E X H I B I T I O N OF BR I TI S H WO R K S ON PAPER
MMXXIV LONDON • NEW YORK
ABBOTT and HOLDER
A B B O T T a n d H O L D E R Ltd
Est.1936
- TO M E DWA R DS -
EX H IB IT IO N OF B R I T ISH WORK S ON PAPER
MMXXIV LONDON • NEW YORK
30 Museum St - opposite the British Museum - London WC1A 1LH www.abbottandholder.co.uk |+44 (0)20 7637 3981 | gallery@abbottandholder.co.uk
26 th January - 3 rd February 24 East 64 th Street, New York for MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK • 15 th February - 9 th March 30 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LH • Hours, further information and photography online. www.abbottandholder.co.uk
Publishing a monthly, online catalogue* of new stock brings with it many pleasures, not least handling a great variety of pictures from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. But working this way does not always allow for lengthy research or reflection. So, I have greatly enjoyed putting this exhibition together; to have slowly set works aside, to have considered, researched and corresponded with many specialists, all of whom have been generous with their time and knowledge. I have been a regular visitor to Master Drawings New York. So, it is exciting to be taking part for the first time, and in the first year of the event’s new ownership under Christopher Bishop. I hope the many friends of A and H in the US will enjoy seeing the exhibition in New York, and that those of you in the UK will visit once it returns to London. If you are unable to make either exhibition, all works are illustrated online where you will find framed photographs and, once we are installed in 24 East 64th Street, some video content. Tom Edwards
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1. ROBERT ADAM F.R.S.A. 1728-1792 Capriccio Landscape
Pencil, pen, ink and watercolour. c.1780. On the artist’s distinctive wash-line mount. Provenance: Adam’s landscape drawings appeared in the dispersal of his collection at Christie’s 20th May 1818 and 9th July 1821; [...] Sotheby’s 21st December 1937 (lot 21); to Bernard Squire; from whom acquired by L. G. Duke (D37) February 1938; Colnaghi; Arnold Fellows. 12x19.5 inches. Framed: 27x20 inches. Adam made landscape drawings in the 1750s while in Italy studying under Clérisseau. Naturally those drawings take the Roman campagna and classical ruins as their subjects. But from the late 1770s to the late 1780s Adam returned to making landscapes. These later, picturesque capricci are routed in the landscape of his native Scotland.
2. ANON (Eighteenth Century) Portrait of a Woman in Profile
Pencil. c.1730. Provenance: Bill Drummond, by whom provenance given as Lord Andover (1714-1756) and attributed to Thomas Hudson (1701-1779). 3.5x2.5 inches. Framed: 6.5x5 inches. This small drawing was previously attributed to Thomas Hudson (1701-1779). The use of thick paper or card, similar in size and nature to a playing card, raises the possibility that it was executed by a specialist limner. Whoever the artist, it is a particularly sensitive and intimate portrait from the early part of the eighteenth century.
3. COPLESTONE WARRE BAMPFYLDE 1720-1791 Three Views of Fawley Court on the Thames, Buckinghamshire Including a View up the Course of the Henley Royal Regatta
These watercolours show Fawley Court built in 1684, its gardens laid out by Capability Brown (1716-1783) from 1764-66 and Temple Island folly, designed by James Wyatt P.R.A. (1746-1813) as part of his 1770-71 improvement works at the house.
Pencil, pen, ink and watercolour. c.1775. Provenance: Sambrooke Freeman F.R.S.A (c.1721-1782); Strickland Freeman; and by descent in the Strickland family of Apperley Court, Gloucestershire. Each: 18x25.5 inches. Framed: 23x30.5 inches.
a. Fawley Court from the East, the River Thames in the foreground. b. Fawley Court from the North, the town of Henley in the distance. Showing the River Thames and Temple Island with Wyatt’s 1771 folly. This view includes the whole course of the Henley Royal Regatta, which begins at Temple Island. c. A lock and weir on the Thames near Fawley Court. This is possibly the lock at Hembleden, which was built in 1773.
Coplestone Warre Bampfylde designed and laid out his own gardens at Hestercombe, Somerset, from 1750. Although an amateur draughtsman, he made a number of these views of other Estates as commissions. He also exhibited at the Society of Artists and the Royal Academy. These three works are still in their original William Kent style frames (see the website for further images), and so present an fascinating microcosm of eighteenth century taste; for pictures, architecture, decorative arts, gardens and technologies.
