Mary Elizabeth Crawhall (1835–1917)

Fantastic to be celebrating our new website with the launch of a collection of sketches by the talented Mary Elizabeth Crawhall (1835–1917). Her travel sketches from the 1880s and 1890s, principally in Italy—at Rome, Naples, Sicily, Piedmont, Venice, Florence, Pisa and Como—really communicate an affirming sense of confidence and freedom. Crawhall, who died a spinster, seemed to in part travel with her two female cousins—attending the casino in Monte Carlo, and convening hex-like on Burley Moor ("when shall we three meet again").

She was part of the prominent Northumbrian Crawhall family, headed by her father, Joseph Crawhall I (1793–1853), a prosperous Newcastle ropemaker, alderman and amateur artist. The family were artistically gifted and well connected participants in the thriving cultural life of 19th-century Newcastle. Mary Elizabeth's siblings were all artists: her brothers Joseph Crawhall II, Thomas Emerson, and George Edward, as well as her sister Jane. Her nephew, Joseph Crawhall III (1861–1913), is the best known artist of the dynasty, being closely associated with the Glasgow Boys. Letters from her brother, Joseph II (a good friend of the Punch artist Charles Keene) show the closeness of the family, often relating news of the young artist, Joseph III (image 6). Mary travelled in Yorkshire in 1898, at the time when Joseph III was living with his parents and breeding horses at Husthwaite, along with brother Hugh. It is likely that Mary's travels to Yorkshire coincided with visits to family. Mary's lightness of both touch and palette in her sketches, at times displaying an impressionistic modernity, must surely have borne the artistic influence of her talented and innovative nephew.

At her death Mary was living with her two servants in Durham's historic South Bailey (image 7).

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION.