Jersey Collection: John Le Capelain & Jane Maude
This picture forms part of a collection of early 19th-century works that we have for sale of Jersey interest, which were once owned by a Jane Maude. Two of the watercolours in the collection were painted by Jane Maude herself; two others are by the leading Jersey artist John Le Capelain (1812–1848); further paintings once in the collection were by a C. Maude and Edward Henry Wehnert (1813–1868). Wehnert resided in Jersey from 1832 to 1837 and tutored the young John Everett Millais, who lived on the island until the age of nine.
Jane Maude is likely to be the daughter of Thomas Maude Esq (1770–1831), of the Woodlands, Harrogate. Her sister, Cordelia Maude, lived in Jersey and died at a substantial house named Belvoir at the foot of Mont Millais, St Helier in 1852. Jane Maude married Edward Carus Wilson (1795–1860), whose brother Charles Carus Wilson (1797–1854) also had Jersey connections. Charles Carus Wilson was a London-based lawyer who was famously involved in a libel case between the Jersey and English authorities. He was imprisoned in Jersey for contempt of Court but applied to the English Court for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, which resulted in the landmark ruling that a Writ of Habeas Corpus extended to the Channel Islands. Wilson died at St Helier.
Jersey artists of national and international repute are few in number, but the island has a proud artistic tradition. Jersey sits at the cultural crossroads between British and French influences—in the early 19th century French was still the language of the Court proceedings and Legislature, and artists of the island were at the convergence of the prevailing European and British schools of art. Artists were drawn to the island's natural beauty and to capture the essence of Jersey's distinct character. John Le Capelain, one of the island's most highly regarded artists, portrayed Jersey’s Romantic landscape with particular distinction, through his intensely atmospheric watercolours. He exhibited in London alongside leading watercolour artists including J.M.W. Turner, John Constable and William Callow. His style was fashionable and he is often labelled the 'Jersey Turner'. After Queen Victoria's visit to Jersey in 1846, a volume of drawings by Le Capelain of scenery of the island was presented to her as an official souvenir by the States of Jersey, which led to a Royal commission to paint pictures of the Isle of Wight. Le Capelain's promising career was, however, sadly cut short by his premature death aged just thirty-six.
