Ella Du Cane (1874-1943) was a British artist best known for her watercolors of landscapes and exotic locales.
Ella Du Cane (1874-1943) was a British artist best known for her watercolors of landscapes and exotic locales.
Ella Mary Du Cane was the third and youngest daughter of politician and colonial administrator Sir Charles Du Cane and his wife, Georgiana Susan Copley. Through her mother, she was the great-granddaughter of the artist, John Singleton Copley. She was born in Hobart, Tasmania in the last year of her father's five-year term as Governor of Tasmania, shortly before the family returned to their country house at Braxted Park, Essex. [1] In Essex, Charles was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George and served as Chairman of the Board of Customs. [2]
Her sister Florence was born in 1869. Ella made watercolor paintings and Florence was a writer. After their father died in 1889 they decided that they would travel the world unchaperoned. They visited China, Japan, Egypt, the Canary Islands and Madeira. [3]
Ella Du Cane came into artistic prominence in 1893 when she exhibited at an exhibition of the prestigious New Society of Painters in Water Colours. [4] Queen Victoria took a personal interest in her work, acquiring 26 of Du Cane's works between December 1895 and August 1898. [5]
With success came opportunities for travel. A 1902 exhibition of water color drawings of the West Indies [6] was followed in 1904 by a show of pictures of Japan. [7] In 1905 Du Cane was hired by A & C Black to provide illustrations for The Italian Lakes (1905), with descriptions by Richard Bagot. [8] The company also used several of her Japan pictures in a book by John Finnemore. [9] Building on her success, Du Cane arranged with Black to do a book on Japanese gardens with text written by her sister, Florence, a book released in 1908 as The Flowers and Gardens of Japan. [10] The following year, the sisters' second book, The Flowers and Gardens of Madeira appeared. [11]
In later years, Ella continued to travel and paint, and never married. She continued to live with her mother and sister in Essex, the family moving to an estate called Mountains, on a hillside site near Maldon, after selling Braxted Park in 1919. Ella Du Cane died of unknown causes on 25 November 1943 at Mountains. She is buried with her sisters at All Saints Church, Great Braxted. [12]
Frederick DuCane Godman DCL FRS FLS FGS FRGS FES FZS MRI FRHS was an English lepidopterist, entomologist and ornithologist. He was one of the twenty founding members of the British Ornithologists' Union. Along with Osbert Salvin, he is remembered for studying the fauna and flora of Central America.
Florence Turner was an American actress who became known as the "Vitagraph Girl" in early silent films.
L. T. Meade was the pseudonym of Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith (1844–1914), a prolific writer of girls' stories. She was born in Bandon, County Cork, Ireland, daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade, of Nohoval, County Cork. She later moved to London, where she married Alfred Toulmin Smith in September 1879.
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope was an English artist associated with Edward Burne-Jones and George Frederic Watts and often regarded as a second-wave pre-Raphaelite. His work is also studied within the context of Aestheticism and British Symbolism. As a painter, Stanhope worked in oil, watercolor, fresco, and mixed media. His subject matter was mythological, allegorical, biblical, and contemporary. Stanhope was born in Yorkshire, England, and died in Florence, Italy. He was the uncle and teacher of the painter Evelyn De Morgan.
Mortimer Luddington Menpes, was an Australian-born British painter, author, printmaker and illustrator.
John Finnemore (1863–1915) was a British school teacher and writer of fictional novels and history and geography texts of countries - most are for younger readers. Finnemore contributed stories to popular boys' magazines of his time such as The Boy's Own Paper and Boys' Realm but he is best remembered for his books about Teddy Lester and his friends at Slapton, a fictitious English public school. The stories have a strong sporting focus, with Lester excelling at rugby, cricket and other games. He also wrote a few adult novels. Finnemore was also a writer of early Boy Scout fiction.
Fidelia Bridges was an American artist of the late 19th century. She was known for delicately detailed paintings that captured flowers, plants, and birds in their natural settings. Although she began as an oil painter, she later gained a reputation as an expert in watercolor painting. She was the only woman among a group of seven artists in the early years of the American Watercolor Society. Some of her work was published as illustrations in books and magazines and on greeting cards.
Jean du Quesne, the elder also known as Jan or Jehan was a particularly well-documented Huguenot refugee from Flanders reported to be from Ath in Hainaut, the son of Jean Du Quesne, native of Valenciennes.
Margaret Nowell Graham (1867–1942) was an American artist who painted watercolors of flowers and landscapes. She was the mother of two national political figures Katherine G. Howard, Secretary of the Republican Party and advisor to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John Stephens Graham, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
Braxted Park, formerly called Braxted Lodge, is a country house in the Queen Anne style set in a landscaped 2,000 acre park near the village of Great Braxted, Essex. In the Domesday Book of 1086, Eudo Dapifer is shown as owner of the manor. All Saints' Church, originally built in about 1115 and restored in the 18th century, also lies within the park grounds.
Elin Kristina Wallin was a Swedish artist and drawer. She was married to the Swedish artist David Wallin.
Blanche Lazzell was an American painter, printmaker and designer. Known especially for her white-line woodcuts, she was an early modernist American artist, bringing elements of Cubism and abstraction into her art.
Sir Edmund Frederick Du Cane was an English major-general of the Royal Engineers and prison administrator.
Helga von Cramm (1840–1919) was a German and Swiss painter, illustrator and graphic artist.
Isabella "Ella" Robertson Christie was a pioneering Scottish traveller and explorer, landowner, gardener and author.
Adelaide Deming was an American painter, associated for much of her life with Litchfield, Connecticut. She was the 1908 winner of the Beal Prize for her watercolor Moon Shadows.
Gertrude Demain Hammond or Mrs. McMurdie was a British painter and children's book illustrator.
The early works of American artist Georgia O'Keeffe are those made before she was introduced to the principles of Arthur Wesley Dow in 1912.
Anna H. Jones was a Canadian-born American clubwoman, suffragist, and educator based in later life in Kansas City, Missouri.
Peter Du Cane (1901–1984) was a Royal Navy commander and managing director of the engineering company Vospers. He assisted in the development of the Blue Bird II amongst other boats.
