William Maw Egley (1826 in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

– 20 February 1916) was an English artist of the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

. The son of the miniaturist William Egley, he studied under his father. His early works were illustrations of literary subjects typical of the period, such as ''Prospero and Miranda'' from '' The Tempest.'' These were similar to the work of

The Clique A clique is a close social group. Clique or The Clique may also refer to: Math and computing * Clique (graph theory) ** Clique problem in computer science Business and brands * Clique (vodka), a Latvian vodka sold in the United States Entertai ...

William Powell Frith William Powell Frith (9 January 1819 – 2 November 1909) was an English painter specialising in genre subjects and panoramic narrative works of life in the Victorian era. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1853, presenting ''The Sleep ...

, one of The Clique, hired Egley to add backgrounds to his own work. Egley soon developed a style influenced by Frith, including domestic and childhood subjects. Most of his paintings were humorous or "feelgood" genre scenes of urban and rural life, depicting such subjects as harvest festivals and contemporary fashions. His best-known painting, '' Omnibus Life in London'' (

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

), is a comic scene of people squashed together in the busy, cramped public transport of the era.Tate Gallery on Omnibus Life in London
/ref> Egley always showed great interest in specifics of costume, to which he paid detailed attention, but his paintings were often criticised for their hard, clumsy style.Grove dictionary of art
/ref> In the 1860s, Egley adopted the fashion for romanticised 18th-century subjects. Though he produced a very large number of reliably salable paintings, his work was never critically admired.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Egley, William Maw 1826 births 1916 deaths 19th-century English painters English male painters 20th-century English painters 20th-century English male artists 19th-century English male artists