Herbert James Draper (1863 - 1920) was an English painter in the Victorian era. He studied art at the Royal Academy in London and undertook several educational trips to Rome and Paris between 1888 and 1892. In the 1890s he worked also as an illustrator. 1891 he married his wife Ida, with whom he had a daughter.
1894 was the beginning of Draper's most productive period. He focused mainly on mythological themes from ancient Greece. His painting "The Lament of Icarus" from 1898 won the gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900.
Though Draper was neither a member nor an associate of the Royal Academy he took part in the annual expositions from 1897 on. During his lifetime Draper was quite famous and a well known portrait painter. In his last years his popularity faded and nowadays he is almost forgotten.