18th Century Welsh Landscapes depicting Ordinary Working People

The pre-Christmas appearance of Brian Davies, former curator of Pontypridd Museum, at Cowbridge U3A’s History Group is fast becoming as much a tradition as decorated trees, mulled wine and mince pies. This time, the subject of his illustrated talk (given, as usual, without the aid of notes) was the artist Julius Caesar Ibbetson, whose paintings have proved to be an invaluable source of the social history of late 18th century Wales, containing not only depictions of landscapes and buildings, but also of the common people.

Ibbetson was born in Yorkshire by the caesarean section that killed his mother, accounting for his Christian names, which he detested all of his life. He was initially apprenticed to a ship’s painter in Hull, but, with the ambition of becoming an artist, he walked to London, where he started working for an art dealer. He was later to liken the relationship of art dealers to artists as akin to that of butchers to cows!

His distinctive work was influenced by the Dutch masters of the 17th century and focussed on the lives of ordinary people at labour and play in everyday surroundings. Thus he became one of the great founders of British landscape art, a generation before the era of the better-known Constable and Turner.

His Welsh pictures (he produced around 120 watercolour and oils here) include scenes at Conwy and Llanrwst, weavers in Llangollen, Tenby, the falls at Ystradfellte, Briton Ferry, Llantrisant, Tongwynlais, Swansea and Cardiff. His 1790 painting of the inside of a foundry compares well with the similar one Turner made 20 years later – and has far better depictions of the foundry men.

Ibbetson’s “Bridge of Beauty”, a landscape showing the new bridge at Pontypridd in the distance, is now on display at Pontypridd Museum. His skill as a miniaturist is show well by this piece, where even the hooves of the cows are finely detailed.

On retirement, the artist returned to his home county, where he died in 1817, aged only 58. Ibbetson is now little known to the general public, but his detailed watercolours of iron furnaces, coal staithes, and copper mines have proved to be an important record of social history, earning him the respect of historians, if not art experts.

The History Group are already anticipating Brian’s next pre-Christmas offering!

Steve Monaghan