Antique English river landscape with figures, boats, swans, London , brown gray

An English river landscape with Swans, boats, barges on the banks of the Thames.

A very interesting river landscape composition of figures working on a boat, near a barge on the River Thames, London, circa 1885.

Robert Hamilton Chapman, was baptized at St Mary's Church, Leamington Priors, Warwickshire on 5 August 1860, son of Robert Chapman, a civil engineer, and his wife Anne. He studied at Surbiton Art School and as R. Hamilton Chapman, as an ex-pupil, exhibited there 1888-1889 and may have also studied in France as several of his works depicted scenes in that country. He married at St Paul's Church, Deptford, Kent on 6 August 1884, Fanny Child but in April 1892 she obtained a judicial separation [divorce], with costs, owing to his alleged cruelty, when he stated that 'he did not have sixpence in the world'. In April 1891, a 29-year-old landscape painter, living at Portsmouth Road, Thames Ditton, Kingston, Surrey with his 33-year-old wife Fanny, and their three children Lawrence Hamilton 8, Evelyn Muriel Hamilton 6, and Blanche Lilian 4, all born at Thames Ditton. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from Thomas Ditton in 1891, 'The Stackyard, Thames Ditton', 'Oxshott Common, Surrey' and 'The Black Pond at Esther' and from Ipswich in 1895 and in the same year also at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour 'A Gipsy Encampment'. A member of the Ipswich Art Club 1897-1913 and exhibited from 27 Cauldwell Hall Road, Ipswich in February 1897, fifteen paintings including six oils, 'Near Fenn Bridge on the Stow', 'Flatford Lock', 'A Dorsetshire Pastoral', 'Ploughing near Bures', 'Dorsetshire Sheepfold' and 'A Beanfield' with nine watercolors and in November 1897 he had on show three watercolors' A Dutch Cow', 'A July Evening in Worcestershire' and 'Poplars at Martlesham'. In 1902 he exhibited from 2 Langley Place, West Ealing, London six watercolors, 'Streatley on the Thames', 'Mapledurham Reach', 'Sunset after the Storm', 'From Hampton Court Bridge', 'Mapledurham Mill' and continued to exhibit regularly, in 1912 from Cleve, Goring-on Thames, ten paintings and in 1913, from Olde Home, East Moseley, Surrey seven paintings. In 1911, a 50-year-old painter watercolor artist, stating that he was single, living at Cleeve-by-Goring, Oxfordshire. He died at The Hayes, Northiam Rye, Sussex on 19 December 1943, and his will proved at Llandudno, Caernarfonshire, Wales on 7 February 1944.

This piece is one of his early paintings, later in his life he painted mostly watercolors.

This example is oil on artists' card. It is inscribed very faintly top right and also signed on the front middle.

The subject is a little different from most river landscapes as its showing people working rather than playing on the river. This I think makes the subject a little better than most similar compositions. The style is typical of Victorian painting, a story in art.

This type and quality of painting would have been painted for the wealthy British patrons for either their country houses or their grand townhouses in areas in London like Mayfair, Belgravia and Chelsea, and Kennsington.

This is a perfect painting for almost any room in a home, like a bedroom, study, den, family room hallway, The complementary colors for this piece are Beige, Brown, Green, Blue, Tope, off white, black, red

• Height 43 cm / 17"
• Width 53 cm / 21"