 |
Above, a superb view of Conway, showing both the castle and
Aberconwy House (right), which was originally a 14th Century merchant's house. We don't have a confirmed date for
the painting, but one of her trips took Louise into the area circa 1868, and the family still has some of the
sketches she made.
Chris Green kindly provided our main image of Conway Castle in response to this site's previously
expressed concerns about a picture drawn to our attention some time ago (see below). Chris
says he bought his version at Sotheby's in 1983 for £3200 and was very much taken with Louise's style and artistic
confidence. That same year he took his family on holiday to North Wales, intending to visit Conway to discover
whether anything existed of the original scene depicted in the painting. To his surprise and delight, as he drove
towards the castle he found himself making the approach portrayed in the picture. Furthermore Aberconwy House still
exists today in the care of the National Trust, and is the only medieval house to have survived the town's turbulent
history.
Chris approached the Trust and found that the house had undergone renovation work only a short time previously and
they had been trying to discover what the outside of the house had originally looked like. Then he showed them a
photograph of his painting... With Chris's generous permission, the painting now appears on postcards, mugs, etc.,
to assist the Trust in their valuable work.
|
 What makes the top painting
especially interesting is that some time ago, Joe White sent us an image of a roughly finished but appealing painting
of Conway (here on the right). Sotheby's, the modern Rayner family, and our own untutored analysis all agreed that it
wasn't by her, despite carrying her signature (under the sitting boys on the right), and having the same detail and air
of bustle that characterised so many of her paintings. There is a possibilty that it was a study by Louise, but the
prevailing opinion is still that it was someone else copying her work to learn her technique. If it was Louise, it was
on a different visit, for the trees around the castle have changed considerably from the image Chris Green supplied,
and Aberconwy House is in a different condition, too. But we'll probably never know for certain. [Note: the image was
soft-focus and digitally sharpening it has inevitably altered its texture; we also reduced a blue cast that may have
arisen during photography.]
Below, two closeups from Joe White's picture, concentrating on Conwy House. Whether
they are by Louise or not, they still have historical value, of course.
|
 
|
|  |
|
Left: a monochrome reproduction of Old Conway offered at auction at
£800-£1000 by Sotheby's on 14 July 1988. Many of Louise's paintings were small,
but this one is only 4.75 x 2.5 inches (12 x 6.5cm) - just slightly bigger than it is here. On this occasion it didn't
sell, though a pair of Margaret's paintings in the same auction went for 10 times the estimated price.
During the 1860s and 1870s, Louise travelled widely in search of subjects for her art, sometimes with
Margaret, sometimes with Richard, and occasionally the three
together. The Rayner family still has several sketches and other survivals from the 1868 trip, and among these is
the painting below of Conway Quay, with the castle keeping watch in the distance. Although
it isn't signed, it is believed to be by Louise, and is a gentle contrast to her busy streets.
|
 |
|
LUDLOW
About the same time that Louise was in Dudley
with Richard (1865), she also visited Ludlow. However, we don't know if it was the same year, and whether she came
in company or alone. The pictures we show here are the only ones we currently know of.
Left, This view of Ludlow is believed to be entitled Narrows with the
Butter Cross beyond [c.1865], showing the Buttercross from its left side. The painting was offered for
sale in 2002 by Haynes of Broadway but
was at that time mistitled "Chester".
Below: two more Ludlow scenes from c.1865 were provided to us courtesy of Shropshire
Museums. Both views are available from the museum as prints.
Lower left: The Buttercross from the front, showing the top of Broad Street as well - compare the clock with the picture above.
Lower right: Market Square. This view is towards the right side of the Buttercross, although the
market buildings hide it.
|
|
|
|
Ludlow (right) is another take on the Market Square by Louise. The
picture colours are a bit calmer, and the sky a bit wilder but otherwise the general scene seems little changed.
We don't have a date for this but the tree at the left of the picture is a little smaller, so this might be just a
few years earlier than 1865.
The picture is available as a print from My Art Prints. |
|
|
|
CHESTER
By 1868 Louise was also taking commissions for work in Chester, of course, and is known to have been
living there in 1865, prior to taking up more permanent lodgings. As Chester forms a major part of her life and output,
we have separate pages on it - see Louise Rayner in Chester - but we can include a
sketch from her early days here.
