MEADOWS, JAMES EDWIN (English, 1828-1888) "Awaiting the Turn of the Tide" Signed and dated 1857, L.R., faint canvas stencil on the reverse. Oil on canvas, 8˝" x 12" (sight); 13" x 16˝" (framed). Price Category: B

A London landscape painter, James Edwin Meadows was the son of a well known artist, James Meadows Senior, and came from a family with a strong artistic tradition. Despite being based in London, James Edwin Meadows traveled extensively throughout Great Britain seeking inspiration for his paintings, particularly concentrating on the Southern coastline. He frequently painted views in Essex, Kent, Surrey, and the Isle of Wight. Meadows' style is distinguishable by his pleasant rounded figures, simplicity of composition, and clarity of description. He favored luxurious greens and delicate blues, usually painting in the open air. In this charming coastal scene, he depicts a beached boat with a boy in front watching a crab while a little girl looks on. A second figure rests contentedly on top of a sail. Meadows exhibited at the major London galleries including the Royal Academy (1854-72), where he showed twenty-six works, the British Institute, the Royal Society of British Artists, and the Suffolk Street Galleries (fifty-five works). Today his larger canvases often command high prices in the major British galleries. Provenance: Skinner's Auction, Boston, November 2006. References: E. Bénézit, Artists' Dictionary (Grund: Paris, 2006). Denys Brook-Hart, British 19th Century Marine Painting (Antique Collectors Club: Woodbridge, Suffolk: 1974). E. H. H. Archibald, The Dictionary of Sea Painters of Europe and America (Antique Collectors Club: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2000). Christopher Wood, The Dictionary of Victorian Painters (Barron: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1978).

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