Robert Elwes (painter)

Robert Elwes (1819–1878) was an English Victorian traveller and painter, and the author of A Sketcher's Tour Round the World illustrated by engravings from his own works which he published from his home at Congham, Norfolk, in 1853.

His mother, Susan Hamond of Westacre, Norfolk, brought as her dowry the estate of Congham, eight miles from King's Lynn.

Rescued by sealers and taken to Hobart with a cargo of 500 sheep, he then travelled overland across Tasmania to Launceston where he sailed (nervously) for Australia.

He continued his voyage, visiting and painting in Manila, Hong Kong, Canton and Shanghai and started towards home on 1 April 1850.

His eldest son Robert Hamond Elwes was the young lieutenant who met a glorious death at the Battle of Laing's Nek, South Africa, in 1881.

On the second major tour of which a published account survives, Robert Elwes was accompanied by his wife in 1865 to the West Indies, visiting Panama, Jamaica, Dominica and Trinidad.

He was to reach many of the places on the South American continent which, just sixteen years earlier, Charles Darwin had visited on his inland journeys from HMS Beagle.

The painter's journeys were conducted at an easy pace, dependent on the frequency of trading ships, coastal cruisers, the availability of pack horses and the hospitality of the local people.

At their best these are fine, sensitive evocations of the familiar coastline and countryside round his home, contrasting with the exotic scenes he encountered abroad, from the craggy slopes of the Alps and the Andes, to the shining domes of Moscow and Constantinople.

Robert Elwes seldom signed his pictures; however, he used his cipher "RE" with the R inverted as his signature on sketches and china and "R E" is how he was affectionately referred to by his family.