# Walter Langley artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/walter-langley/
Profile generated: 2026-05-19T02:25:22.043Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Nationality: English, British
- Movements: Newlyn School
- Common media: watercolor, oil painting

## About Walter Langley

Walter Langley (1852–1922) was an English painter and watercolorist recognized as a founding figure of the Newlyn School, an artist colony based in the fishing village of Newlyn, Cornwall. Active from the late 1870s, Langley was among the first painters to settle permanently in Newlyn, where he helped establish the plein air approach that defined the group’s work. His paintings and watercolors center on the daily lives of Cornish fishing communities—their labor, domestic routines, and moments of hardship and quiet reflection. Works such as “But Men Must Work and Women Must Weep” and “Between the Tides” exemplify his empathetic, narrative-driven style. Langley is recorded in the Getty Union List of Artist Names, VIAF, the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), and the Library of Congress authority file.

## Common works and media

Langley is best known for watercolors and oil paintings depicting Cornish fishing villages, coastal labor, maritime disaster scenes, domestic genre subjects, and sentimental narratives often drawn from everyday life. Titles recorded in authority files include “Between the Tides,” “But Men Must Work and Women Must Weep,” “A Cornish Idyll,” “Day Dreams,” and “Disaster Scene in a Cornish Fishing Village.” Works range from small cabinet-scale watercolors to larger exhibition oil paintings.

## Market and appraisal context

Walter Langley’s work appears regularly at auction in categories for British art, 19th-century European paintings, and works on paper. His oil paintings and watercolors of Cornish coastal and fishing life are the most commonly encountered types. With over 300 records in the Appraisily database, Langley has a well-established auction presence. Valuation depends on medium, size, subject matter, condition, provenance, and whether the work can be firmly linked to his Newlyn period. Collectors should note that unsigned or loosely attributed works require careful connoisseurship, and reference to standard catalogues such as Bénézit and Thieme/Becker is advisable.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine artist identity research from museum and library authority files with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For Walter Langley, identity data is sourced from the Getty ULAN, VIAF, RKD, Wikidata, and the Library of Congress authority file.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1377833
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500007053
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/95723874/
- RKD: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/47983
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Langley
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n87817881