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4. WILLIAM BLAKE 1757-1827 The Empress Maud in Bed; A Vision from the Blake-Varley Sketchbook
Pencil. c.1819. Page 25 from the ‘Blake-Varley Sketchbook’. Provenance: John Varley (1778-1842); William Mulready R.A. (1786-1863); Christie’s, 28th-30th April 1864, lot 86; purchased by ‘Kempton’; H. Buxton Forman; by whom given in 1870 to William Bell Scott (1811-1890); Penkill Castle, home of Miss Alice Boyd; by descent to Miss Eleanor Margaret Courtney-Boyd, 1897; by descent to Miss Evelyn May Courtney-Boyd, 1946; from whom purchased by M. D. E. Clayton-Stamm; the sketchbook was broken up and sold at Christie’s, 15th June 1971, (this sheet lot. 163, illustrated); bought by Colnaghi; from whom acquired by Edward Croft-Murray (1907-1980). Exhibited: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1876 (the sketchbook); Tate Gallery, 1969-1971; Tate Gallery, William Blake, 1978, Cat. No.285. Literature: M. Butlin, The Blake-Varley Sketchbook of 1819 in the Collection of M.D.E. Clayton-Stamm, London, 1969, p. 24. David Bindman, Blake as an Artist, London, 1977 p.202; Martin Butlin, William Blake, Exh. Cat., Tate Gallery, 1978, Cat. No.285, ill. p.136; Martin Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, Yale, 1981, Vol.I, p.498, Cat. No.692.25. 6.25x8 inches. Framed: 13x75x15.5 inches.
This is one of the ‘visions’ of historical, legendary and imaginary characters that Blake conjured during evenings spent at the house of John Varley O.W.S. (1778-1842). Blake’s famous painting of the Ghost of a Flea (Tate) began life as one of these ‘visions’. Some of the sheets were engraved by John Linnell (1792-1882) for Varley’s Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy (1828). Empress Maud (1102-1167) - also known as Empress Matilda - was the daughter of Henry I. She married the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V and then Geoffrey of Anjou. On the death of Henry I, she returned to England and made a failed attempt to claim the English throne from her cousin Stephen. She briefly took the upper hand in the war with Stephen, but opposition to her rule prevented her from being crowned. She was instead styled Lady of the English. Her son succeeded Stephen as Henry II.
5. RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON 1802-1828 Picardie Coast Scene with Windmill and Buildings
Pencil. c.1824. Provenance: Spink (K3/1284); Brigadier A. C. Sykes, Corton, Wiltshire. To be included in any future addenda to Patrick Noon’s catalogue raisonnés. 3x7.5 inches. Framed: 11.5x16 inches. ‘The execution, format and subject of this drawing are characteristic of the sketches Bonington was making while in residence at Dunkerque for much of the year 1824. The dimensions indicate that this sheet was also part of a dismantled sketchbook with panoramic format common to the period and his practice. For comparable sheets see Patrick Noon, Richard Parkes Bonington, The Complete Drawings, New Haven and London, 2011, nos. 159ff.’ (Patrick Noon, 2023). We are grateful to Patrick Noon for his help in cataloguing this drawing.
6. THOMAS SHOTTER BOYS 1803-1874 France; Rue Bailleul, Paris
Pencil. Inscribed and dated, 1832. Further signed and dated, 1833. 10x6.5 inches. Framed: 14.5x11 inches. This is one of the pencil drawings Boys made during his years in France and that were to provide source material throughout his career. A lithograph related to this drawing was published as ‘Maison de L’Amiral Coligny’ in Boys’ Architecture Pittoresque, Dessinée d’Après Nature, 1835.
7. SIR EDWARD COLEY BURNE-JONES Bt. A.R.A. 1833-1898 Study for ‘The Nativity’ for St John’s Church, Torquay
Watercolour, gouache and gold paint. 1887. Provenance: Margaret MacKail (1866-1953), the artist’s daughter; Abbott and Holder, 1956; Private Collection. 14x21.5 inches. Framed: 23x31 inches. Burne-Jones’ monumental paintings ‘The King and the Shepherd’ and ‘The Nativity’, made for St John’s Church, Torquay are now in the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. The paintings flanked the east window Burne-Jones had designed more than twenty years before and presented a rare opportunity for him to work on a large scale. He wrote that he wanted to work ‘in public buildings and in choirs where they sing’ (See Andrea Wolk Rager, The Radical Vision of Edward Burne-Jones, 2022, p.240). Further studies for this composition are in The New Art Gallery, Walsall (1973.013.GR) and The Whitworth, University of Manchester (D.1960.27).
8. CHARLES CALVERT 1785-1852 A Woman in Profile
Watercolour en grisaille. Circa 1815. Signed. 4.75x4 inches. Framed: 10.75x.9.75 inches. Calvert spent much of his working life in Manchester, where he was a founding member of The Royal Manchester Institution. He was apprenticed to the cotton trade but gave this up in favour of painting in 1810. Calvert ran a Manchester drawing school called The Academy. He was principally a painter of landscapes, so it possible this sensitive portrait is of a close friend or family member.
