Benjamin Williams Leader RA.
1831-1923

The Surrey Pines

 

Original hand-tinted 'La Chine colle' photogravure Published by Frost and Reid, Bristol & London 1917, after the 1916 painting by Leader. Some age browing, original glazing, period mahogany frame.
25 3/4 x 16 3/4" including letters  (65.5 42.5 cm)    Frame: 33 x24 1/2"
Ref. LRA 766 /DNN/e.dooo >EOL     PRICE CODE C  SOLD

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Designated (in 1958) as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty the Surrey Hills offer some of South East England's most beautiful and accessible countryside. The nearby location was recently used as a location shoot for the film Clash of the Titans II.

Benjamin Williams Leader RA.  1831-1923 was an English landscape artist. Born Benjamin Williams, in Worcester he added the surname Leader to distinguish himself from the Williams family of artists to whom he was not related. He studied at the Royal Academy and exhibited there from 1857 to 1922. He also showed work at the British Institute and at Suffolk Street.  Leader did not finish his course of studies at the R. A, nor did he need to – his paintings proved to be in great demand by wealthy buyers and he achieved an enviable degree of commercial success within only a few years of his first sale.
In 1857 he changed his name to Benjamin Williams Leader to distinguish himself from the many other painters with the surname Williams.  1859 saw four of his paintings hung at the Academy and all sold, one of the buyers being the art dealer Agnew's who bought much of his work during his lifetime. Such was the demand that much of his best work now went to private galleries and was never publicly exhibited.

For the next 10 years, Leader divided his time painting between the Severn Valley, Worcestershire, and Wales, producing many canvases.  In 1862 he moved home from Worcester to nearby Whittington (where he lived until 1889), which became a favourite sketching ground. In August 1876, Leader married fellow artist Mary Eastlake (born c. 1852) and they went on to have six children. Leader was made an associate (ARA) in 1883, becoming a Royal Academician (RA) in 1898.

Leader’s works have always been admired for their literalness and truth to nature. His subjects were usually set in Scotland or the Midlands, but he was especially fond of the landscape around Bettws-y-Coed, Wales. Leader was considered a master at capturing the British Victorian landscape and as such, became extremely popular during his lifetime. He is chiefly known for the tranquility and warmth of his works, such as this fine example, which he painted at the beginning of the twentieth cent.

‘Surrey Pines’ is a painting of the pine trees near Leader’s home in Burrows Cross. In 1889, the family moved to "Burrows Cross", Shere near Guildford, Surrey, a large mansion designed by Norman Shaw RA – Leader lived here until the end of his life.
Leader is represented in the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Tate Gallery, London and in museums in Bristol, Reading, Liverpool and Melbourne.
This is an original La Chine colle pull of this image, not a later restrike.

[American Village in the woods with Mill & Church]

Colour lithograph or chromograph (ie. with some hand additions scraping of waterfall & highlighting of clothing) some overall deterioration due to age.
Signed on verso Eliza J. Robertson 11
Printed on watermarked J. Watman 1855 paper Period flawed glass, natural wood frame
Image 23 3/4 x 29 3/4"   (60.3 x 75.6cm.)    Frame 29 x 36"
Ref. WR4 /ANN/ d.andl > ELN  PRICE CODE B  SOLD   Click Here for price code guide.

Although it has been difficult to obtain information on this obscure artist, this may be the work of Eliza Abramse, who was a student at the Columbian Academy in New York and married her teacher the artist Archibald Robertson.

Benjamin Wiliams LEADER R.A.
[Severn Valley Landscape]

Proof before letters. uncoloured photogravure published by the Berlin Photographic Company Berlin & London 1900. Using La Chine collé method. Signed B.W. Leader 1900 in plate and in graphite below image (Bottom Left). Some water staining, not affecting image, below plate. Glazed, period mahogany wood frame.
Plate Size 21 5/8 x 32 1/8" (55 x 81.6 cm.) Frame: 29 5/8 x 40"
Ref. RS1/AVL /o.andr> LAL   SOLD       PRICE CODE C

Benjamin Williams Leader R.A. (1831-1923) was born in Worchester as Benjamin Williams, the son, and first child of eleven children, of notable civil engineer Edward Leader Williams (1802–79)
Leader's father was a keen amateur artist – a friend of John Constable – and Benjamin would often accompany him on sketching trips along the banks of the River Severn. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Worcester, and initially worked at his father's office as a draughtsman while studying art in the evenings at the Worcester school of Design. In his free time he also did a lot of "plein air" landscape painting.

In 1854, at the age of 23, he was admitted as a student to the Royal Academy school in London, and, unusually, in his first year, had a picture accepted for exhibition. Subsequently his work appeared in every summer exhibition at the academy until 1922, when Leader was 91 years old. He became acknowledged as one of the masters of British Victorian landscape painting. He is chiefly known for the tranquility and warmth of his turn of the eighteenth century landscapes, many of which were widely published. He also exhibited at the British Institute and Suffolk Street. In 1881,"February Fill Dyke" was exhibited at the Royal Academy to great acclaim and Leader was made an associate (ARA) in 1883, becoming a Royal Academician (RA) in 1898.

Henry Le Keux after Samuel Prout FSA.

