Antique Watercolor Painting | Interior of Hine Family House, 1872 by Esther Hine | 15.5″ x 19″ Guarisco Gallery at Studio Burke DC

Antique Watercolor Painting | Interior of Hine Family House, 1872 by Esther Hine | 15.5″ x 19″

Esther Hine
British, 1842-1885
Interior of Hine Family House, 1872
Signed ‘E. Hine’ lower right
Watercolor on paper
9 5/8″ x 13 1/8″ sight size
15 1/2″ x 19″ framed 

Esther Hine came from a family of artists; her parents Harry and Mary Egerton Hine and her siblings Ethel, Edith, Harvey and William were all artists.  Following in the family tradition, talented Esther became an acclaimed watercolorist.  Esther worked both as an artist and teacher, teaching art at the North London Collegiate School for Girls.  In her watercolors, Esther employed the bodycolor* technique for her depiction of interior scenes.  Reaching her peak of prominence in the mid-1880’s, Esther exhibited in 1885 at the innovative Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolors, more commonly known as the RI. 

***The term bodycolor refers to a medium that is similar to gouache.  More specifically, body color is watercolor paint mixed with a white pigment resulting in an opaque color rather than the more traditional transparent effect of watercolor.  The famed German artist Albrecht Durer first used bodycolor, which reached its peak with the Victorian watercolor artists.  The Victorians realized that bodycolor, also known as Chinese White enabled them to achieve much greater range, brilliance, depth of color and attention to detail.  The inception of Chinese White sparked a large controversy in the Victorian art world with traditionalists who believed that it was destroying watercolor against those who believed that it was an improvement in the genre.  The controversy resulted in the founding of the revolutionary new Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolors in direct opposition to the conservative Old Watercolour Society.

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