9. THOMAS CARWITHAM 1701/2-1745 Tobias and the Angel
Pen, brush and ink. c.1713. Inscribed verso: ‘Tobit ch. ye 6th, Ver ye 2’. Provenance: probably Thomas Osborne (1704-67); [...] Iolo Williams; Leonard Duke (his sale, Sotheby’s 16th July 1970, lot 25); Colnaghi, Feb-Mar 1971, no.3; Stephen Somerville; Andrew Clayton-Payne. Literature: Richard Stephens, Thomas Carwitham (1701/2-45): His Life and Works with a Checklist of Drawings, Master Drawings, Vol. LXI No.4, 2023 (forthcoming). This drawing appears in the checklist as No.16. 6x7.5 inches. Framed: 12.5x14 inches. Richard Stephens has generously given us sight of his forthcoming article on Carwitham (see above) from which the information in this entry comes. The article is a fascinating account of an artist about whom very little was previously known. So, we encourage anyone interested to read it. Carwitham was probably a pupil of Thornhill, to whom his style of drawing most closely relates. Two other drawings for the Book of Tobit by him are known.
10. GEORGE CHINNERY 1774-1852 Three Children and their Dog
Pen and ink. c.1800. Exhibited: Andrew Wyld, 2011, Cat No.23. 4.25x4.25 inches. Framed: 8x8 inches. This lively drawing could be a study for a group portrait, but it may also relate to one of Chinnery’s illustrations. For example, those he made for Fielding’s Amelia.
11. JOHN SELL COTMAN 1782-1842 Boats Moored at a Water Tower; a Reminiscence of Turner’s Tabley House Pictures
Pencil. Signed and dated, 1823. 9.25x13.25 inches. Framed: 15x18 inches. Turner’s Tabley House pictures of 1808 - Tabley, Cheshire, the Seat of Sir J. F. Leicester, Bart.: Calm Morning and Tabley, Cheshire, the Seat of Sir J. F. Leicester, Bt.: Windy Day - were shown at the R.A. in 1809 and again at Sir John Leicester’s gallery in 1819 when Cotman may have been reminded of the composition. We are grateful to Tim Wilcox for his help cataloguing this drawing.
12. JOHN SELL COTMAN 1782-1842 An East Anglian Landscape
Pencil. Circa 1818/1819. Provenance: J. S. Maas, June 1970; J. Scupham, Hertfordshire; Andrew Wyld, 2010, Cat. No.22 (where noted that the verso of an old mount was signed ‘J. S. Cotman’ and inscribed ‘7646’). 2.75x6.75 inches. Framed: 6x10 inches. This sheet is similar to the work Cotman was making in 1818-1819 for his Excursions in Norfolk and Excursions in Suffolk. For a comparable albeit more worked-up drawing see ‘Holt Heath’ in the Yale Center for British Art (B1978.33.1). We are grateful to Tim Wilcox for his help cataloguing this drawing.
13. RICHARD COOPER JNR 1740-1822 The Thames ‘from Richmond Hill’ with Wick House, the home of Sir Joshua Reynolds
Pencil, pen, brush and ink. c.1789. Signed and inscribed. Provenance: An album of drawings by Cooper Jnr, probably compiled by a family member late in the artist’s life, or soon after his death. 7.75x12.5 inches. Framed: 17.5x21.75 inches. Cooper Jnr was in Italy in the early 1770s. He made a series of aquatints of Roman views on his return, after which his subject matter was almost entirely British. From 1788, he taught drawing at Eton College and around the same time began instructing the Royal Princesses. Drawings of Windsor, Richmond and Kew begin to appear in his work from this date. This drawing may relate to the ‘View of Richmond Hill, looking down the Thames’ that he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1789 (No.521).
14. DAVID COX 1783-1859 Derbyshire; Twilight at Hardwick
Charcoal and watercolour. c.1845. Exhibited: Agnews, Manchester; James MacKinnon. 7.5x10.75 inches. Framed: 14.5x17.5 inches. Cox visited Hardwick Hall at least three time in the 1830s, and once again in 1845. Like at Haddon Hall, he was intoxicated by the architecture and painted a well-known series of interiors of the house. But atmospheric studies such as this demonstrate just how much he was swept up by the romance of the setting as well. The broad and rapid under drawing and impressionistic handling of watercolour is typical of Cox’s work of this date.
15. ALEXANDER COZENS 1717-1786 Composition; Land and Sea
Pen, ink and monochrome wash. c.1760. Provenance: Andrew Wyld c.1983; Nigel Jaques. 3.75x6 inches. Framed: 10.75x13.75 inches. It is likely that this drawing was worked up from one of Cozens’ blots, his famous method for freely inventing imaginary landscape compositions. Similar drawings, along with their corresponding blots can be found in the British Museum. See BM951,0714.69 and BM951,0714.71.
16. WILLIAM MARSHALL CRAIG c.1765-1834 Young Gardeners
Pencil and monochrome wash. Signed and dated, 1804. 4x2.75 inches. Framed: 12x10.25 inches. William Marshall Craig was drawing master to Princess Charlotte of Wales, miniature painter to the Duke and Duchess of York, and painter in watercolours to Queen Charlotte. Alongside his work as a drawing master (he also taught Sarah Biffin), he made illustrations and it is tempting to imagine this small monochrome work set alongside some text.
