William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931) was a distinguished British watercolourist and etcher mostly known for his atmospheric marine compositions as well as his ship portraits. His career began in the Victorian era and straddled the early 20th century; however, in spite of the broad transformations taking place in Western society at the time, his artistic material remained consistently traditional.

An engraved portrait of W.L.Wyllie. Illustrated London News, 1889. Public domain.

Wyllie painted Valletta’s Grand Harbour on two separate occasions throughout his long and prestigious career. His prolific output greatly influenced a younger generation of British maritime artists, including Frank Mason (1876-1965), who was his student, as well as Rowland Langmaid, (1897-1956), both of whom are well-known locally, since they also painted Maltese nautical scenes.

The artist’s family was artistically inclined, and Wyllie’s father, a minor genre painter, recognised the precocious talent of his son. The artistic gene ran in the family, as the artist’s younger brother, Charles William Wyllie (1853-1923), and his half-brother (from his mother-in-law’s first marriage), Lionel Percy Smythe (1839-1918), were also artists of some merit.

At the age of 15, Wyllie entered the Royal Academy Schools and he was privileged to have John Everett Millais, Frederic Leighton and John Henry Landseer among his tutors. In 1869, at the tender age of 18, Wyllie had his first painting admitted to the Royal Academy. That same year, the artist won the prestigious Turner Gold Medal with a landscape he submitted, entitled Dawn After a Storm, 1868, which revealed Wyllie’s love of meteorological effects. His admiration for J.M.W. Turner was such that in 1905, he penned a book about the celebrated artist whom he had admired since his childhood.

Hard work and dedication, as well as an undeniable artistic talent, ensured that by 1907, Wyllie had become the leading British marine artist of his generation.

Wyllie’s main inspiration in painting the sea stemmed from a genuine passion for all things marine, and he shared this enthusiasm with his two siblings. Wyllie not only sketched and painted boats, but he designed, built and sailed them. In fact, he was the commodore of a number of yacht clubs during his lifetime.

He sometimes preferred to remain on board when he undertook these portraits, and several of the views painted during his ‘cruising periods’ seem to have a seabourne perspective

At the start of his artistic career, his first yacht, the Ladybird, often doubled up as a floating studio and he took the boat on many painting expeditions up the River Thames. Wyllie painted Thames subjects consistently from 1880 to 1885, and these not only included boats plying the restricted waters of this important English river, but also life on its numerous wharves. The artist’s choice of subject matter is not surprising when one considers that in the 1880s, London was the premier port and the largest centre of commerce in the British Empire.

From the mid-1870s onwards, Wyllie worked for the Graphic as an illustrator of marine subjects. He did not have free reign over the subject matter and was obliged to render events pictorially in both a realistic and detailed manner. His work as an illustrator lay down the foundations of his future career in etching and taught him the mechanics of working in monochrome. When Wyllie took up etching in 1883, he was therefore adequately prepared to work within the restrictions of black and white.

The medium of etching suited the artist well and during his 50 years as a printmaker, he produced almost 300 drypoints and etchings. These etchings reflect a range of maritime subjects and comprise of Thames and London views, yachting subjects, Mediterranean views, the Royal Navy, vessels involved in World War 1 as well as some of the sea battles they took part in.

Although not terribly well off, Wyllie travelled extensively on shipping or cruise liners and painted many ship portraits in order to fund his travels

Wyllie’s marine painting also coincided with a time that transport companies started to ship passengers, mail and merchandise to far-off destinations. Before the end of the 19th century, the act of making a sea voyage simply for pleasure had been an unthinkable concept as it was fraught with uncertainty and danger. By the 1880s, however, economic progress had boosted leisure opportunities positively and the notion of ‘the cruise’ was introduced as a popular pastime for the very wealthy.

Publicity for Wyllie’s first set of Mediterranean drypoint etchings, including those he created in Malta, c. 1890.

