The Water Color of Samuel Austin
Magazine Antiques, June, 2000 by Derek Goul

When I was in my early teens an uncle gave me some pencil drings and watercolor sketches by my great-great-grandfather Samuel Au (Pl. II). For many years they were forgotten until I read that the Victoria Albert Museum in London owned some of Austin's paintings and I was to see them. Not knowing at the time that watercolors can deteriorate with exposure to light, I was fortunate that the painting by Austin shown in Plate XIII was on temporary display. To my great delight I saw that the watercolor of a seated woman reading a book that my uncle had given me was a study for the central figure in the painting. I learned later that the woman was reputedly Austin's wife, Elizabeth Sophia Adams (1975-1848).

A staff member of the museum told me that an article about Austin had appeared in Connoisseur in 1929 in conjunction with an exhibition of his works at the museum. [1] In the article I read that one of the paintings in the exhibition was a portrait miniature of Austin by Thomas Hargreaves of Liverpool (Pl. II). It took me nine months to locate the miniature, which was privately owned by another descendant of Austin. By that time I had become heavily involved in research into my ancestor and had found and photographed more and more of his paintings. The Victoria and Albert Museum and the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool have helped me greatly, and my research continues into its fourth year.

Samuel Austin was born in Liverpool in 1796 and died of what was called a pulmonary attack in 1834. [2] Perhaps because he came from humble origins and died young, it is difficult to establish factual answers to some of the puzzling questions associated with his life. Among the many contradictions in the few writings about him is his date of birth. Most sources give October 23, but his baptismal record at the Mount Pleasant Wesleyan Chapel in Liverpool gives that as the date of his baptism and his birthday as September 30. In this record his father is described as a "cordwainer" (shoemaker), but another source says he was a joiner. [3]

Samuel Austin's father, said to be William, is thought to have lived in London, where he died in 1806. [4] In the same year Samuel's mother, Mary. placed him in the Liverpool Blue Coat School, which was at that time for orphans and children of the poor. No father is listed in the school's entry register, which his mother signed with a cross, giving her occupation as nurse. [5]

Between 1821 and 1833 Samuel and Elizabeth Austin had six children, all baptized in Saint Peter's Church (now demolished) on Church Street in Liverpool. [8] He exhibited prolifically in the London salons, which meant that he had to spend a considerable amount of time there every year. Yet some of his surviving letters concerned with art business in London bear his Liverpool address. [9] Moreover, he was secretary of the Liverpool Academy from 1824 to 1830. [10]

William Austin's connection with London has led some writers to speculate that Samuel may have been born there. [6] Others argue that his enrollment at the Liverpool Blue Coat School makes it more likely that he was born in that city. [7]

One source says that Austin left the Blue Coat School in 1809 and took a position as a clerk in a merchant's office in Liverpool [11] (not in a bank), [12] but soon resigned to become an artist. Another writer relates that "those who knew him describe him as of a peculiarly sensitive nature with an earnest enthusiasm in the pursuit of art, which rendered him interesting and attractive." [13]

Some charitable person is said to have paid for Austin to have three lessons from Peter De Wint (1784-1849), [14] which led him to choose watercolor as his medium (although he did take up oils in later life). [15] Some writers assert that De Wint's influence can be traced in much of his work, an example being Dover (P1. VI), which is from Austin's sketchbook, and "has a loose foreground exactly in the De Wint manner." [16] Among De Wint's many pupils Austin appears to be the only one who became a professional painter.

To earn a living Austin became the art master in a school for young ladies in Liverpool. However, the story goes that he was asked to leave by the headmistress because she said he was too good looking, and when he was there the girls could think of nothing else. He then decided to take pupils privately. [17]

He exhibited for the first and only time at the Royal Academy in London in 1820 [18] -- a drawing entitled Spellow Mill, Walton, near Liverpool. However, between 1822 and 1832 he exhibited 101 drawings at the Liverpool Academy and elsewhere in the city. As a founding member of the Society of British Artists in 1824 he exhibited nine drawings at the society's gallery in Suffolk Street, London, between 1824 and 1826. In 1827 he became an associate, and in 1833 a full member, of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours (formerly the Old Water-Colour Society), exhibiting sixty-two works at their gallery at Pall Mall East, London, between 1827 and 1834. [19]

From 1829 to 1831 Austin was one of several artists who contributed drawings to Lancashire Illustrated, a collection of descriptions by William Henry Pyne and others and illustrations devoted to Lancashire. It was published serially in London by H. Fisher, Son, and Jackson. Seventeen of some one hundred engraved illustrations are from original drawings by Austin. His Seacombe Slip, Liverpool was used on the cover of the 1829 volume. Two sets of the book are in Liverpool libraries, and I am told that they are still requested by those who want to see what Lancashire looked like in the early nineteenth century.

