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Artist William
Muller Title Falls on the River Lledr Date Early works object Painting Media oil Size 90 x 70 cm Ref 885 On permanent Loan from Axa Sun Life Other websites featuring this artist's work No websites given Falls on the River Lledr Muller was fond of North Wales visiting three times between 1833 and 1843. This picturesque view of a waterfall in the Lledr Valley was probably paintedfrom sketches made in 1842. Muller stayed at the small village of Betws-y-Coed for several days at the end of October of that year, making sketches of the Lledr, a tributary of the larger River Conway. According to Francis Greenacre (1) Muller made other sketches on the river one of which ‘Salmon trap on the River Lledr’ became the basis of an oil painting that was shown at the 1843 British institution, and which after the artist’s death sold at Christies in 1888 for the sizeable sum of £1,575, an indication of Muller’s enhanced posthumous reputation. . Muller’s stock of sketches and drawings made in North Wales gave him a sizeable store of Romantic and picturesque subjects for many years and satisfied his ambition to be ‘desirous of representing the wild scenery of Wales under the dreary but grand aspect of winter’. (2). An artist companion noted Muller’s enthusiasm for such scenery:
knocked at the corners, he steadied it at the proper angle by means of a bit of string or cord passed over his shoulders and round the back of his neck. (3)
necessity of looking at nature with a much more observant eye than the mass of young artists do, and in particular at skies. These are generally neglected. (4) 1) Francis Greenacre and Sheena Stoddard, W.J.Muller, 1812-1845, Bristol Museums and Art Gallery, 1991. 2) Letter from Muller to J.Satterfield, 27 July 1842,cited in N Neal Solly, Memoir of the life of William James Muller, 1875. 3) Cited in Solly, pp.148-9 4) Letter from Muller to J.C.Gooden, 13 September 1842, cited in Greenacre, p.84. back |
