19th century English cottage landscape with mother and child feeding chickens

19th century English/British cottage landscape with mother and child feeding the chickens.

Walter E. Ellis, was born and christened Erasmus Walter Ellis, although he must have preferred Walter to Erasmus, as he signed his paintings Walter E. Ellis, as on this painting, or W. E. Ellis.

Erasmus Walter Ellis was born in Birmingham in 1848, the son of William Ellis, also a painter, who exhibited two landscapes at Suffolk Street in 1863 and 1864 (Dictionary of Victorian Painters by Wood). There is scant information about his life, but he married three times, in 1879 to Sarah Elizabeth Spiers, who died in 1891, in 1893 to another lady whose name was either Rosina Rose or Mary Hancox, and again in 1909, at the age of 61 to Margaret Jane Augusta Ledsham, who was only 39! At this time he was living at 154 Willes Road Birmingham and had lived in the Birmingham area for all his life, where he also died in 1918 at the age of 69.

He painted mostly Welsh scenes, primarily in oils, but there are a few watercolors and some views of the Birmingham area and the Lake District. Most of his oils are relatively small in size, but there are a few 30" x 20".

He is listed in The Dictionary of British Artists as having exhibited between 1882 and 1894, from 10 Villa Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, 20 paintings at the Royal Society of Artists Birmingham, 1 at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and 1 at the Royal Hibernian Academy.

This piece is an oil on canvas that has been laid down onto a panel of wood.

It is framed in an Antique English frame which might be the original to the painting.

• Height 38.1 cm / 15 "
• Width 48.26 cm / 19 "