# Walter Shirlaw artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/walter-shirlaw/
Profile generated: 2026-08-24T17:14:19.739Z
Quality: medium confidence, adequate sources

## Artist identity

- Nationality: American, Scottish
- Common media: Painting, Illustration, Engraving, Drawing, Pastel

## Portrait

![Walter Shirlaw](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Walter_Shirlaw_self-portrait.jpg/1280px-Walter_Shirlaw_self-portrait.jpg)
Walter Shirlaw · Public domain
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walter_Shirlaw_self-portrait.jpg

## About Walter Shirlaw

Walter Shirlaw (1838–1909) was a Scottish-American painter and illustrator whose career belongs to the transatlantic setting of late-19th-century American art. Authority records consistently identify him as an American painter and illustrator, while biographical summaries also document work in engraving, drawing, and pastel. Shirlaw studied in Munich, where he became acquainted with Frank Duveneck, before taking an active role in New York's professional art community. He helped establish the Society of American Artists, served as its first president, and taught at the Art Students League of New York. These positions connected him with the exhibition and art-education networks of his era. Collectors may consequently encounter his name on paintings, works on paper, prints, and illustrative material rather than in one medium alone. Museum and authority profiles support a consistent identity for Shirlaw, although the collected sources do not establish a single formal movement label for his work.

## Common works and media

Shirlaw is documented as a painter and illustrator who also practiced engraving, drawing, and pastel. Auction and appraisal inquiries may therefore involve paintings, unique works on paper, pastels, drawings, prints or engravings, and illustrative material. The collected sources do not provide enough lot-level evidence to rank these categories by frequency or to characterize recurring subjects reliably.

## Market and appraisal context

Appraisily's collected input associates Walter Shirlaw with 232 auction records, but the source pack does not include lot-level descriptions or realized-price evidence. Appraisal should begin by identifying the object type and technique: a painting should not be compared indiscriminately with a pastel, drawing, engraving, or illustration. Useful comparables should match the work as closely as possible, while authorship, inscriptions, provenance, condition, dimensions, and date must be assessed from the object and its documentation. Because no major-auction-house lot set was collected here, this page should not imply a price trend or predict value. Record-level sale dates, realized prices, and genuinely comparable lots should govern any valuation conclusion when available.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine public artist-identity research with auction records and, when available, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots. Identity evidence and object-specific market evidence should be evaluated separately.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7966127
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/78635054/
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500002781
- National Gallery of Art: https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.2746.html
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Shirlaw
- Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Shirlaw
- Wikipedia: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Shirlaw
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/walter-shirlaw/