Although not terribly well off, Wyllie travelled extensively on shipping or cruise liners and painted many ship portraits in order to fund his travels. He sometimes preferred to remain on board when he undertook these portraits, and several of the views painted during his ‘cruising periods’ seem to have a seaborne perspective, although this was not always the case.

Wyllie first visited the Mediterranean and Malta aboard the Garonne, an Orient Line ship, in the 1880s. The Orient Line was one of the first major operators in the Mediterranean departing from British ports. The Garonne made its debut in the Mediterranean in 1888 and remained a regular presence there until it was sold in 1900.

Publicity for the Orient Line’s 1890 ‘Mediterranean, Levant and Black Sea Cruise’ mentioned the various destinations that would be visited during the 37-day cruise, and Malta was listed as one of its ports of call. The extensive itinerary also included stopovers in Algiers, Athens, Palermo, Naples, the French Riviera, Smyrna, Constantinople, Sebastopol, Balaclava and Yalta.

Wyllie’s first Mediterranean series of six original drypoint etchings were limited to 160 copies and printed on J W Whatman cream paper. They were signed in pencil in the lower left-hand corner. The etchings featured Gibraltar (Showing the Rock and Warships coming out); Villefranche; Naples (Entrance to the Harbour); Mount Vesuvius (From the Sea); Malta, (Valetta [sic]); and the Pyramids (From the Nile showing native river craft and Nile passenger boats). The medium of drypoint etching seemed to have suited Wyllie well and his output coincided with an increased demand for the production of prints as tourist souvenirs.

Malta, Valetta [sic] Harbour, c. 1890, drypoint etching. Private collection.

Malta, Valetta [sic] Harbour, 1890, shows a steamship guiding a large sailing boat into Grand Harbour. The composition evokes clear Mediterranean weather; however, the background is not architecturally precise. Rowing boats are located on the right-hand middle ground and refer to the means of transport on which tourists on board would make their way to terra firma. It is clear that although skilful, the artist’s eye was not looking at the simplification of the essential, and a quick way to capture it, but that he preferred to adopt an atmospheric approach to his subject matter.

Entry into Grand Harbour, undated, drypoint etching. Courtesy National Maritime Museum, Royal Museums, Greenwich

When hostilities broke out in 1914, Wyllie became an accredited war artist and he was commissioned by the Royal Navy to visually record vessels engaged in warfare. He painted accurate ‘battle scenes’ that were based on fastidious research as well as first-hand observations and sketches sent back from the front by his son Roger, who was a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, and himself an amateur artist.

Possibly a preparatory sketch for a Wyllie etching. At the bottom is written: “This appears to be a composite picture. The Customs House appears to be on the wrong side of the picture.” Courtesy National Maritime Museum, Royal Museums, Greenwich

Wyllie also illustrated two books showing the British Fleet in action. The first book was entitled Sea Fights of the First World War (1918) and the second, More Sea Fights of the Great War (1919). Wyllie travelled with the fleet on several occasions to make his preparatory drawings, and most of the latter still bear the war censor’s stamp of approval.

Among his many drawings of World War I, one finds those depicting the three shallow draught monitors, the Severn, the Mersey and the Humber. The monitors were based in Malta in April 1915 before they received orders to move on to Alexandria; however, it is almost certain that Wyllie drew these monitors off the Belgian coast in 1914 before their arrival on the island.

In 1927, Wyllie visited the Mediterranean and Malta once again and produced further drypoints, as well as a few watercolours. Two of the latter are reproduced with this article. According to his grandson, who co-wrote his grandfather’s biography in the 1980s, the artist skilfully used drypoint in a way that made it almost indistinguishable from etching, sometimes adding aquatint to his drypoint to create a distinctive effect.

Grand Harbour Malta, 1927, watercolour. Courtesy National Maritime Museum, Royal Museums, Greenwich.

Wyllie remained active in his final years, and when he passed away in April 1931, he was buried with full naval honours – a testament to his long-lasting ties with the Royal Navy and to the fact that he had been the leading marine artist of his day. Wyllie’s works are interesting as a record of a period of history when Britain was at the helm of a global empire and a maritime nation of significance.