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Irish & International Art

Thursday 19th November 2026

Lot 220 BENJAMIN WILLIAMS LEADER RA (BRITISH, 1831 - 1923)

€5000 - 8000

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Place Absentee bid on Lot 220 BENJAMIN WILLIAMS LEADER RA (BRITISH, 1831 - 1923) €5000 - 8000 Note: Completion of all fields required. Incomplete records will lead to unregistered bids. Terms and conditions.

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Description

Lot 220 BENJAMIN WILLIAMS LEADER RA (BRITISH, 1831 - 1923)

Title: A Village at Dusk
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Signature: Signed Lower Left
Provenance: Private Collection
Framed

A Wonderful, Large Oil on Canvas by Leader, depicting a Village at Dusk, probably in Worcestershire, where he was from. This work can be compared to his most famous work, February Fill-Dyke, which he painted in 1881, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition that same year, and at the Paris Salon eight years later, in 1889. Leader described the landscape in this notable work as 'A November Evening after Rain'. Similarly to this famous work, the composition shown here depicts a waterlogged road by a church and cottages, which sit side-by-side and lead out into the distance. The sky is wonderfully rendered, and just like February Fill-Dyke, the orange hues in the clouds reflect off the water, as well as the foliage on each side of the road, causing a calm shimmer in the water. He moved from Worcester in 1862, then to Surrey, in 1889, but regularly returned to his native lands of Worcestershire. The work most likely dates to the late 19th-century, between the 1870s and 1890s, when he was at his peak, around the same time he painted February Fill-Dyke, and In the Evening It Shall Be Light (1882), another exceptional work by him, which he received a gold medal for at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, in 1889, while at the same time, the French Government also made him a Knight of the Legion of Honour.

One of the greatest landscape painters of the Victorian Era, Benjamin Williams Leader was born in Worcester on 12 March 1831 and was the third child of eleven children of Edward, a civil engineer and Sarah Whiting. His mother was a quaker, and the couple were disowned by the Society of Friends when they married in an Anglican Church. Interestingly, Edward was a keen amateur artist and friends with the great John Constable. Benjamin was educated at Royal Grammar School, Worcester, and worked as a draughtsman by day at his father's office, and studied art in the evenings at the Worcester School of Design, as well as doing 'en plein air' painting in his free time. He was later admitted as a student to the Royal Academy Schools in 1854, at the age of 23, where he surprisingly, had a picture accepted for exhibition there in just his first year titled Cottage children blowing bubbles, which was sold to an American buyer for a whopping 50 pounds. From then on, he always showed his work each year at the academy, until 1922, when he was 91. One of the major gallerists who continued to purchase his work was Agnew's (Thomas Agnew and Sons) in Manchester. In total, Leader exhibited 216 paintings at the RA, as well as exhibiting in other galleries in Britain, Canada, and the United States. He died following a stroke at his home near Shere, Surrey, on 22 March 1923, just ten days after his 92nd birthday.

Estimate

€5000 - 8000

Dimensions

Image: 64 x 105.5cm (approx.) Framed: 95 x 136cm (approx.)

Day

Thursday 19th November 2026

Approximate time

21:02:30

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