William Traies (1789-1872) – A Rest by the River

William Traies was born in Crediton, Devon. He started out being in the postal service but while at Exeter he was encouraged by J. Farington RA and became a landscape painter.

Traies was utterly devoted to art and painting the views of his home county, soon achieving such skill and reputation therein as to earn the sobriquet, ‘The Devonshire Claude’. He captured the lovely dells and rivers of Devon and there is a sensitiveness of the pellucid beauty of fine weather, fine skies, of noble foliage and of untroubled humanity in his paintings. There was also a technical method almost perfect to the requirements of such scenes and to the painter’s intention.

Traies was a wonderful craftsman; his thin but creamy impasto and fine handling of varied greens, his limpid touch on running water and the lucid cobalt of his summer skies will delight all who take pleasure in the mechanism of art.

His finest works largely remain in the manor houses, for which they were painted, retaining still most of the output of William Traies work, and he would have wished no better.

Traies exhibited very little, only 4 paintings at the Royal Academy in London. He died on 28 April 1872 in Exeter.

Works in collections: Chequers Buckinghamshire; Exeter City Council; Inland Revenue; Victoria & Albert Museum; Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery; Sheffield City Art Galleries; Torre Abbey, Devon; Watford Museum, Hertfordshire.

Bibliography:
Dictionary of British Landscape Painters – M.H. Grant
Victorian Painters – Christopher Wood

Provenance: Cooling Galleries, London