Austin has been regarded primarily as a landscape and marine painter Like his contemporaries, he traveled extensively in search of attractive compositions. His early paintings were devoted to Liverpool and its environs and North Wales, but he also traveled to Stratford-on-Avon, Southampton, Dover, Hastings, and Eastbourne on the south coast and to parts of Scotland. After 1829 he extended his range to Normandy, Holland (see Pl. XI), Belgium, and the Rhine River valley Old and picturesque towns like Rouen (Pl. XIV) and Caudebec (Pl. XII) in northern France were among the favorite haunts of Austin and his contemporaries Richard Parkes Bonington, John Sell Cotman, Samuel Prout, Clarkson Stanfield, and David Roberts.

The art historian and critic Henry Currie Marillier (1865-1951) has commented that besides the subjects for which he is best known, Austin was fond of architectural studies, noting that he "was remarkably accurate in perspective and seemed to revel in complicated difficulties such as those presented by the tower and spire of Caudebec." [20] The same writer also observed that some of Austin's early work shows traces of the method used by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), to which he was obviously attracted. The print and drawing specialist Martin Hardie (1875-1952) maintained that Austin's landscapes are vaguely suggestive of those by David Cox (1783-1859), and he found the marine painting Dieppe (unlocated) to be Austin's most personal and elaborate work, with a touch of Bonington evident in the composition. [21]

Austin is not particularly well known, perhaps because he died so young, but also because little of his work is in public collections. Hardie, discussing De Wint's influence on Austin, raises an intriguing question. He writes: "One cannot help wondering how many water-colours of Austin's have been fathered upon De Wint, especially as De Wint rarely signed his drawings." [22]

Sometimes the figures in Austin's paintings were modeled on members of his family. At the time of the 1929 exhibition of his works at the Victoria and Albert Museum, his grandson George Hornblower (1858-1940) wrote in regard to The Knife-grinder (P1. III) that it was painted at Fazakerley (then a village, now part of Liverpool), and that "Austin's wife is seated in front of the cottage with my mother [Anna Mary Austin; 1821-1909] and two of her brothers, one sprawling on the ground in the foreground and the latest baby on Mrs Austin's knee." [23] He also wrote that in the painting Hastings (P1. VII) the three figures in the foreground were his mother and two of her brothers, or so his mother had told him. [24]

Anna Mary Austin was the painter's first child and herself quite an accomplished artist. She is said to have also received instruction from De Wint, and when she showed him a sketch of a river he had directed her to make from a certain vantage point, he expressed astonishment that she had treated the subject with exactly the same feeling as her deceased father. [25]

Marillier notes that Samuel Austin was friendly with George Catterinole (1800-1868), Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding (1787-1855), and other significant painters of his time. [26] He was also well acquainted with William Roscoe (1753-1831), who was probably one of the most notable men in Liverpool during this period. Roscoe left school when not quite twelve years old, yet among his many achievements was a standard biography of Lorenzo de' Medici (1395-1440). [27] Roscoe was a founder of the Liverpool Society for the Encouragement of the Arts of Painting and Design, and a member of Parliament for Liverpool. [28] Austin made a drawing of Roscoe's birthplace entitled The Old Bowling Green House, Liverpool, [29] an engraving of which is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Austin also painted Roscoe's study, a copy of which is in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, although the whereabouts of the original is unknown.

As with his birth, there has been considerable confusion regarding the facts of Austin's death, in particular where he died and is buried. In his History the 'Old WaterColour' Society John Lewis Roget reported that when Austin was seized with the fatal pulmonary attack, he was painting a shepherdess and her flock, which was complete except for the woman's shoe. Being too ill to complete the picture, Austin employed Thomas Hargreaves, who had painted his miniature (see Pl. II), to do so. Hearing that Hargreaves had touched up the woman's face as well, he sent for the picture and found that the face had indeed been retouched. With many expressions of indignation he seized a sponge and would have wiped out the offending work had he not been too weak. [30] It is a good story but must be greeted with skepticism, because Roget goes on to say that Austin died in Liverpool, whereas he actually died in Llanfyllin, a village in Wales, and was buried in the village cemetery according to the copy of the burial register in my possession. Martin Hardie claims that Austin died from an attack of pneumonia contracted while sketching. [31] An obituary in the Liverpool Courier, for July 23, 1834, says that Austin had gone to Wales for a change of air and died there.

Austin died only about a month after be was made a full member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, a distinction that Roget claims he ardently desired. It was known that he would not live to exercise the privileges of this rank. He was elevated for the benefit of his family, and in December 1834 his widow was paid his share of the society's fund. Austin's friend Copley Fielding was then president of the society and later commented that "the act did honour to the Society" [32]

Austin's wife, Elizabeth Sophia, survived him by fourteen years and is buried in Birkenhead, across the Mersey River from Liverpool. The Austins were relatively young when they died, but four of their children were long lived. Emily their last child, lived from 1833 to 1925, and one living descendant whom I met early in my research told me that as a little girl she used to be taken to see "Aunt Emily." At that moment I realized how large a gap of generations I had bridged.

DEREK GOULD, who became interested in photography at an early age, now takes photographs for gardening books and magazines.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group

 

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