The sketch shows Chester Bridge Street largely as it was when Louise first moved there in 1865. It was possibly
(Louise's Catholic Apostolic faith permitting) made on a Sunday as the shops are bereft of the blinds that characterised them
on weekdays. It also reminds us that when the family made initial sketches, they were working tools, with the words
from a subject (signs, etc.) interspersed with reminder notes of colours, textures and other features (compare
Richard Rayner's extensive Dudley notes).
Below, we show close-ups of a couple of areas.
|
  |
Far left, we see slates written on the roof, and at near left the reminder
black appears on the lower wall. The gentleman in the stovepipe hat just missed obliteration by a rain(?)
splash.
The sketch also has faint ruled lines, possibly to help Louise get proper perspective for the street.
|
 OXFORD
|
Above: the only picture we currently have of Oxford is this painting of Oriel College. A modern-day photograph used for comparison (see louiserayner.co.uk/oxford.php) shows how the church has been pulled forward into her composition to add drama - something she was fond of, for example in her Chester paintings. What it also shows is that the buildings have barely changed, but this (apparently) tranquil scene has been violated by modern paint schemes and the needs of modern traffic. Of course, Louise could impose tranquillity by omitting what she didn't want - like bustling horse and cart traffic squeezing down the narrow streets, and the smells of horse dung and poor drains - so comparisons need to be made with care!
 The quality of the painting is sufficient that we can close in on the details. The first view (right) shows a mix of life - handling a horse in the foreground with lecturers and possibly students nearby. Then a window cleaner, perhaps. Beyond them a man drives a horse and open carriage, there are ladies with parasols, and in the distance a woman in a red dress.
The lower scene is the left foreground of the painting - a lecturer possibly talking to the parents of a student while boys play with a dog and two adults look on from the other side of the street - one possibly resting from carrying her baskets. Note the lampost in the middle of the street, the dishevelled road surface, and how well executed the fence is.
|
CHIPPENHAM
|
We've known about this painting - Chippenham Market Day 1865 - for some time as a consequence of finding the small mono image on Chippenham's local government site (Wiltshire). At least two paintings exist showing very much the same view but with a different arrangement of figures. This one strikes us as the more attractive of the two.
The Baltimore Museum of Art contacted us in late summer 2007 to ask for identification. As they rightly said, the lack of a distinctive church or other unique feature could well have rendered the scene anonymous, and we've certainly had trouble with others. But this one was immediately identifiable for the reason already given. [Image courtesy of The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Rhoda Oakley, Baltimore BMA 1997.310.]
If there are other viewpoints of Chippenham, we don't know them, but would be very happy to learn of them. That said, Ashbourne (Derbyshire) has a very similar street, and one of Louise's paintings is in circulation with Ashbourne as its title. The one we know of is a mistitling for Chippenham, and the Rayner family have tried - without success - to get this corrected. The reason for apparent intransigence is thought to be "provenance", the art world's sales history defence against spurious works being passed off as genuine. Retitling the picture would break the provenance chain and put its value severely at risk. So it's still called Ashbourne - and it still shows Chippenham! |
|
|
SALISBURY
In July 2007, Chris Bullivant sent us photographs of his miniature Louise Rayner painting of Salisbury seen in the mist. He says the original is only 2.5 inches by 4 inches (62mm by 100mm). We don't have an official title for this - it may just be Salisbury, and we have no further hints on the date or circumstances.
Andy King's thoughts on it are "I guess it was painted in the early morning from Louise's room on one of her stays (perhaps a Sunday as I can almost hear the bells - which may have startled the pigeons or rooks!)... I haven't seen this before and I expect it could be a one-off which makes it all the nicer."
Below: Castle Street, Salisbury in 1870, with the cathedral in the background. Other images of the same painting show that this one has been cropped slightly at left, more substantially in the foreground (the horse does have legs!), and a whole building has disappeared from the right. The picture was kindly forwarded by Debbie Cutten; she was foraging for paintings for her family history in South Petherton, Somerset - which we'll shortly come to.
|
 On the right we have Salisbury High Street, with no date. It could be 1870 as above, but the feel is of a
rather later period. Local historians may be able to identify the period of years it would be consistent with.
