HISTORIC CHARLESTON ESTATES & FINE ART
Lot 140:
Description
William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931) Sailing on the Thames oil on wood panel done in 1909. Signed and dated lower right. In frame measures 18"x14"x2". Weight 2 lbs..William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931), also known as W. L. Wyllie, was a prolific English painter of maritime themes in both oils and watercolours. He has been described as the most distinguished marine artist of his day. His work is in the Tate, the Royal Academy, the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum, the National Museum of the Royal Navy, and many other institutions around the world. Most of Wyllies early summers were spent in France with his parents. He began to draw from an early age, and his natural talent was encouraged by his father and by Lionel Smythe, his step brother. He was given a thorough artistic education; first at the Heatherley School of Fine Art, and then in 1866, aged 15, at the Royal Academy Schools. At the Royal Academy he studied under Edwin Henry Landseer, John Everett Millais and Frederic Leighton, among others. He further demonstrated his precocious talent when he won the Turner Gold Medal in 1869 at the age of eighteen with Dawn after a Storm. His other early love affair, which he shared with his younger brother and fellow artist Charles William Wyllie (1853?1923), was sailing. Wyllie was the most distinguished marine artist of his day and his work is still in great demand. From 1906, when he moved to Portsmouth, he became closely associated with the Royal Navy. So much so, indeed, that he was buried with full naval honours in 1931. In a moving ceremony, reminiscent of Nelson’s state funeral in 1806, his body was rowed up Portsmouth Harbour in a naval cutter past battleships with dipped colours and bugles calling and quaysides lined with dockyard workers. **In house shipping available on this lot**
Condition: good
Share this lot:
