Lefevre James Cranstone

Cranstone was the second of thirteen children born in Hemel Hempstead, England to Joseph, Jr. and Maria Lefevre Cranstone. In 1838 he enrolled in Henry Sass's School of Art in London and at age 18 was received as a probationer into the Royal Academy School on April 21, 1840. Following his formal training he exhibited a number of oil paintings in the annual exhibitions of the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street and at the Royal Academy. In addition to his watercolor and oil paintings, during his lifetime Cranstone also produced etchings and pen and ink and chalk drawings. He was also an art teacher in his wife Lillia's boarding school.

File:The Ohio River near Wheeling, West Virginia MET ap1984.231.jpg)]]

File:Lefevre James Cranstone - Slave Auction, Virginia.jpg)]]

Despite exhibiting at prestigious institutions such as the Royal Academy, Cranstone did not achieve popular recognition in Britain, and he is best known for his prolific work in America. For a ten-month period in 1859 and 1860 Cranstone, with his younger brother Alfred, visited cousins in Virginia and Indiana. During this trip he prepared almost 300 pen and ink with wash sketches documenting both the rural and urban areas of antebellum America which they visited. Works include paintings of the Ohio River at Wheeling, West Virginia, the White House in Washington DC and the Courthouse in Colonial Williamsburg.

{{cite web|title=Lefevre Cranstone|url=http://www.dacorumheritage.org.uk/article/lefevre-cranstone/|website=www.dacorumheritage.org.uk|publisher=Dacorum Heritage Trust|access-date=10 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180510110511/http://www.dacorumheritage.org.uk/article/lefevre-cranstone/|archive-date=10 May 2018|url-status=live}}

Sketches he made during his American visit became available for sale in 1928 and are in the collections of the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington.{{cite web |url=http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/lilly/mss/index.php?p=cranston |title=Cranstone Sketches Mss. |website=Lilly Library |access-date=18 September 2015}} In 1933 a collection of 98 larger watercolor versions of a representative number of the sketches were sold at auction. One of these was the oil painting, Slave Auction, Virginia, which hangs in the Virginia Museum of History & Culture in Richmond, Virginia.{{cite web |title=Painting, "Slave Auction, Virginia" |url=http://museumcatalog.virginiahistory.org/final/Portal/Default.aspx?component=AADB&record=7bcf6647-d6c5-47ab-b950-2472ed682292 |website=Virginia Museum of History & Culture {{!}} ARGUS.net (final) |access-date=19 August 2020 |language=en}}{{cite web |last1=History |first1=Virginia Museum of |last2=Richmond |first2=Culture 428 N. Arthur Ashe Boulevard |last3=Box 7311 |first3=Virginia 23220 Mail: P. O. |title=Slave Auction, Virginia, by LeFevre Cranstone, c. 1860s |url=https://www.virginiahistory.org/collections-and-resources/educator-resources/linking-our-past/slave-auction-virginia-lefevre |website=Virginia Museum of History & Culture |access-date=19 August 2020 |language=en |date=24 March 2013}} Donald L. Smith's biography of Cranstone contains a facsimile of this painting along with a letter dated December 29, 1860, that Cranstone wrote to the Hemel Hempstead Gazette, stating his views on the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, denouncing the brutality of slavery and describing in detail the horrors of a slave auction in Richmond, Virginia.{{sfn|Smith|2004|pp=85-88, 131-135}}

Cranstone's paintings are in the art collections of the White House;{{cite web |url=http://www.whitehouseresearch.org/assetbank-whha/action/search?attribute_759=Cranstone%2C+Lefevre+James |title=Asset Bank - Search Results |website=The White House Historical Association |access-date=18 September 2015 |archive-date=19 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150219031034/http://www.whitehouseresearch.org/assetbank-whha/action/search?attribute_759=Cranstone%2C+Lefevre+James |url-status=dead }} the Metropolitan Museum of Art;{{Cite web |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search#!/search?artist=Cranstone,%20Lefevre%20James$Lefevre%20James%20Cranstone |title=Lefevre James Cranstone |website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |location=New York, USA |access-date=18 September 2015}} the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;{{cite web |url=http://www.mfa.org/collections/search?search_api_views_fulltext=Lefevre%20James%20Cranstone |title=Lefevre James Cranstone |website=Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |access-date=18 September 2015 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304215948/http://www.mfa.org/collections/search?search_api_views_fulltext=Lefevre%20James%20Cranstone |url-status=dead }} the Virginia Historical Society; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; the Oglebay Institute Mansion Museum in Wheeling, West Virginia; the Dacorum Heritage Trust in Berkhamsted, England;{{Cite news |url=https://www.berkhamstedtoday.co.uk/news/new-civic-centre-display-puts-the-spotlight-on-creative-artists-of-dacorum-s-past-1-5528548 |title=New Civic Centre display puts the spotlight on creative artists of Dacorum's past |date=29 September 2013 |work=Berkhamsted & Tring Gazette |access-date=10 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180510103706/https://www.berkhamstedtoday.co.uk/news/new-civic-centre-display-puts-the-spotlight-on-creative-artists-of-dacorum-s-past-1-5528548 |archive-date=10 May 2018 |url-status=live |language=en}} and other institutions and private collections. An art collection he prepared in Australia, along with a volume of illustrated poetry verse brought with him from England, are at the John Oxley Library in Brisbane.{{Cite web |url=http://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/primo-explore/search?query=creator,exact,Lefevere%20J.%20Cranstone%20(Lefevre%20James),%201822-1893.,AND&search_scope=SLQ_PCI_EBSCO&sortby=rank&vid=SLQ&lang=en_US&mode=advanced&offset=1 |title=Lefevre James Cranstone 1822?-1893. |website=State Library of Queensland |access-date=18 September 2015}}

