OLD MASTERS, BRITISH & EUROPEAN PAINTINGS

Consigned to our September sale is a fine example of Jacob Knyff’s work, showing English ships off the coast at Dover. In 1672 Charles II issued an open invitation to Dutch craftsmen to come and work in England. Despite the two countries being at war, several marine artists accepted the offer, the best of them being the two Willem van de Veldes and Knyff. Prior to their arrival marine painting had never been of much concern to English artists and collectors. However, the arrival of the Dutch emigré painters provided the impetus for the fine school of English marine painters that emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries. In our work Dover Castle, the town itself, and the ships are depicted in great detail, and with a high degree of accuracy. Knyff’s work is relatively rare, but this painting demonstrates why he stands above many of his contemporary marine artists with the precision of his work. It also provides a fascinating historical record of one of the key English ports.

James Ward was part of the great generation of English landscape painters working at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. Ward’s love of the English countryside is one of the great recurring themes of his work, and Village scene with figures outside cottages, and a sow and her litter in the foreground is a wonderful example of his landscape painting. In his later years Ward recalled leaving London for Kent at the age of five: ‘The effect on my infant mind is beyond description…it appeared as if I had got into Heaven itself’. This lifetime infatuation with the English countryside is evident in our painting, from the rustic figures and precise depictions of animals in the foreground, to the expansive valleys and soaring mountains beyond.

Victor Fauvelle

+44 (0)1722 446961 | vf@woolleyandwallis.co.uk

Ed Beer

+44 (0)1722 446962 | eb@woolleyandwallis.co.uk

Opposite:

Jacob Knyff (Dutch 1638–1681)

British men of war and other shipping off Dover

Oil on canvas

58.2 x 127.3cm; 23 x 50in

Provenance:

The Norris family, Wood Norton Hall, Norfolk, probably by the late 18th Century; and by family decent

Estimate £10,000–15,000

James Ward RA (1769–1859)

Village scene with figures outside cottages and a sow and her litter in the foreground

Signed JWARD (in ligature, lower left)

Oil on panel

75 x 113.5cm; 29½ x 44¾in

Literature:

C. Reginald Grundy, James Ward, R.A. His Life and Works (London, 1909), p.54, no. 858

Exhibited:

London, Royal Academy, Winter Exhibition, 1885, no.33

Estimate £6,000–10,000