Benjamin Williams Leader

Benjamin Williams Leader RA, Coastal View With Sand Dunes, Antique Oil Painting

c. 1900

This late 19th-century oil painting by English artist Edward Robert Smythe (1810-1899) depicts a picturesque bay with buildings, fishing boats, figures and horses. Smythe was a maste...

This idyllic late 19th-century oil painting by English artist Edward William Cooke RA (1811-1880) depicts a west-country cove with two cottages, donkeys, figures, and fishing boats. Cooke was a highly renowned painter of marine scenes and landscapes who exhibited extensively at London’s Royal Academy. From our elevated vantage point, the view extends between two quaint cottages and across the beach before sweeping around the sandy coastline. Crystalline waters lap the shore, where moored craft rest. It’s an accomplished rendering of a challenging composition. It’s enhanced by trees, which essentially ‘frame’ the right side, while a wooded track provides interest on the left. Cooke was a keen admirer of the Dutch old masters, and the spirit of the Golden Age underpins this splendid work. In diaries, he recorded how he travelled by donkey to access elevated spots in the southwest, so it’s conceivable that he did so here. In his catalogue raisonné, it lists a work from the same year titled ‘Bay with Donkeys’. Born in Pentonville, London, Cooke was raised in the company of accomplished artists as both his father, George Cooke (1781-1834), and his uncle, William Bernard Cooke (1778-1855), were engravers. As such, they were associated with a circle of Victorian painters who aided Cooke’s early development. These included the highly regarded marine painter Clarkson Frederick Stanfield RA RBA (1793-1867), who provided frequent advice and inspiration. Indeed, as a teenager, Cooke produced numerous drawings after Stanfield’s works. A precocious talent, by the age of nine, he was already displaying an advanced understanding of engraving, particularly for ships, coupled with a natural, seemingly in-built skill as a draughtsman. Many of his early drawings depict pastoral landscapes after the masters, such as Nicolaes Berchem (1620-1683), Paulus Potter (1625-1654), and Karel Dujardin (1626-1678). In an extraordinary turn of events, in 1820, his advanced abilities led to his first commission when he provided botanical illustrations for John Loudon's 'Encyclopaedia of Plants’. These were followed by drawings published in the 'Botanical Cabinet...

Picturesque scene of two children by a thatched cottage, pasture with sheep, pond and hills is signed W. Williams, attributed to a prominent 19th century artist in a family of Britis...

A fine & large antique maritime oil painting of the war ship HMS Britannia, by Robert Strickland Thomas (1787-1853), the painting circa 1835. The painting depicts HMS Britannia broadside with several other war ships of the British fleet, most likely returning from the Mediterranean. In the foreground are several small boats with sailors variously occupied attending to them. A yacht with a crowded deck is visible on the left. In the center foreground there is a barrel or possibly a buoy in the water, a device commonly employed in some of Thomas's paintings. To the verso is an old auction label from the 1920s and another partial label, there are also some annotations on the stretcher with details of photographic images of the painting. There is also an old label of ownership "Mrs. Strange 6 Elvaston Place", this address was a large Georgian house in the prestigious London borough of South Kensington. The painting is in very good condition, this investment quality antique maritime painting...