From 1881 to 1894, she exhibited eleven times at the
Royal Academy of Arts, most notably with a miniature of
John Ruskin in 1888 In the 1880s she, along with other female artists, was commissioned by Ruskin to make copies of
Old Master works for the
Guild of St. George in
Sheffield. She also secured the
patronage of
Christiana Herringham, and an 1887 pastel portrait of Herringham's two sons was donated to
Royal Holloway, along with much of Herringham's collections. In 1894 Ethel also contributed a set of six miniature portraits ito an exhibition of women's portraits at the
National Academy of Design in
New York. She was connected to the world of
Shakespearean theatre through her sisters' work. In 1884 she created ninety sketches of
Henry Irving's production of
Twelfth Night at the
Lyceum Theatre in a copy of the play, which was acquired by the
Folger Shakespeare Library in 2003. In 1898, she created a hand-illustrated book documenting Herbert Beerbohm Tree's production of Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar at
Her Majesty's Theatre. In 2017,
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust research determined that this collection item was a unique record of the production rather than an imagined staging. Ethel supported the movement for
women's suffrage, signing the ''Declaration in Favour of Women's Suffrage: Being the Signatures Received at the Office of the Central Committee for Women's Suffrage, Etc.'' in 1889. == Later years and death ==