signed 'JAMES T. WATTS' (lower left), and inscribed 'Mid a[utumn] [l]ight/Bettws-y-coed woods/by James T Watts RCA/34 Lidderdale Rd/Sefton Park/Liverpool s/£6. 6. 0' (on the artist's label attached to the backboard)
pencil and watercolour heightened with touches of white on paper
9½ x 7 5/8 in.
Watts was born in Birmingham, where he studied at King Edward's School and then at the Birmingham School of Art. Watts, who was familiar with the writings of John Ruskin and the works of Pre-Raphaelites, was fascinated by the play of light on leaves, bracken, lichen and rocks. His predilection for reviving a sense of realism in landscape painting is reflective of his adherence to the Ruskinian principals. Even though he exhibited both oils and watercolours, his preferred medium was watercolour. From 1878 he exhibited at the Royal Academy and became a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Arts, the Birmingham Art Circle, the Liverpool Academy and the Royal Cambrian Academy in Wales.
A group of works by Watts were sold in these Rooms, The Fuller Collection of Victorian Landscape Watercolours, 7 April 2000, lots 116-138, where the auction record price of £18,212 was achieved for lot 119.
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