John Wilson Ewbank: Two early to mid 19th-century gouache paintings, Fishing Coast and Large Buoy, attributed to his English painter

[Scotland? early to mid-19th century]. Both measure approx. 7 x 9½ inches. Gouache on board. Both gouaches are signed verso in pencil: J. Ewbank. Additionally, the second image has these three names in pencil, in another hand: Leonard Eldridge, Albert Charles, Greiner Haas. First painting with small corner loss; second with small corner break to lower right; good strong images.

English painter John Wilson Ewbank, R.S.A. (1779-1847) was working at his zenith in Edinburgh in 1823 but fell into impoverishment due to alcoholism.

ODNB: "His reputation, however, was chiefly established by his small-scale marine paintings, which reflected the influence of Dutch seventeenth-century artists, such as Willem Van de Velde, and he was considered one of the foremost marine artists of this period... to defray the expense of a meal it was frequently necessary for him to throw off some hasty sketch from recollection, and sell it for anything obtainable at the moment." [Fordyce, Sykes]

Ewbank's paintings later in life were frequently painted in a bar or in his squalid home; generally painted on tin, within an hour or so, and sold on the instant, unvarnished, to spend the proceeds on drink.

Here, one image presumably shows fishermen heading out for the day's work; the second painting shows boats returning at dusk.

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