Studio RT Ltd

Description

We are delighted to offer for sale this lovely oil painting by the artist Walter E. Ellis, who has signed the painting in the lower left hand corner and entitled it verso ' Old Mill on the Aran Dolgelley N. Wales'. The painting depicts the old watermill on the River Aran or Afon Arran in Welsh, near the town of Dolgellau, formerly Dolgelley, in Snowdonia. There are the figures of a woman and boy carrying faggots on the left bank of the river, just before the footbridge over to the mill, and a figure just outside the door of the mill.

This is a beautiful painting and bears a considerable resemblance to a painting by this artist, entitled Pandy Mill Dolgelley, which is in the collection of the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth. They also own two other paintings of North Wales by this artist. There is also one of his paintings in the New Art Gallery in Walsall. All of these paintings may be viewed at BBC - Your Paintings via google. There is also a site with paintings of Dolgellau, including several by Walter E. Ellis.

Please note that Walter E. Ellis, was born and christened Erasmus Walter Ellis, although he must have preferred Walter to Erasmus, as he signed his paintings Walter E. Ellis, as on this painting, or W. E. Ellis.

Erasmus Walter Ellis was born in Birmingham in 1848, the son of William Ellis, also a painter, who exhibited two landscapes at Suffolk Street in 1863 and 1864 (Dictionary of Victorian Painters by Wood). There is scant information about his life, but he married three times, in 1879 to Sarah Elizabeth Spiers, who died in 1891, in 1893 to another lady whose name was either Rosina Rose or Mary Hancox, and again in 1909, at the age of 61 to Margaret Jane Augusta Ledsham, who was only 39! At this time he was living at 154 Willes Road Birmingham and had lived in the Birmingham area for all his life, where he also died in 1918 at the age of 69.

He painted mostly Welsh scenes, primarily in oils, but there are a few watercolours and some views of the Birmingham area and the Lake District. Most of his oils are a relatively small size, but there are a few 30" x 20".

He is listed in The Dictionary of British Artists as having exhibited between 1882 and 1894, from 10 Villa Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, 20 paintings at the Royal Society of Artists Birmingham, 1 at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and 1 at the Royal Hibernian Academy.

Auction results for this artist may be found at the usual sites, but you need to look him up as Erasmus Walter Ellis, W. E. Ellis, and, as some of the auction houses seem to think that the W. stands for William, as William E. Ellis. They have also occasionally mixed him up with an English engraver called William Ellis, whose dates are 1747-1810.

The painting is framed in its original 5" ornate, swept gilt frame and slip and will be supplied wired and ready to hang.

Image size 29 1/4" x 19" - 74.25cm x 48.25cm

Frame size 39 7/8" x 29 3/8" - 101.3cm x 74.55cm

Medium Oils on canvas

Condition Very good condition. The canvas is clean and taut and there is no craquelure. The stretcher marks are minimal and haven't broken the surface of the paint and there is a small patch of bitumenisation just below the rocks in the centre foreground. The original frame has some cracking and repairs consistent with age but is very acceptable to hang with no obvious losses.