We perform James Ward art authentication, appraisal, certificates of authenticity (COA), analysis, research, scientific tests, full art authentications. We will help you sell your James Ward or we will sell it for you.

James Ward was a painter, particularly of animals, and an engraver. Born in London, Ward was influenced by many people, but his career is conventionally divided into two periods: until 1803, his single greatest influence was his brother in law George Morland; from that time, it was Rubens. From 1810 or so, Ward started to paint horses within landscapes; slightly later, he turned to very large-scale landscapes, of which Gordale Scar (Tate Gallery, London), completed in 1814 or 1815 and presenting the Gordale Scar (Yorkshire) as an example of the sublime is considered his masterpiece.

Ward devoted much of the period 1815-1821 to the painting of a gigantic work titled Waterloo Allegory (now lost); this neither was much praised nor brought in the revenue Ward had hoped for. The experience may have embittered him, and the deaths of his first wife and a daughter were among other tragedies.

In 1830, Ward moved to Cheshunt (Hertfordshire) with his second wife, but he continued to work, particularly on religious themes. A stroke in 1855 ended his work, and he died in poverty. Still wondering about a British painting in your family collection? Contact us…it could be by James Ward.