Ethel Webling Explained

Ethel Webling (26 October 1859[1]  - 1929) was an English artist, specialising in portrait miniatures and illustration.

Early life and family

Ethel Webling was born in St Pancras, London[2] and was the daughter of Robert James Webling, a silversmith and jeweler, and his wife Maria.[3] She had four sisters named Lucy, Josephine, Rosalind, and Ruth, who were all dramatic actors, and another named Peggy who was an author & playwright.[4] Ethel, the eldest of the siblings, took up art, studying at the Slade School of Art.

Career

From 1881 to 1894, she exhibited eleven times at the Royal Academy of Arts,[5] most notably with a miniature of John Ruskin in 1888 and a pastel of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Hamlet in 1892.[6] In the 1880s she, along with other female artists, was commissioned by Ruskin to make copies of Old Master works for the Guild of St. George in Sheffield.[7] She also secured the patronage of Christiana Herringham,[8] and an 1887 pastel portrait of Herringham's two sons was donated to Royal Holloway, along with much of Herringham's collections.[9] In 1894 Ethel also contributed a set of six miniature portraits ito an exhibition of women's portraits at the National Academy of Design in New York.[10]

She was connected to the world of Shakespearean theatre through her sisters' work. In 1884 she created ninety sketches of Henry Irving's production of Twelfth Night at the Lyceum Theatre in a copy of the play,[11] which was acquired by the Folger Shakespeare Library in 2003.[12] In 1898, she created a hand-illustrated book documenting Herbert Beerbohm Tree's production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar at Her Majesty's Theatre. In 2017, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust research determined that this collection item was a unique record of the production rather than an imagined staging.[13]

Ethel supported the movement for women's suffrage, signing the Declaration in Favour of Women's Suffrage: Being the Signatures Received at the Office of the Central Committee for Women's Suffrage, Etc. in 1889.[14]

Later years and death

In 1917, she was called to testify in the trial of psychic Almira Brockway, whom Webling consulted on the whereabouts of her soldier nephew, who was missing in action.[15] She died in 1929.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Ethel Webling to Walt Whitman, 26 October 1891 (Correspondence) - The Walt Whitman Archive . whitmanarchive.org . 27 January 2024.
  2. Web site: FreeBMD Entry Info . freebmd.org.uk . 27 January 2024.
  3. 1861 Census of England and Wales. Surrey, Civil Parish of Chelsea, family 189.
  4. 1871 Census of England and Wales. Surrey, Civil Parish of Camberwell, family 114.
  5. Web site: The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: A Chronicle, 1769-2018 . chronicle250.com . The Royal Academy of Arts . 27 January 2024.
  6. Web site: Tree, Herbert Beerbohm (Sir) . garrick.ssl.co.uk . The Garrick Club Collections . 27 January 2024.
  7. Nunn . Pamela Gerrish . Ruskin's Patronage of Women Artists . Woman's Art Journal . 1981 . 2 . 2 . 10 . 0270-7993.
  8. McNay . Anna . Meet the collectors: Christiana Herringham . Art Quarterly . 2023 . Autumn . 56. 500063179.
  9. Web site: Christopher and Geoffrey Herringham . artuk.org . 28 January 2024 . en.
  10. Book: Portraits of women : loan exhibition for the benefit of St. John's Guild and the Orthopaedic Hospital from the first to the twenty-fourth of November, 1894, National Academy of Design, New York . 1894 . National Academy of Design . New York . 85 .
  11. Book: Shakespeare . William, 1860-1929, artist. . Twelfth night; or, What you will: a comedy in five acts / by William Shakespeare ; as arranged for the stage by Henry Irving, and presented at the Lyceum Theatre, 8th July, 1884.: [ART Vol. a75] Twelfth night; or, What you will: a comedy in five acts / by William Shakespeare ; as arranged for the stage by Henry Irving, and presented at the Lyceum Theatre, 8th July, 1884. ]. 1884 .
  12. Web site: College Row 2003: Spring Amherst College . amherst.edu . 28 January 2024.
  13. Web site: Hawkins . Ella . Solving Mysteries in the SBT Archives: Ethel Webling and Herbert Beerbohm Tree . Shakespeare Birthplace Trust . 28 January 2024 . 21 March 2017.
  14. Book: Declaration in favour of women's suffrage: being the signatures received at the office of the Central Committee for Women's Suffrage, etc. . 1889 . 17 . London and National Society for Women's Service, Central Committee.
  15. News: Woman with Three "Spirit Guides" . 28 January 2024 . Sunday Mirror . 7 January 1917 . 2.

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