Rare Art Studio amateur decorated plate, signed Ellen Ross, 1876
$1,250.00 AUD
Rare amateur painted plate, painted with a young girl’s portrait, with red cheeks & bond hair protruding from a high ‘mob cap’ tied with a black ribbon, the rim with a series of purple fruit & leaves.
Original exhibition pasted paper label on back, “Howell & James/Art Pottery Exhibition, 1876/Exhibitors name Ellen Ross /. No. 3….”
Signed front and back with Monogram ‘ETR’
1876
26cm
Excellent Condition
Read more in our in-depth article here >
Howell & James was a luxury goods store in Regent Street, and between 1876 and 1893, they held annual exhibitions, open to both professional and amateur decorators. This plate was exhibited in the first, in 1876; exhibit no. 3, unfortunately the title of the piece is indistinct. She is recorded in The Times, 26th June 1877 in a report on Howell & James’s “Painting on China” 2nd annual exhibition, where the ‘Amateurs’ are listed separate to another class of painters:
“Artists who devote themselves to this work as distinguished from amateurs”.
Her work is described as “A Fair Puritan’, whose gray eyes betray no consciousness of the coquetry which lurks in the arrangement of her white mob cap and cloak under the primroses at her throat.”
This almost described this 1876 work, which has a young girl in a ‘white mob cap’, minus the primroses and grey eyes.
Interestingly, it has her listed first as Mrs Mallam, then Ellen Ross, but includes both; this would suggest recent marriage. In 1878, she is described as ‘Amateur’, and her ‘Portrait Plates’ are ‘Highly Commended’. The next record is 1881, with a commendation for a ‘Charming Female Figure’.She also exhibited in Paris in 1878, with her portrait plates completely selling out!
With the change of surname from Ross to Mallam, we can pinpoint Ellen in the British records, and find she was from a fascinating family:
Ellen Mary Anne Hyde Ross was born in 1837 (or 42, or 43 in other online records!?), in St Pancras, and married solicitor Dalton Robert Mallam in 1868 in Kensington, London. They had 6 children, and one, Ross Ibbotson Dalton Mallam, was born in 1878. He also entered the legal profession, moved to Adelaide Australia in 1902, and ended up a Supreme Court Judge (1928-33) in the Northern Territory, before ill-health led to him relocating to Melbourne.
Ellen had a sister, Janet Barrow ne. Ross, who had great talent as a miniature painter; she married into the Dickens family, being the aunt of Charles Dickens. Her portraits of the Dickens family members are held in various collections including the V&A, and her portrait of Charles Dickens aged 18 is at the Dickens Museum. In return, Dickens may have immortalised her in his book ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ as ‘Miss La Creevy’, a miniature painter….
Ellen Mallam-signed pieces have appeared on the market from time to time, and all show the same technique as this plate; a very open stippled method, which is actually an enlarged version of miniature painting.
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