Paintings by James Edward

James Edward (1826-1893)

James Edward Meadows was born in 1826 at Mountnessing in Essex, the second son of James Meadows, who trained him. In 1854 he married Eliza Ann Rackcliffe, a widow, and the family had four children.

James Edward was a successful artist in his own time, exhibiting at the Royal Academy, the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin, the Royal Society of British Artists, the British Institution, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and the Manchester City Art Gallery. Like his brother William James, or George, he painted in Venice as well as in the Home Counties: Essex, Kent, Sussex and Surrey.

He died at his home in Aldine Street, Fulham, on 21 July 1893.

Title unknown by James Edward Meadows

Paintings by James Edward Meadows

These views by James Edward Meadows of the great goldfields cities, Ballarat and Bendigo, were commissioned by the Victorian colonial authorities for display in the Victorian Court of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition held in South Kensington in 1886.

Meadows never visited Australia – to create the views, he would have used photographs of the main buildings as well as maps and plans of the cities. He would have used standard architectural principles to create an isometric image based on a notional vantage point above the south side of each city. His lack of local knowledge becomes clear when one perceives his failure to depict the steep escarpment to the east of Lydiard Street in Ballarat.

Works in public collections

Paintings by James Edward Meadows in UK public collections, as recorded by Art UK. Art UK lists him as James Edwin Meadows, with dates 1828–1888; the family records and the birth and death indexes give 1826–1893.