Oil on Canvas Painting “The Old Mill Cottage” by William Leader, England 1910

£6,000

SKU: C595

End Date: 1910

Medium: Oil on Board

Signed and dated lower left

Current condition: Excellent Condition

Country: England

William Benjamin Leader (1831-1923 British)
“The Old Mill Cottage”
Signed and dated 1910
Oil on Board.
Benjamin Williams Leader once said, “The subjects of my pictures are mostly English. I have painted in Switzerland, Scotland, and a great deal of North Wales, but I prefer our English home scenes. Riversides at evening time, country lanes and commons, and the village church, are subjects that I love and am never tired of painting” (as quoted in Lewis Lusk’s “The Works of B. W. Leader, RA,” The Art Journal, London, 1901 Christmas Issue, p. 30.) Leader’s statement best described his landscapes, which he produced throughout his long artistic career. Considered as one of the most acclaimed Victorian landscape painters during his lifetime, Leader’s work was also extensively engraved.

He was born Benjamin Williams on March 12, 1831 in Worcester, England. His father Edward Leader Williams, a civil engineer, knew and admired the landscape artist John Constable (British, 1776-1837). He was also active in the promotion of British modern art in Worcester, and enjoyed painting in his spare time. Young Benjamin often accompanied his father when he went to paint scenes from nature, especially along the Severn River. There, he “would sometimes take advantage of his father’s absence from the easel and add his own touches to the canvas.” (Lusk, p. 13.)
Although Benjamin aspired to become an artist, his father wanted him to follow in his profession as an engineer. Therefore, in 1845, after attending the Royal Grammar School, Benjamin joined his father’s engineering office. However, from the beginning, he enjoyed sketching in the field much more than drawing plans for bridges, locks and weirs. After almost five years, his father finally acquiesced to his wish of becoming an artist, and gave him one year to prove himself. Benjamin enrolled in the Worcester School of Design, and in 1853, became probationer at the Royal Academy Schools where he studied for a short while.

During his first year at the Royal Academy, Benjamin exhibited and sold a painting entitled Cottage Children Blowing Bubbles. Thereafter, he sold his paintings to a number of leading Worcester citizens, and continued to exhibit in several venues. Besides the Royal Academy in London, he submitted his paintings to the National Institution and the British Institution in London, as well as to the Birmingham Society of Artists, and Liverpool Academy. At this early stage of his career, he painted various subjects that included landscape and genres scenes. These paintings showed the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of copying nature faithfully, attention to detail and use of bright colors. Examples of his works reflecting this style included The Chair Mender (1856), The Young Mother (1856) and Landscape (1855).

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