Studio RT Ltd

Description

We are offering for sale this large, still life watercolour by the Victorian artist Ethel Buckingham, who has signed the painting in the lower right hand corner and dated it 1885. The painting also bears the ESK stamp, pricked out in the lower left hand corner, showing that it was probably an assessment piece for the South Kensington Schools. The painting depicts a group of objects on a table in front of some draped material. there is a plate, a large goblet, a bottle and a bowl with cane or wicker overlay containing some dried rhododendron leaves.

Please note that because of the use of gum arabic by the artist, the images become lighter as you get closer when photographing, as the gum arabic reflects light. The colouring is correct in the picture in the frame.

Ethel Buckingham was born in Norwich in 1866. She was a painter of portraits, miniatures of children and also painted flower subjects and landscapes in oil and watercolours. She studied under Joseph Woodhouse Stubbs at Norwich School of Art & Design, where she won the Queen's Prize in 1890. She then became an Assistant Teacher there, before leaving to continue her studies under Hubert von Herkomer at his school in Bushey, Hertfordshire.

She exhibited at the women's Exhibition in Paris in 1892 and from 1893-1901 at the Royal Academy. She married Charles Havers in the late 1800s and, after her marriage, painted mainly as a hobby, although she did receive some commissions for portraits. She died very young in 1918. Perhaps this could be a result of the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918.

Due to her short life, we have found no auction results for her work in recent times, so the majority of her output must still be in private hands, although there a few images on google.

The painting is mounted and framed in a pale wooden frame with gilt insert and is ready to hang.

Image size: 20 1/2" x 14 7/8" - 52cm x 37.8cm

Frame size: 28 7/8" x 23 3/8" - 73.4cm x 59.35cm

Medium: Watercolours

Condition: Very good for its age. There is no foxing. The mount and frame are in good condition commensurate with age.