence's backing, and served on the management committee of the organisation, formally known as the 'British Academy of Arts in Rome'. Evans and Etty were reunited in Florence in the summer of 1823 and after spending two months in Venice finally left for England in October. While In Rome Evans experimented with fresco-painting, and on leaving the city gave one of his attempts – depicting Ganymede feeding the Eagle – to the servant who cleaned his studio. Years afterwards he found it hanging in the South Kensington Museum, displayed as a genuine antique fresco from a tomb in the neighbourhood of Rome. Exhibitions Evans continued to be a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy until 1845, mostly of portraits. In May 1849 the rejection of one of his pictures by the Academy led to an altercation, following which Evans appeared in court charged with assault, having struck the Academy's secretary, John Prescott Knight, with his stick. He also showed six subject pictures at the British Institution between 1831 and 1856. Later life He continued to paint until the end of his life, and executed a large picture of The Death of Æsculapius when over 85 years of age. He died at Southampton, where he had lived for more than 25 years, in November 1871, aged 87. He presented some of the casts of antique statuary, which he had collected