George Edward Handel Lucas was born on May 4 1861. He drew and painted from an early age with no serious art training and, exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists when he was just 14. At the age of 17 he had a painting accepted for the annual exhibition at the Royal Academy continuing to exhibit there for the next 10 years. An article from 1887 written about him appeared in the Croydon Advertiser noted that none of these pictures took less than six months of intense work to complete. Life wasn’t easy for the family, as Lucas’s artistic output slowed to two or three major paintings a year. He died in 1936 from a fatal heart attack after hearing that his wife had been knocked down in a road traffic accident.

Original painting c1880 by George Edward Handel Lucas. Presented in a washline mount and a centre and corner gilt frame.