Richard Westall R.A.
and
William Westall A.R.A.

Richard Westall R.A. (1765-1836) and William Westall A.R.A. (1781-1850) shared the same father Benjamin Westall, but their mothers were Mary nee Ayton for Richard and Martha nee Harbord for William.

The aim of this website is to keep up-to-date with any research or pictures related to the two artists.

Visual material will be included where possible. Some of this will be from original sources, with contributions from the public gratefully received. Assistance over assessing the authenticity of paintings will be provided.

All references to the two artists, where known, will be listed or website information will be provided. Unfortunately articles may be difficult to obtain as they have appeared in fairly obscure periodicals. Photocopies of relevant articles, where available, can be photocopied and sent to those engaged on research.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, published September 2004, is the most easily located source of information on Richard and William Westall. However, in the print version there are three errors in the text on William Westall (all corrected in the online version):

1. William Westall is buried at Hampstead not Highgate
   
2. William and his wife Ann had four surviving sons, not three.
   
3. An engraving by William Daniell after George Dance, provided by the National Portrait Gallery said to be of William Westall is, in fact, a portrait of Richard Westall. This can be established from reading page 33 of "Westall's Drawings" (RCS 1962) where Thomas Simpson explains that the original pencil drawing by George Dance is in the Library of the Royal Academy. It is marked Richard Westall and has a signature 'Geo Dance' and date 'Jan 31st 1803'. At that time William Westall was on board 'The Investigator' off the Australian coast.

An updated biography of William Westall is available online at the Dictionary of Australian Artists, where the most recent articles on William are listed.

For illustrations the Witt Library at the University of London - the entrance is opposite the entrance to the Courtauld Gallery - has several boxes of photos and engravings depicting both artists work.

A recent discovery is that William Westall had a fourth son, Richard, who appears to have had learning difficulties or autism.

A suggestion has been made that Richard Westall R.A. had a son, James Charles. The possibility of this was noted in my 'Turner Studies' article:- Baptism of James Charles son of Richard Westall and ___ (blank in the register) St Paul's, Covent Garden, May 29 1791. There is now a claim that the Richard Westall listed was the artist, that his son had a daughter Amelia, and there is a living descendant stemming from the offspring.

A significant article concerning Richard Westall was in Trafalgar Chronicle 2006, Yearbook of the 1805 Club: '"The Story is Admirably Told", The Nelson Pictures by Richard Westall R.A. (1765-1836)' by Richard J. Westall pp171-179 with Plate 5 after p.77 being a montage of four oil paintings by Richard Westall illustrating the exploits of Nelson.

Click here to view pictures by Richard Westall R.A.

Click here to view letters from Richard Westall R.A.

Click here to view pictures by William Westall A.R.A.

Click here for information on the influence of Richard Westall on French artists, including Delacroix and Gericault.

BENJAMIN WESTALL (1736-1794)
oil ex Royal Academy,
painted by RICHARD WESTALL R.A.
click on image for enlargement

Articles by Richard J. Westall

"Turner Studies" Vol 4 No 1 (Summer 1984) Published by the Tate Gallery. Article "The Westall Brothers" pp23-38.

"Art and Australia" Vol 20 No 2 Summer 1982 (Fine Arts Press, Sydney) "William Westall in Australia" pp252 - 256.

"Antiquarian Book Monthly Review" Dec. 1986. "William Westall (1781 - 1850): A Catalogue of His Book Illustration" pp448 -453.

"Antiquarian Book Monthly" issue 251 April 1995 "An Unrecognised Heritage : The Westalls Art and Illustration" pp10 -15. A typographical error gives the date of the Flinders voyage to Australia as setting out in 1799 instead of 1801.

"Antiquarian Book Monthly" Dec. 2000 "Towards a Catalogue of Richard Westall Prints" pp 17-21.

"Marg" (Marg Publications, Mumbai 400 001 India) Vol XLVII No 4. "William Westall in India" pp 94 - 96. Errata slip indicates the artist's year of birth should have read 1781 not 1791. There is a photocopy of this article at the Witt Library.

Other relevant Books/Articles

"Westall's Drawings" ed. Thomas Perry and Donald Simpson (Royal Commonwealth Society).

"Early Artists in Australia" by Rex and Thea Reinits, Angus and Robertson, Sydney) pp.80 -123

"European Vision and the South Pacific" by Bernard Smith (OUP1960 pp. 141 -146.

"A Voyage of Terra Australis" by Matthew Flinders 2 vols with atlas (1814) Nine engravings after William Westall's Drawings and 28 coastal profiles.

"The Voyages of Matthew Flinders" by Max Colwell (Paul Hamlyn, 1970) contains many Westall illustrations.

"Arcadian Quest: William Westall's Australian Sketches" by Elisabeth Findlay (National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1998 Well illustrated but contains some factual inaccuracies) e.g. confusion between William and Richard Westall over commissions.

National Library of Australia website makes William Westall's drawings available.

"Queen Victoria Sketchbook" By Marina Warner (Macmillan 1979). Chapter One. This book contains a colour illustration of Richard Westall's portrait of Princess Victoria p.22.

"The Boydell Shakespeare Prints" Arno Press, NY facsimile contains several after Richard Westall pictures.

"The Farington Diaries" - 16 volumes (Yale) contain numerous entries on Richard Westall and a few on William Westall.

"Milton and English Art" by Marcia Pointon (M.U.P)1970 especially pp 119-121.

The National Portrait Gallery has a portrait of Lord Byron by Richard Westall which has been used in many books on the poet. For a study by A. Peach "Portraits of Byron" see Walpole Society, 62 (2000), 1- 144

"The Life and Letters of Adam Sedgwick" Vol 1 by John Willis Clark and Thomas McKenny Hughes (Cambridge Univ. Press 1890) contains six illustrations by William Westall.

"Dorothy Wordsworth's Illustrated Lakeland Journals"introduced by Rachel Trickett (Diamond Books) contains two beautiful Coloured engravings after William Westall pictures.

"The Lake District Discovered 1810-1850" by Peter Bicknell and Robert Woof(Dove Cottage 1983 especially pp 52-57.

"Derwenwater - The Vale of Elysium" (Dove Cottage) by David Thomason and Robert Woof.

See S.Keynes "The cult of King Alfred the Great" in Anglo-Saxon England, 28 (1999) 225 - 356 and see the website Images of King Alfred the Great for Richard Westall illustration of the Boyhood of Alfred.

These few items give many other sources. Search engines give many sites for both Richard and William Westall