Below, we have two almost identical views of the Poultry Cross, Salisbury, but painted on separate occasions. According to Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum, this market cross dates from c.1450, the peak of the city's prosperity - itself replacing a High Cross that had stood in a similar position since the city's earliest days.
|
The larger painting was originally dated 1870, but this has been revised to circa 1880 (probably the following year as Louise is known to have visited Salisbury in 1870 and 1881). This now makes it feasible to date the smaller painting c.1870 - there could, after all, have been a confusion between the two paintings in the past. There is an evidential reason for doing this: the Poultry Cross had repair work done on it in the mid-1870s. If we look at the near-left footing of the cross, there is a clear difference, and the larger painting matches more recent photographs. Unfortunately, we've seen no earlier images to confirm this, though they should exist: the curving buttresses which support the pinnacle and cross were only added in the early 1850s. That allows 20 years for early for photographers or other artists out sharpening their bristles to capture the new. It could just be an anomoly in Louise's work but she could be meticulous about detail even while losing entire buildings she didn't want. Since she included the footing, she probably rendered it accurately.
|
|
 |
|
St Ann Street, Salisbury is estimated to have been painted circa 1875, which places it handily between the two known visits! Like the Poultry Cross painting above, the purchase (for £5000 in 1993, we think) was supported by the Art Fund, and this painting, too, can be seen at the Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum (when on display) as a result.
St Ann Street's broad road made it a major route through Salisbury when Louise painted her picture, a claim it has lost in the 130 years since. We've been trying to work out what the cart in the foreground is for. Assuming the Salisbury authorities had installed a sewer system by this date, it wouldn't have been a night soil collector - and we wouldn't expect it to be around in broad daylight. Another possibility is a road-mending cart (basically pothole filling). Or the owner could be selling different materials by the shovelful or perhaps sackful. Any better guesses?
Behind is the well-known Salisbury cathedral with its towering spire - except that it doesn't really awe you here, so we'd guess that Louise shrank it to give her picture better balance.
|
Other Salisbury scenes we know of but haven't yet seen are: St. Stephen’s Gateway, Salisbury [before 1877];
The Close, The Town Gate, Salisbury (1881); and Silver Street. We would be very pleased to receive images of them. Thank you!
|
SOUTH PETHERTON
To our pleasure, Ted Hodgetts of Ontario, Canada, forwarded this untitled painting and asked for information. I wondered immediately if it could be South Petherton, but didn't want to prompt anyone into a false identification. But Andy King also thought it might be that so we sent it to Debbie Cutten (see above), and her cousin Gina Taylor enjoyed herself touring the local villages and was able to confirm it was indeed .  The church itself is called the Parish Church of St.Peter and St.Paul South Petherton. It has been suggested that the church spire looks taller in the painting than it is today. Perhaps a local historian will be able to help on that - and can anyone suggest a date?
Also, this isn't the painting of South Petherton that we knew of, so there is another one out there somewhere. If you know of it and can supply details (or better still an image), we would be delighted and it would make Debbie Cutten's life complete!
The painting was auctioned by Waddingtons (Canada) in November 2006 as Old Market Village, South Petherton, Somerset and it sold for C$9600.
|
FLINT
For the moment, we have one last "western" set of images to mention. In 1882 Louise provided four illustrations for
Henry Taylor's 1883 book Historic Notices... descriptive of the Borough and County-Town of Flint.
To follow up on these, click the Flint link below.
THE UNCAUGHT...
Finally, we know that Louise did a painting of Mount Street, and of St. Giles Church, Wrexham, North Wales;
of Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury; at least two views of Tewkesbury (one was on sale in 2005);
of Winchester's Market Cross; of Kingswear, Devon;
of the 'soft Devonian landscapes' that Ellen Clayton mentions in her book - and surely of other scenes in the south-west. But we'll have to wait for someone to send us images before we can include them here.
|
Harry Drummond, January 2008.
Please take note: we claim no art expertise, and in no way do we offer provenance for any paintings.
What you see here was compiled out of interest in Louise Rayner's paintings and those by her family, but is based on
sometimes very fragmentary evidence. As such, it is inevitable that there will be errors, though we naturally hope
to reduce these over time.
We would gratefully receive any information or corrections that will help us to fill the gaps and
resolve unproved links - for example confirmation of dates of birth, death, etc., and details of other addresses the family
lived at (and roughly when). Images of any of the family's paintings would also be very welcome. Thank you!
Copyright © 2008 DudleyMall.
|
Email DudleyMall at: dudleymall@dudleymall.co.uk
DudleyMall, 62 Gervase Drive, Dudley, West Midlands DY1 4AT
|
