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WILLIAM HAVELL (1782 - 1857)

Three sepia watercolours mounted in one frame:

“Tarentella Dance, Naples”

2 3/8” x 3 ¾” (60 x 95mm). Titled on the mount

“Oldbergh Hall”?

1 ¼” x 2 ¼” (32 x 57mm). Titled on reverse

“The Oaks, Epsom”

1 ¼” x 2 ¼” (32 x 57mm). Titled on reverse IMAGE

William Havell was born in Reading in 1782. He was a landscape painter who came from a large artistic family. In 1802 and 1803 he went on his first sketching tours to Wales and the Wye Valley where he met the Varleys and Cristall who became his close friends. He was a founder Member of the Old Watercolour Society with them. In 1807 he moved to Ambleside in the Lake District where he lived for over a year and in 1812 and 1813 he went to Hastings. He worked on a large number of small sepia landscapes for various annuals including Peacock’s Polite Repository from 1813 to 1816 after which he sailed to China as artist to Lord Amherst’s Embassy, visiting Madeira, Rio de Janeiro, the Cape and Java. He then went to Calcutta and stayed in India for eight years working as a watercolour portrait painter. In 1827 he returned to England but after a year he left for Italy where he remained, with his friend T. Uwins until 1829. On his return to England he retired from the Old Watercolour Society. His best landscapes are of his native Reading and the Thames Valley. Work by William Havell is in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum; the Tate Gallery; Newport Art Gallery; Nottingham University; Reading Art Gallery; Southampton City Museum; The Government Art Collection; Birmingham Museums Trust; Shipley Art Gallery; Leeds Museums & Galleries; University of Liverpool; Williamson Art Gallery & Museum; Museums Sheffield; Richmond upon Thames Borough Art Collection; the National Trust; University of Aberdeen; National Library of Wales; Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology; the National Maritime Museum; the British Library; the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland; Richmond Library and Warrington Art Gallery

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