Welsh Journals

JOSEPH MURRAY INCE (1806-1859), ARTIST OF PRESTEIGN, RADNORSHIRE (PLATES XVII 4-5) ATER some discussion in the summer of 1970 with Miss Megan Ellis, the then Keeper of Prints, Drawings and Maps in the A National Library of Wales, about the lack of detail in our knowledge of Joseph Murray Ince, I was persuaded that it would be a worthwile task to attempt to remedy that need. The article in the Dictionary of National Biography describing the life and career of the Radnorshire artist is signed by L.C. These are the initials of Sir Lionel Henry Cust (1859-1929), who was from 1895 to 1909 the Director of the National Portrait Gallery and from 1901 to 1907 Surveyor of the King's Pictures and Works of Art. He wrote a number of books about painters and supplied the biographies of several artists for the D.N.B. The Dictionary's own post-mortem account of Sir Lionel states: 'His biographies of artists, notable for their accuracy and painstaking research, made a fresh beginning in the study of English Art'. While it is true that even smaller articles in the D.N.B. tried to 'maintain the level of information at the highest practicable standard of fulness and accuracy', Cust can hardly be said to have maintained that level in the case of J.M. Ince who, though a lesser artist, deserved better treatment that the rather cursory and in some respects inaccurate account he received. The same criticism can be applied also to Cust's biography of Thomas Jones of Pencerrig in the D.N.B. Jones, who like Ince lived much of his life in Radnorshire, died three years before Ince was born, but he may nevertheless be deemed one of Ince's artistic progenitors since both were basically painters of the landscape, however different were their styles and mediums. It has been said that 'The extraordinary accuracy of Cust's memory enabled him to dispense with notebooks'. Perhaps his memory failed him in some of the details of Ince's life and career. On the other hand, he may have depended too much on Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists of the English School and on information from the Revd. A. W. West, which are given in the D.N.B. as his main sources of information. How much and what sort of information Cust obtained from the Revd. Augustus William West, rector of Presteign from 1880 to 1893, we do not know. It was probably of a personal and family nature since members of the Young branch of the Ince family were still living in Presteign in the years 1882-1901 when the D.N.B. was being compiled and published. To take only the case of John Scarlett Davis, the Leominster artist, and friend for many years of J. M. Ince, not all that