Walter Ernest Webster RI ROI RP (17 November 1877 – 30 April 1959)[1][2] was a British figure and portrait painter.
[5] He was a good student and won scholarships and prizes including: The 1901 census found him living in at 71 Chelverton Road, Putney, London with his mother Mary and his elder sister Gertrude Mary, who was working as a governess (21 March 1876 – 4 October 1970).
[2] His wife survived him by more than twenty years,[16] dying at the 25 Broomhouse Road, next door to the former family home, on 3 January 1980, just 17 days before her 102nd birthday.
[19] He produced illustrations for the front covers of several publications including "Ladies' Home Journal" and "Etude".
[18][note 5] His obituary in The Times states that he was deeply influenced by Boucher and Chardin and that many of his pieces have an eighteenth-century flavour.
Artnet currently lists 161 auctions (including some pieces which have been sold numerous times) of works by Webster since 1995.
[22] ) Since 1998 the highest price paid for a work by Webster was US$62,935 for "The Japanese Fan", sold at Christie's London in 2004.