The Thames on Celluloid

Maria Hampshire Eaton (1862–1944) was a woman seemingly ahead of her time: awarded a medal by the South Kensington Schools, relocating to Canada for a period in the 1880s and by 1901 describing herself as an 'artist photographer [on her] own acc[ount]'. Initially known as a painter of sensitive portrait miniatures, after her marriage to the architect and artist Ernest Llewellyn Hampshire (1882–1944) she increasingly worked as a painter of landscapes and flowers. In this striking view on the Thames, she transmutes the traditional miniature format and ivory support into something altogether more modern: capturing her urban subject on celluloid.

Hampshire Eaton was a member of the Society of Miniaturists and she exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Society of Women Artists, the Salon des Artistes Françaises, Paris and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours. Her works were acquired by Their Royal Majesties Queen Mary and Queen Alexandra, HM Queen Maud of Norway and HRH Princess Royal.