Oil Painting, 'On the Lledr, North Wales', Edmund Marriner Gill, 1864

An oil painting of a Welsh landscape with a waterfall. In the foreground a boy gathers wood while a girl looks on.

Bequeathed by Joshua Dixon

Bequeathed by Joshua Dixon, 1886.

A paragraph in the Art Journal of 1874 noted that when the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1864, it was purchased by Mr G. Wallis (p.43). This could possibly refer to George Wallis (1811-1891), Senior Keeper of the Art Collections at the South Kensington Museum 1863-1891.

Historical significance: Edmund Gill was born in Clerkenwell, London, on 29 November 1820, the son of a japanner, with whom he settled in Ludlow, Shropshire. Without receiving any regular instruction in art, he became a portrait painter. In Birmingham in 1841 he met the landscape painter David Cox (1783-1859), whose work had a lasting influence on him. Gill went to London the same year, and in 1843 he entered the Royal Academy Schools. From this point onward he painted landscapes, especially in Wales, exhibiting at the Royal Academy from 1842 to 1886. He became so well known for his views of cascades and waterfalls that he became known as 'Waterfall Gill'. He died on May 14 1894 at Hackbridge, Carshalton.

The popular pictorial image of Snowdonia was invented by the Welsh landscape painter Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) in the 1760s; however, the landscape became much more accessible from the 1840s, especially after the arrival of the railway at the coastal resort of Llandudno in 1848 encouraged large scale tourism from Liverpool and further afield. David Cox visited Betws-y-Coed to paint every year between 1844 and 1856, encouraging many other artists to work there. This painting represents a scene in the Lledr Valley, not far from Betws-y-Coed.

The Art Journal of 1874 described On the Lledr, North Wales, which had been exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1864, as 'a well-balanced composition; the banks on each side of the perpetually moving stream harmonise agreeably to the eye, without any sameness of form, while the tiny river is precipitated in shallow falls between the huge boulders that would fain hinder its course; the play of light and shade on the water is most effectively managed. A boy is gathering wood left by the flood on the bank, while a girl and child look on.' (p.43)

This painting was bequeathed to the V&A by Joshua Dixon (1811-1885), a successful cotton merchant. In addition to oil paintings, watercolours and drawings, his collection also included engravings, Japanese vases and panels, and bronze and marble sculpture. Born in Dalston, north-east London, Dixon died on his estate of Winslade Park in Somerset and left his collection initially to the Bethnal Green Museum, which is part of the V&A, for the 'benefit of the people of East London.'

1007-1886