mother, how devoted she was, placing all her happiness in them.... She was near 72 years of age when she wrote those words. When Ellen died in 1849 she left a substantial estate of £4,000 to the Bristol Academy for the Promotion of Fine Arts which was instrumental in financing Bristol's first art gallery, now the Royal West of England Academy. She had helped found the Academy several years earlier with a gift of £2,000. Personal papers Letters, legal papers, bank and account books relating to James and Ellen Sharples and their family are held at Bristol Archives (Ref. 15395) (online catalogue). A number of paintings by Ellen and Rolinda Sharples can be seen on display at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery and M Shed museum. Paintings Ellen Sharples began her artistic career making copies of her husband's pastel portraits. Between 1794–1810, her copies followed a similar format of 9"x 7" portraits on gray or tanned paper. She taught herself how to make miniature watercolor copies on ivory, and between 1803–1810 she made miniature portraits either from copies or from life. The income from Ellen's and her children's paintings made the family affluent, and she wrote in her diary: Copies were frequently required; these I undertook, and was far successful, as to have as many commissions as I could execute; they were thought equal to the original, price the same: we lived in good style associating in the first society. After 1810, Ellen no longer mentions her own work in her diaries, yet the family continued to practice as portrait painters in Bristol. Ellen's subjects included Joseph Priestley, Martha and George Washington, Benjamin Rush, John and Mrs. Bard, Eleanor Parke Custis, Alexander Hamilton, Sir Joseph Banks, and the Marquis de Lafayette. Today, her works can be found in many museums in the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Independence National Historical Park Collection. She died in Wybunbury, Cheshire. Ellen's daughter Rolinda Sharples became an oil painter of some renown. One of her largest pieces of work was The Trial of Colonel Brereton, painted in 1834, which is on display at M Shed in Bristol. Royal Academy paintings From the listing in a book of the Royal Academy exhibitors one can see that Ellen Sharples exhibited her works in 1807, when the family had moved back to England for a short