On July 19, 1882 Cranstone's wife of 27 years, Lillia, died aged 59. She was buried at Heath Lane Cemetery in Hemel Hempstead. Lillia had been running a school in the White House on the Marlowes in Hemel, which closed after her death.{{sfn|Smith|2004|p=115}}

Lillia's death promoted Cranstone to seek a new life in Australia. His eldest son, William, had recently qualified as a medical doctor, and shortly after William married, the Cranstone Family boarded a ship to Australia on 21 October 1882 — Lefevre James Cranstone, his children Beatrice Lillia (17) and Frederic George (23), William and his new wife, Ellen Kent. They disembarked at Sydney Harbour in New South Wales on 18 January 1883. From the day they arrived, Lefevre James Cranstone began to make sketches of the local land and seascapes. The Cranstones moved to the small town of Clermont in Queensland, where William took up the post of Chief Surgeon at the Peak Downs Hospital.{{sfn|Smith|2004|pp=116-120}} While living there, Lefevre James produced a number of pen-and-ink drawings of the landscape around Wolfang, Retro and Emu Park.{{sfn|Smith|2004|pp=120-125}}

In 1889, Cranstone moved with Beatrice to Brisbane, where he resided at Clydebank Cottage in North Quay, Brisbane. He continued drawing local subjects up to his death. Lefevre James Cranstone died on June 22, 1893, and was buried on the same day at Toowong Cemetery in Brisbane. The inscription on his headstone renders his name incorrectly as "Le Fevre".{{cite web |title=Toowong Cemetery Artists |url=https://www.fotc.au/stories/artists/ |publisher=Friends of Toowong Cemetery Association Inc. |access-date=18 September 2022 }}{{sfn|Smith|2004|p=129}}

{{Reflist}}

• Buteux, Elizabeth. Lefevre James Cranstone: A Victorian Quaker Artist, Berkhamsted, England: Dacorum Heritage Trust, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0953941445}}.
• {{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Donald L. |title=Lefevre James Cranstone: His Life and Art |date=2004 |publisher=Brandylane Publishers Inc |isbn=978-1-883911-60-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xedrpe50LZAC |access-date=19 August 2020 |location=Richmond, Virginia |language=en}}
• Smith, Donald L. Illustrated Poetry Verse by Lefevre James Cranstone (1822-1893), Williamsburg, Virginia: Historic Research Services, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0615179469}}.

{{commons category}}

• {{Art UK bio}}
• {{cite web|title=Lefevre James Cranstone (1822 – 1893)|url=https://americangallery19th.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/lefevre-james-cranstone-1822-1893/|website=AMERICAN GALLERY - 19th Century|access-date=10 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180510130843/https://americangallery19th.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/lefevre-james-cranstone-1822-1893/|archive-date=10 May 2018|date=19 January 2017|url-status=live}}
• [http://cdm16797.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/dc014/id/88 "Richmond, Indiana, Seventh Street" (1860)], watercolor painting in the collections of the Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis
• [https://indianahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/lefevre-j-cranstone-watercolor-paintings-ca-1861.pdf "Lefevre J. Cranstone Watercolor Paintings, ca. 1861"] collection guide, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis
• [https://onesearch.slq.qld.gov.au/permalink/61SLQ_INST/1dejkfd/alma99193723402061 Lefevre James Cranstone Works of Art ca. 1890], State Library of Queensland

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Category:19th-century English painters

Category:English male painters

Category:English watercolourists

Category:English landscape painters

Category:People from Hemel Hempstead

Category:1822 births

Category:1893 deaths

Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy Schools

Category:English abolitionists

Category:19th-century English male artists