Ellen Sharples

Ellen Wallace Sharples (4 March 1769 – 14 March 1849) was an English painter who specialized in portraits in pastel and in watercolor miniatures on ivory. She exhibited five miniatures at the Royal Academy in 1807, and founded the Bristol Fine Arts Academy in 1844 with a substantial gift.

Biography

Ellen Wallace was born in Bath or Birmingham into a Quaker family. She studied drawing with James Sharples in Bath, her only known art training, and married him in 1787. The couple had two children, both of whom were also painters: James Sharples, Jr. (b. 1788) and Rolinda Sharples (b. 1793). James, who had been widowed twice before, had two sons from his previous marriages, George, with his first wife, and Felix (b. 1786 and also an artist) with his second wife.

America, 1794-1801

The couple emigrated to the United States around 1794 in a harrowing voyage, in which their ship was commandeered by a French privateer. The family was interned at Brest for seven months, and Ellen would later write of the ordeal in her diary: "Our family have experienced; severely experienced much of its misery, and much did we witness during our seven months captivity in France, too heart rending to recall."

They eventually made it to America in a move that echoed the fashion of English artists who took advantage of the growing demand for portraiture in the New World.[5] Living in Washington, DC James had great success painting portraits of American leaders (including George Washington). Around 1797, while they were living in Philadelphia, Ellen first began to draw portraits professionally in order to supplement the family’s income. Responding to the great demand for affordable copies, Ellen's career thrived in copying her husband's original portraits on commission, and her miniature copies were priced the same as her husband's. Small portraits, such as the Sharples turned out, were a viable and affordable alternative to the large scale formal portraits of Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull. Competition from other small portrait painters was stiff, and in looking for opportunities for commissions, the family became itinerant. They lived and worked in Philadelphia and New York City, and traveled through New England in a specially constructed carriage that carried the family, their collection, and their equipment.

When they were still very young, the Sharples children began to draw, and Ellen began to personally train her daughter, Rolinda, in the art of painting and drawing. The children joined the family enterprise when they were still in their teens, Felix at the age of 17, James Jr. at the age of 15, and Rolinda at the age of 13.