Padbury Brook, Oxfordshire
c1885. Watercolor and pencil on J Whatman 1884 watermarked cream wove paper, 12 x 9 1/4 inches (305 x 235 mm), the full sheet. Scattered toning and one 2-inch horizontal edge tear in the lower left sheet, well outside of the image area. Scattered light spots of unobtrusive tan-colored discoloration throughout. Pigment are soft but fresh.
Sophia Beale was born in London in 1837. Her father was the surgeon Lionel John Beale, and her sister, Ellen Brooker Beale, was also an artist and the two sisters would often work together. Both Sophia and Ellen Beale attended Queen's College, London and took lessons at a private art school run by the artist Matthew Leigh. They 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, Beale traveled to Paris where she studied at Charles Joshua Chaplin's studio. When she returned to London, Beale used the money she had earned to open an art school on Albany Street near Regent's Park. The techniques she had learned in Paris were in considerable demand at the time. In 1889 she was among the 2,000 signatories to a declaration supporting women's suffrage and she also advocated for the Royal Academy and the universities to allow greater access to women.
Item number: 2198
Price: $550.00
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