Robbins, Ellen “Clematis”

Ellen Robbins  (1828-1905). “Clematis”.  From portfolio Autumn Leaves.  Watercolor.  Watertown, Massachusetts, middle of the nineteenth century. 12 x 10 ½ (image).  Very good condition.  

Ellen Robbins was a watercolorist and art teacher born in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1828, and died in 1905 in Boston.  Robbins was mostly self-taught and she specialized in paintings of flowers and other still lives.  She often painted on the Island of Shoals, off the New Hampshire coast, where she was able to visit the garden and home of the poet Celia Thaxter.  She achieved considerable attention for her watercolors of autumn leaves, which she often put together into bound albums for sale.  Later she advertised in Boston newspapers as “Miss Robbins’ Flower and Autumn Leaf Painting Classes.”  Her watercolors achieved even further recognition when Louis Prang issued a number of chromolithographs based on them.  This is a lovely example of one of her superb Autumn Leaves watercolors from one of her albums.