Bluebells and Ferns by Charles Ernest Butler were bought by Reading Museum along with Mapledurham Woods from the ‘Roebuck’ Tilehurst and Heat Haze in 1930 during the exhibition comprising some 34 of his works on display in their Art Gallery.

The Reading Standard reported (June 14, 1930) with the descriptions of ‘a delightful group of paintings of the Thames at Tilehurst and Mapledurham in which the artist has managed to catch the subtle effects of light and heat familiar to lovers of the river’.

Charles Ernest Butler studied at St John’s Wood School of Art and at the RA Schools. A portrait, figure, and landscape painter, C.E. Butler (1864–1933) was a member of the Reading Guild of Artists for just its foundation year, 1930. Of his exhibition earlier that year it is said ‘The exhibition is full of colour cleverly manipulated and some of the sea and sky studies are truly glimpses of Nature seen through the perceptive and sensitive eye of a lover of colour’.

He had lived in London for most of his adult life, and at the time of this exhibition, his address is given as The Studio, Egliston Road, Putney. Upon his death in 1933, he was reported to also be a clever musician, organist, conductor, and composer.