17. NATHANIEL DANCE-HOLLAND 1735-1811 ‘Regeneration’; a Tailor and his Dog
Pen and ink. c.1780. Titled by the artist. The open book inscribed ‘Toplad[?] / on / The New Birth’. Ex. Collection: Sir Bruce Ingram (1877-1963), his stamp (L.1405a) verso. 12x12 inches. Framed: 21.5x21.5 inches. This is a typically cryptic satire by Dance. The tailor has been cast down by reading the religious tract on ‘Regeneration’ (i.e. spiritual rebirth). Or perhaps it has not given him the solace he had hoped. That is offered instead by his dog; that dependable, worldly pleasure, always guaranteed to lift one’s spirits.
18. HENRY EDRIDGE A.R.A. 1769-1821 Portrait of a Young Woman Playing a Spanish Guitar, possibly Mrs J Williams
Pencil and watercolour. Signed and dated, 1808. Exhibited: Possibly Royal Academy, 1808, no. 581 (‘Mrs J Williams’). 16x11.5 inches. Framed: 23x18.5 inches. Edridge was trained as an engraver and worked as a miniaturist early in his career. His full length portrait drawings that combine precisely drawn features with more broadly drawn figures and landscape settings were very popular from the 1790s onwards. War with France began on the Iberian Peninsular in 1808 and the sitter, in fancy dress and carrying her Spanish guitar, is making a fashionable statement of association with Britain’s ally Spain.
19. Attributed to WILLIAM ETTY R.A. 1787-1849 Drapery Study
Oil on paper. c.1810. Verso: part of a life study in red and white chalks. Provenance: F. R. Meatyard c.1955; John Manning; Arnold Fellows. 15.25x9.5 inches. Framed: 24.5x17.75 inches. Etty entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1807. Judging from the combination of the beautiful drapery study on the recto, and an academic life study on verso, this sheet presumably dates from his time there. A rare, clothed subject from the artist.
20. FRANÇOIS LOUIS THOMAS FRANCIA 1772-1839 Coastal Scene with a Beached Boat and a Buoy
Graphite and white chalk. Provenance: Andrew Wyld, 2011 (as Richard Parkes Bonington). 2.5x4.5 inches. Framed: 6.5x8.75 inches. This drawing would have been made by Francia as source material to be worked up as a watercolour. Drawings showing the same preoccupation are in the British Museum (see for example 1877,1013.953). Marcia Pointon observes of this sheet... ‘The great thing about Francia is the extraordinary discipline that produces this kind of abstraction: the perfect angle of the sail in relation to the buoy, the suggestion of a reflection, the dash of white chalk, and the precise positioning of the horizon. Not afraid to leave the left half and darken the horizon there. Not a soupcon too much or too little. Such sympathetic understanding of how graphite works on this kind of surface’. We are grateful to Marcia Pointon for her help in cataloguing this picture.
21. THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH R.A. 1727-1788 Landscape Composition
Pencil. c.1758. Literature: a previously unrecorded drawing, this is not listed in John Hayes, The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough, 1970, in Hayes’ addenda of 1983 or Hugh Belsey’s addenda of 2008. Hugh Belsey will include this drawing in any subsequent addenda. Provenance: Squire Gallery, 1955; Diana Peyton; and by descent. 6.25x7 inches. Framed: 13.25x15.25 inches. This drawing is similar in size, technique and subject to Hayes Nos.180, 182, 183, 187 and 908. It is possible these drawings came from the same sketchbook. We are grateful to Hugh Belsey for his help in cataloguing this picture.
22. JAMES GILLRAY 1756-1815 Study of a Sailor
Ink and watercolour. 1794. Provenance: Inscribed in the backing sheet ‘From Miss Alleyne’s Collection 1945’; [...] The Newall Collection, Christie’s, 14th December 1979, lot 249 (part). 6x4.5 inches. Framed: 9.5x7.75 inches. This character study was made in Flanders while Gillray was assisting Philip James de Loutherbourg R.A. (1740-1812) in making preparatory sketches for his painting ‘Earl Howe’s Victory...’ (1795). Gillray had already assisted de Loutherbourg in making sketches for his ‘The Siege of Valenciennes’ (1794). Other examples of these drawings are in the British Museum.
23. THOMAS GIRTIN 1775-1802 A Landscape with a Distant Church
Pencil and monochrome wash. Signed. c.1794. Provenance: Dr Thomas Monro (1759-1833); [...] Christie’s, 27 March 1936, lot 1 as one of ‘Six other Sepia Drawings of Landscapes and Sky Studies’; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons; Norman Dakeyne Newall (1888-1952); his widow, Leslia Newall (d.1979); Christie’s, 14 December 1979, lot 249 (part). Literature: Greg Smith, Thomas Girtin: The Art of Watercolour, Tate, 2002, Cat No. 27, p.47; Greg Smith, Thomas Girtin (1775-1802): An Online Catalogue, Archive and Introduction to the Artist, Cat no. TG0185. 4.25x7.5 inches. Framed: 10.75x13.5 inches. In his catalogue raisonné, Greg Smith suggests that this is an imaginary scene. The presence of the signature may be evidence that, even at this early date, Girtin had discovered a market for his sketches that extended to works of the imagination.