THE CITY OF VENICE

With arms and dedication to the Duke of Devonshire below image.
Original hand tinted engraving, matted, period glazing, handsome period mahogany-wood frame.
18 3/16 x 22 1/2 " (46.3 x 57.2 cm.) Frame 32 x 37"
Ref. RS7(105) /ELN/ dn.ande > GOL  SOLD      PRICE CODE C

Published by Francis Moon, London 1834 for Prout S. Sketches in France, Switzerland and Italy 1839. This beautifully composed view of Venice, Italy depicts Venetians unloading trade goods from a lagoon vessel to a canal barge, with many other barges in the middle ground Behind them, a glorious panorama of St. Mark's Square, its splendidly ornate buildings rendered in exacting architectural detail, for which portrayal Prout was justifiably famous, with a host of individuals on the square & quay side going about their daily business (note the water level ).
The engraving is enhanced by being set into a very fine 'Jamaica-wood' period mahogany frame.

Samuel Prout (17 September 1783 – 10 February 1852) Born in Plymouth, Prout received his early art education at the Grammar School. He was first professionally employed as a topographical artist in 1801 by the publisher John Britton to draw views of Cornwall for an illustrated History, and at his invitation subsequently moved to London.
Suffering all his life from ill-health, he divided his time between Devon and London, where he had also established himself as a fashionable and successful drawing master. In1819 he was elected a member of the Old Watercolour Society and made his first sketching tour, to northern France which established him as one of the masters of British watercolour. Prout secured the position of Painter in Water-Colours in Ordinary in 1829 to Kings George IV and afterwards to William IV and Queen Victoria.
From 1819 until the mid-1840s Prout made frequent visits to France, Belgium, the Rhine and Bavaria and Italy. During this time he concentrated on painting the picturesque gothic architecture of many old continental towns for which he is best known. His sketches and oil paintings of Venice also provided him with a constant source of material, and popularized the beauty of the city several years before Turner began to paint Venetian subjects. Prout's views were highly sought after both by collectors and by publishers, who popularized his work though the enormously successful illustrated travel books that the new middle classes bought in large numbers. The atmosphere, detail and the effects of light and shade were without parallel, and an entire generation of artists after him tried in vain to emulate his art.

John Ruskin found Prout's Italian sketches particularly evocative, as he wrote (Letter from Ruskin to Prout, May 1849) and late in life wrote to a friend: "Prout, of whom you have seen several beautiful examples here, is one of the loves which always remain fresh to me; sometimes I tire somewhat of Turner, but never of Prout."
Amongst the few artists who have achieved fame as painters and delineators of picturesque architecture Samuel Prout holds a unique position, and his success was in no small measure due to the fact that his deep sympathy with, and delight in, his subject are manifest in his works, whether it be a delicate lead pencil drawing, a water-colour, or one of his better-known lithographs. A listed British Artist, whose work is present in many collections, including The Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and many more. Prout is often compared to his contemporaries; Turner, Gainsborough, Constable and Ruskin, whom he taught.
Although Prout continued to travel and to paint into the late 1840s, his recurring ill-health meant that he left London and based himself in Hastings, on the English south coast. He died in February 1852.

KIPMANTER ABBEY & BATTLE ABBEY

Pair of Original etchings by S. Myres after David Cox (the younger). Published London 1885
each 4 1/8 x 5 7/8 Matted, glazed Framed together in one oak-wood frame 12 x 23 1/4"

Ref LRA - /DSN/ v.anne > ANN PRICE CODE B

EDINBURGH AND ENVIRONS

Original hand-tinted copper engraving by Morris after Rombout van der Hoyen. Engraved for The Modern Universal British Traveler by Charles Burlington, David Llewellyn Rees, and Alexander Murray, printed for J. Cooke, London. [1779]

Image 7 3/4 x 12 3/8" matted glazed, gilt-wood frame 12 1/2 x 18"
Ref LRA 939.DNN/ e.annd > ANN PRICE CODE B   SOLD

General view from south-east showing Edinburgh Castle, Old Town, Canongate, St Giles, Kirk o' Field, Netherbow Port, Flodden Wall, Pleasance, Canongate Tolbooth, Holyroodhouse, Trinity College, Calton Hill, Leith, Burnt island, Kinghorn, ships, gardens, figures, horses

                                                              

Andrew WATSON- TURNBULL British 1874- LOCH TUMMEL 1938 Etching, initialled AWT within plate A fine view known as 'the Queen's View' of this 11 Km. loch that is bounded by the Tay Forest Park near Pitlochry,Perth & Kinross, Scotland. 12 x 8 1/2" (30.5 x 21.6 cm.) glazed matted, Black wood frame: 17 1/4 x 13 1/2" Ref. RI 623/SN/g.anar >DLN     PRICE CODE A SOLD

 

Andrew WATSON- TURNBULL British 1874- LOCH TUMMEL 1938 Aquatint & Etching, Loch Tummel is a 11 Km. loch that is bounded by the Tay Forest Park near Pitlochry,Perth & Kinross, Scotland. 7 3/8 x 10 7/8" (18.7 x 27.6 cm.) glazed matted, brown & gilt-wood frame: 13 x 16 1/4" Ref. RI 624/SN/g.anar >DLN PRICE CODE A