Marmaduke Albert Langdale (1840–1905) was born in Hitcham, Buckinghamshire, the son of a clergyman. He came from an illustrious family line: his ancestor Marmaduke Langdale was knighted by King Charles I in 1627. Marmaduke A. Langdale trained at the Academy Schools, winning the Turner Gold Medal in 1865. A regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy thereafter, Langdale was known for his landscape paintings. A contemporary reviewer wrote: “His pictures are executed in a soft and delicate manner, with a striking originality and charm which has won for the artist an innumerable number of admirers.” In his landscapes he was strongly influenced by J.M.W. Turner, owning a magnificent collection of copies of Turner’s works and regularly painting after Turner’s works in the National Gallery. He lived at Leacroft, Staines, and regularly painted landscapes around the Thames.

Langdale was also a poet; we have a collection of nine hand-written poems by Langdale for sale separately.

This work forms part of a fascinating collection of works by mid-19th century artists Marmaduke A. Langdale, George Dunkerton Hiscox and A.C.H. Luxmoore. The collection evidences the mutual friendships and influences between the artists, and their shared affinities with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

The collection includes a stunning watercolour of a Pre-Raphaelite beauty, as well as melancholic angels and medieval and Elizabethan subjects, which were favoured by the Pre-Raphaelites. Founded in London in 1848, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood believed in an art of serious subjects treated with maximum realism. They used subjects from literature and poetry as well as religious themes, and sought to promote a medievalised art as a way of restoring a lost wholeness of life in the face of modern mechanisation. In the 1860s they developed interests in medieval designs and hand-crafts—many of the pictures in this collection have a crafted, decorative quality or include meticulous attention to botanical detail.

The collection as a whole is also fascinating for the friendships it reveals between the artists: Marmaduke A. Langdale and George Dunkerton Hiscox both lived on the Thames (Langdale at Staines and Hiscox at Windsor), and painted the surrounding rural landscape together. The collection includes a watercolour of the two artists painting together en plein air, as well as notes and cards sent between them. Langdale wrote George Dunkerton Hiscox’s memoir, published in The Art Record in 1901. The collection also includes a drawing by A.C.H. Luxmoore of Emma Edith Langdale, and a charcoal depicting Langdale sketching at Windsor.

Other associated artists in the collection include Brighton artist Amy Scott (Langdale lived for a time at Brighton) and Victorian illustrator Fred Barnard, famous for his acclaimed Charles Dickens illustrations.

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Product code: JD-966