View of cliffs, Devon

Beale, Ellen Brooker

About this Item

Watercolor and graphite on watercolor paper adhered to a sketchbook page, sheet measures 10 1/4 x 14 1/4 inches (260 x 362 mm). Initialed in pencil in the lower left recto, and titled in pencil on the sheet below the painting. Dated in pencil on the sheet above the painting. In very good condition. Ellen Brooker Beale attended Queen's College, London and took lessons at a private art school run by the artist Matthew Leigh. Along with her sister, Sophia Beale, she spent considerable periods in the National Gallery and the British Museum copying Old Masters and antiquities. From 1860 to 1867 the two sisters had a studio in Covent Garden on Long Acre. In 1869, and again in 1872, they traveled to Paris where they studied at Charles Joshua Chaplin's studio. When they returned to London, the sisters used the money they had earned to open an art school on Albany Street near Regent's Park. The techniques they had learned in Paris were in considerable demand at the time. In 1889 they were among the 2,000 signatories to a declaration supporting women's suffrage and also advocated for the Royal Academy and the universities to allow greater access to women.

Seller Inventory # 2939

Bibliographic Details

• Title: View of cliffs, Devon
• Seller catalogs:
  • British
  • FINE ART
  • 19th Century