24. JOHN GLOVER O.W.S. 1767-1849 Italy; Tivoli
Watercolour. c.1818. Inscribed ‘Tivoli/-No.15’ to an old backing. Provenance: Heather Newman; Christies 10/12/2014 (lot 730). 8.25x12.75 inches. Framed: 15.5x19.5 inches. Glover travelled to Italy in 1818 and this has all the hall-marks and fine quality of one of the works he made there. See the similar drawing in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2014.18).
25. HUGH DOUGLAS HAMILTON 1740-1808 Portrait of a Young Man
Pastels. Signed and dated, 1775. Provenance: ‘Mrs Oppenheim’, 1903; thence by descent until 2016. 10.25x8 inches. Framed: 15x12.75 inches. Hamilton was greatly admired for the outstanding quality of his draughtsmanship in pastels, but also for his ablity to engage with his sitters and comunicate more than just a likeness. So, while the identity of this young man remains a mystery, his sympathetic personality is brilliantly conveyed.
26. SIR GEORGE HAYTER 1792-1871 ‘Tisiphone’
Pen and ink. Signed, inscribed and dated, 1861. 8.5x7.25 inches. Framed: 14x12.5 inches. If it was not dated, it would be easy to mistake this drawing for one made much earlier in the nineteenth century. At the Royal Academy Schools Hayter was taught by Fuseli and was an admirer of Haydon. The effect their intensity of expression had on him had clearly not diminished. Neither had his command of the pen. This is Hayter at his most confident and fluent as he lays down one of the raging ‘Furies’.
27. ELLIS CORNELIA KNIGHT 1757-1837 Italy; ‘Rupe Tarpea’, the Tarpeian Rock, Rome
Ink and watercolour. c.1780. Inscribed verso. Provenance: John Abbott. 13.25x10.25 inches. Framed: 20x16.5 inches. Cornelia Knight and her mother arrived to Rome in early 1776 and made it their new home. Cornelia published a series of etchings of the Campagna in 1805. However, the works for which she is best known are these watercolour drawings of the city itself that combine topography, ancient ruins and sensitive observations of every-day life; in this case, the line of terracotta pots sitting on the wall.
28. EDWARD LEAR 1812-1888 Italy; ‘Coast between Amalfi and Positano’
Chalk and white heightening. Signed, inscribed and dated, 1839. Exhibited: Fine Art Society, April 1969, where provenance given as Robert Hornby (18051857). Hornby and his cousin the Earl of Derby supported Lear on his first trip to Italy. 10.5x16.5 inches. Framed: 18x24 inches. Lear’s first trip to Italy began in July 1837, but it was not until May 1838 that he travelled South. He settled for the Summer at Capo di Cava from where he could take longs walks along the cliff road to Amalfi. Years later, while in Corfu, he reminisced... ‘There is every-where a flood of gold & green & blue. This & the breeze [...] remind me of days in many lands before [...] On Swiss lakes, & Como Hills in 1837 - In the first years of Roman and Amalfi life /38, /39 - I do not suppose that kind of happiness can ever come back [...]’ (Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear, 1968, p.96). This drawing would have been made after his return to Rome, during the Winter of 1839. Another version is in the British Museum (BM1892,1119.10).
29. FREDERICK LORD LEIGHTON P.R.A. 1830-1896 Studies for Illustrations to George Eliot’s ‘Romola’ (1862/63)
Black and white chalks. 1862. Studies for ‘The Visible Madonna’ and ‘A Dangerous Colleague’, Chapter 44. Provenance: Christopher Fry (1907-2005). 7.5x9.5 inches. Framed: 14.5x16.25 inches. Leighton was commissioned to make twenty-five full page illustrations and fourteen decorated initial letters for the first edition of Romola. He made these beautiful chalk studies before working the final designs in pen and ink directly on to the block for the engraver. Eliot’s novel and Leighton’s illustrations appeared together in the Cornhill Magazine in monthly instalments from July 1862 to August 1863.
30. After SIR PETER LELY 1618-1680 A Reduced Copy of Lely’s Portrait of Jane Long (lost)
Pen, ink and white heightening. c.1670. Inscribed recto: ‘Nell Gwynn / Sir Peter Lely / From Thane’s Sale’. Inscribed verso: ‘NovEnath181[3/5]’, the mark of the collector and dealer Thomas Thane (L.811). Provenance: Thomas Thane (1782-1846); probably his sale 19/6/1846 lot 105; to ‘Newton’, possibly Sir William John Newton (1785-1869). 6x4.75 inches. Framed: 10.25x8.5 inches. Making copies was an established part of studio practice in Britain in the late seventeenth century and so it is quite possible this drawing was made in Lely’s sudio. Vertue records that ‘Jan Vansomer the noted Mezzzotinter has done a abundance of Plates after Sr Peter Lely. His drawings were made in two colours by Gas. Baptist. & sometimes by Lemense’ [sic]. Jan Baptist Gaspars (1620-1691) was a long standing and trusted studio assistant of Lely and later Kneller. Jan van Somer (c.1645-after 1699) made a mezzotint after this painting, published by Richard Tompson (d.1693) c.1678/79. We are grateful to Peter Bower for confirming the date of this paper.
31. JOHN LINNELL 1792-1882 Sunset: Cloud Studies
Watercolour. Signed. c.1811. Verso: Study of a mother and child. Pencil and watercolour. Provenance: John Linnell; William Linnell, and by descent; Private Collection, London. Exhibited: Colnaghi, ‘A Loan Exhibition of Drawings Watercolours and Paintings by John Linnell and his Circle’, 1973, No.53; Fitzwilliam Museum and the Yale Centre for British Art, ‘John Linnell - A Centennial Exhibition’, 1982, No.13b; The Fine Art Society, 2008. 6.25x9 inches. Framed: 14x17.75 inches. In 1811 Linnell underwent a religious conversion and spiritual awakening. Central to his faith was the notion expounded by William Paley that beauty in nature was evidence of God’s existence. He felt the impulse to record nature more faithfully and his work took on a greater intensity. As well as landscape drawings he made a number of beautiful studies like this, recording natural phenomena such as sunsets, sunrises, eclipses and comets. Cf. No.46 by Cornelius Varley, who sent Linnell a copy of Paley’s Evidence of Christianity in 1811.
32. JOHN LINNELL 1792-1882 Saint John the Baptist Preaching in the Wilderness
Oil on paper laid on canvas. c.1818. Provenance: Diana Peyton and by descent. 10x14 inches. Framed: 15.75x20.5 inches. This is likely the sketch begun in 1818 for Linnell’s large composition of the same subject dated 1828-1833 and sold at Bonhams 29/10/2008 (lot 102). The small oil sketch is noted as having hung on the artist’s studio wall in A. T. Story, The Life of John Linnell, 1892. The composition is one of Linnell’s ‘Poetical Landscapes’. That is, a religious subject placed within a British landscape. See for example, The Disciples on the Road to Emmaus (Ashmolean) and Noah: the Eve of the Deluge (Cleveland Museum of Art).
33. THOMAS MALTON 1748-1804 London; The Piazza, Covent Garden
Pencil, pen, ink and watercolour. c.1770. Exhibited: possibly Malton’s first Royal Academy exhibit, ‘A View in Covent Garden in Watercolours’, 1773. No.186; Spink; from where acquired by the previous owner. 14.5x23.25 inches. Framed: 23.5x32 inches. The son of an engraver specialising in architectural prints, Malton made a career out of these precise renderings of urban views. He made drawings of Bath, but he was above all a Londoner. The West End was home and the theatre at the heart of his life. The playbill pasted to the corner pier advertising ‘Love makes a man: Or, the Fop’s Fortune’ (Cibber) and ‘The Citizen’ (Murphy). Malton entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1773 and this is possibly his first R.A. exhibit of the same year. He published his A Picturesque Tour through the Cities of London and Westminster with 100 plates in 1792.
34. JOHN OPIE 1761-1807 Portrait of ‘G. Cruikshank’
Pencil. c.1800. Inscribed recto, ‘Portrait of G Cruikshank [by JO?] / by J. Opie R.A.’. Inscribed verso, ‘Early drawing of the late / Mr Cruikshank’. Provenance: Christies, 6th December 2012, Lot 204. 9.75x8 inches. Framed: 18.75x15.5 inches. The treatment of the young boy in this drawing is typical of Opie’s work of the very early years of the nineteenth century. See for example the portrait of Henry Monro (1791-1814) sold at Christies 30th April 2013 (lot.448). While it is tempting to identify the sitter as the famous caricaturist, we can find no similar likenesses.
35. WILLIAM PAYNE 1760-1830 Plymouth; ‘View near Mount Edgecombe’
Pencil, pen, ink and watercolour. c.1786. Signed. Inscribed by the artist verso. Original wash lines. Exhibited: Squire Gallery. 10.25x13.5 inches. Framed: 13.75x17 inches. William Payne began working as a draughtsman for the Board of Ordnance at the Tower of London in 1778. In 1783 he was sent to Plymouth where, alongside making technical drawings of maritime defences, he began making topographical works. This shows Staddon Heights on the left, with the Mewstone and the Sound in the distance. Two of the figures are wearing the blue uniform of the Board of Ordnance.
36. JOHN RENTON 1770-1841 Young Girl in a Straw Hat and Apron
Pencil and watercolour. Signed and dated, 1807. Ex. Collection: Cyril Fry. 7.75x4.5 inches. Framed: 16.25x12 inches. Renton was a portraitist in East London where he painted the dissenting community. His rare figure studies are always marked by their sense of intimacy. Renton’s father was head gardiner for Conrad Loddiges at the famous plant nursery in Hackney. So, perhaps this young woman, with her apron and basket, was employed there.
