Reginald Willoughby Machell was an English painter whose best-known work is The Path. He joined the Theosophical Society after meeting Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in London, and later moved to the Point Loma community, where he painted, wrote, and designed furniture.
Reginald Machell was born in Barrow-upon-Humber, Lincoln, England, on June 20, 1854 to Richard Beverley Machell and his wife Emma. His father was the vicar of Barrow. The household included three sons, two daughters, and seven servants.
During his education at Uppingham School and at Owens College, Reginald was awarded many prizes for his drawing and for his study of the classics. He married Ada Mary Simpson on August 2, 1875. That same year, he traveled to London to continue his studies, and the next year attended the Académie Julien in Paris.
The couple had a son named Henry, born in Paris around 1881, and another named Montague Arthur Machell, born on July 29, 1888 in London
Machell took up a career in 1880 as a portrait painter. He became was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists, and exhibited at the Royal Academy. He illustrated two works by American novelist Irene Osgood. An Idol's Passion was a novel of "Oriental romance" dealing with the paranormal, published in a large and lavish folio edition. The Chant of the Lonely Soul was published the following year.