37. ‘JR’ (Nineteenth-Century) The Gathering of Manna; a Maiolica dish, made in Urbino c.1525 and now in the collection of the V&A [7680-1861]
Watercolour and gouache. Signed with initials. Illustrated: C. D. E. Fortnum, A descriptive catalogue of the maiolica, Hispano-Moresco, Persian, Damascus, and Rhodian wares in the South Kensington Museum: with historical notes, marks and monograms, 1873, Ill. opp. p.534. 4.5x4.5 inches. Framed: 9.5x9.5 inches. The famous first catalogue of maiolica in the the V&A was begun by Sir John Charles Robinson (1824-1913) but finished by C. D. E. Fortnum after a falling out between Robinson and the Museum. The catalogue was a landmark peice of scholarship, but the identity of ‘JR’, who made the beautiful illustrations to the text, remains a mystery.
38. GEORGE ROMNEY 1734-1802 The Departure of Hector
Pencil. c.1769. Provenance: possibly a sheet from one of the ‘Baroda Sketchbooks’, acquired by Marion Spielmann c.1910-15 for the Maharajah of Baroda (Baroda Museum, Vadodara, India). 7.5x6 inches. Framed: 20.25x18 inches. Romney turned to his sketchbooks as an escape from his busy portraiture practice. He filled them with vigorous studies for figure compositions, few of which ever made it off the page and on to canvas. He returned to particular subjects, compositions and even individual figure poses in an almost obsessive way. This study shows Hector embracing Andromache on the eve of battle, a popular subject for History painting.
39. MICHAEL ANGELO ROOKER A.R.A. 1746-1801 Hampshire; Netley Abbey
Watercolour. c.1795. Signed. 11x14.5 inches. Framed: 18.75x22 inches. Rooker’s watercolours of architectural subjects catered to two popular and overlapping tastes in the late eighteenth century; the Antiquarian and the Picturesque. His fine and precise draughtsmanship provides an accurate record of the abbey ruins. His use of pictorial devices such as the trees and the well observed group of bucolic figures give his subject context. Rooker was a scene painter at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 1778, hence his well managed staging of this composition.
40. ALEXANDER RUNCIMAN 1736-1785 ‘Oedipus’
Pencil, pen and ink. c.1770. Signed. Futher signed with initials and inscribed. Provenance: By descent to Walter Garrison Runciman, 3rd Viscount Runciman (1934-2020). 7x10 inches. Framed: 13x16 inches. Having been told by an oracle that his son will murder him, Laius, King of Thebes, charges a shepherd with exposing the child on mount Cithaeron... Runciman trained with the Norie family in Edinburgh and his early works are landscapes. He travelled to Rome in 1767, and it was there he acquired his ambitions as a History painter. On his return he abandonded his intended classical subjects for the decorations he made at Penicuik, turning instead to Ossian.
41. CLARKSON STANFIELD R.A. 1793-1867 An Albanian Merchant or Seaman Riding a Gondola
Pencil, watercolour and gouache. Signed and dated, 1830. Dedicated ‘C Stanfield / to George Morant Esq / May 1832’. 8.25x11.75 inches. Framed: 15.5x19.25 inches. This drawing was made on Stanfield’s first visit to Venice. He travelled through Holland, up the Rhine and returned through France. Similar figues can be seen in the lower left of his Venice from the Dogana of 1833 (Bowood House). The dedication is to the furniture and frame maker George Morant (1770-1846) or his son George John Morant (1799-1865). Perhaps the Morants had framed one of Stanfield’s paintings, and this was presented as a thank you. We are grateful to Pieter van der Merwe for his help in cataloguing this drawing.
42. PAUL SANDBY R.A. 1731-1809 A Scene on the Lane to a Castle Town, Shipping in the Estuary Beyond
Watercolour and gouache. c.1800. Exhibited: Spink. 14.5x20.75 inches. Framed: 23.25x29 inches. A squire stops to talk to a man and woman resting by the side of a lane. He gestures to a picturesque castle ruin. His arm frames busy shipping in the estuary beyond and another traveller disappearing out of view as the lane drops downhill. A large Oak, boldy drawn, reached its branches across the picture, meeting a Birch and framing the composition in dramatic fashion. This fine example of Sandby’s work, executed in gouache on a large scale giving it the impact of an oil painting, combines all the elements that made him so popular in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
43. JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER R.A. 1775-1851 ‘The Grey Castle’; a view on the Mosel or the Rhine Pencil and watercolour. c.1841. The verso prepared with a grey wash. 6.25x9.25 inches. Framed: 14.5x17 inches. Provenance: Probably Sophia Caroline Booth (1798-1875); John Ruskin (1819-1900); possibly Christie’s, 15th April 1869, one of lots 27-32, Sketches on the Rhine; [...] H Tomalin, according to a note on a black and white photograph in A. J. Finberg’s files (Vol. X pp.82-3, Tate Study Room); either John Talbot de Vere Clifton (1868-1928) or Henry Talbot de Vere Clifton (1907-1979) of Lytham Hall, Lancashire; Spink & Son, London (K3/2285) as ‘The Grey Castle, a study of the Castle of Beilstein on the Moselle’; John Marshall (1911-1995), March 1966; and by descent. Literature: Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, 1979, p.461, no.1341. Turner visited Switzerland every Summer from 1841 to 1844. These trips conveniently took him through his beloved Germany and along the Rhine, from where he could detour to the Mosel and other areas. The watercolours he produced on these tours are amongst his most poetic responses to light, air and water in landscape. In simple pencil jottings and gestural, rapidly applied washes of colour Turner, here, conveys thick mists as they rise from a river valley to be burnt off by the early morning sun brightening behind a hill-top castle. This watercolour comes from a sketchbook that Turner put together himself, a practice he had begun on these late tours to compliment the various commercially produced sketchbooks he used. Constructed from larger sheets of paper that he cut down, the benefit was a closer control over his materials. Ever sensitive to the importance of paper and its preparation, the verso of this sheet has been washed with grey so that it would be ready to use when the right light and atmosphere presented itself. A report on this watercolour by Ian Warrell, and a report on the paper by Peter Bower are available on request. We are grateful to both for their help in cataloguing this watercolour.
44. JOHN ‘WARWICK’ SMITH 1749-1831 Cetara on the Amalfi Coast
Pencil and watercolour. c.1795. Inscribed verso. 4.5x7 inches. Framed: 9.25x11.5 inches, John ‘Warwick’ Smith was in Italy from 1776 until 1781, but continued to make small watercolour views of Italy throughout the 1780s and 1790s. These culminated in his Select Views in Italy, a series of engravings published from 1792-1796. As well as views of Rome and Naples, Smith made many watercolours of the Amalfi Coast. This examples is distinguished by the lively way he has captured some weather as it starts to role in off the Bay of Salerno.
45. JOHN VANDERBANK 1694-1739 A Portrait Study
Pen and ink. c.1730. Provenance: Iolo Williams. 7.75x5.5 inches. Framed: 13x10.75 inches. This fluid and quickly made ink drawing is typical of Vanderbank. It establishes, or records some of the main compositional elements of a portrait; the turn of the figure, position of the hands and the downward gaze. Vanderbank’s portraits of this form were hugely popular in 1720s and 1730s.
46. CORNELIUS VARLEY F.R.S.A. 1781-1872 ‘Evening Light, North Wales’, probably Cader Idris
Watercolour. 1803 or 1805. Inscribed verso. Exhibited: Colnaghi; Lowell Libson, 2007. 5.5x8.5 inches. Framed: 14x17 inches. Varley made a number of these on-the-spot watercolours during his visits to Wales in 1803 and 1805. He had an overiding concern for accuracy in drawing landscapes; his use of optical devices and invention of the Graphic Telescope are well known. But he was also interested in capturing more ephemeral aspects of nature such as the effects of light and weather. These coloured sketches are his most poetic works, charged by the experience of the mountains. In 1803, Varley and Cristall remained on the summit of Cader Idris as night fell, surely set on testing the legend that those who slept on the grave of Idris descended from the mountain either a mad-man ... or a poet. It was Varley who sent Linnell a copy of Paley’s Evidence of Christianity in 1811 (Cf. No.31).
47. JAMES WARD R.A. 1769-1859 Wales; The Summit of Cader Idris
Pencil and monochrome wash. September 1807. Signed and inscribed in short hand. Inscribed by the artist on the old backing paper ‘Top of Caderidris’ [sic]. Provenance: ‘Knowles’ of Hanwell by 1951; Prudence Summerhayes (Mrs Turner), descendant of the artist; by descent until 2008. Exhibited: Andrew Wyld, ‘James Ward’, 2009, Cat No.39. 5x6.75 inches. Framed: 8x10 inches. Ward and his travelling companion Thomas Garle climbed Cader Idris in September 1807. They were escorted by the mountain guide Robert Edwards in the hope of finding Ellis Thomas, the brother of Mary Thomas, the ‘starving woman’ who was something of a tourist attraction. At the summit he made a number of these drawings recording the dramatic views and passing weather.
48. SIR DAVID WILKIE 1785-1841 A Study for ‘Reading the Will’
Pen and ink. c.1819. Provenance: Probably Wilkie’s Sale, Christie’s 20th-21st June 1860, Lot 18 (Part); Diana Peyton, acquired 1955; and by descent. 4x5 inches. Framed: 8x9.25 inches. This is an early study relating to the painting commissioned by the King of Bavaria. In the Summer of 1818 Wilkie wrote to the Marquis of Stafford, who was acting as an intermediary between artist and patron, suggesting the subject of Reading the Will and observing that it would allow a compositional arrangement similar to a dinner party. With its concentration on the huddled group of figures around a table, the drawing is closer to Wilkie’s print of the subject made in 1919, rather than the finished oil painting of 1820.