BRITISH DRAWINGS AND WATERCOLOURS 2020 · 2020. 9. 12. · Pen and grey ink and watercolour over pencil on laid paper 36.3 by 51.6 cm., 14 ½ by 20 ½ in. Provenance: With Walker

BRITISH DRAWINGS AND WATERCOLOURS2020

GUY PEPPIATT FINE ART

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Guy Peppiatt started his working life at Dulwich Picture Gallery before joining Sotheby’s British Pictures Department in 1993. He soon specialised in early British drawings and watercolours and took over the running of Sotheby’s Topographical sales. Guy left Sotheby’s in 2004 to work as a dealer in early British watercolours and since 2006 he has shared a gallery on the ground floor of 6 Mason’s Yard off Duke St., St. James’s with the Old Master and European Drawings dealer Stephen Ongpin. He advises clients and museums on their collections, buys and sells on their behalf and can provide insurance valuations. He exhibits as part of Master Drawings New York every January as well as London Art Week in July and December.

Email: [email protected]: 020 7930 3839 or 07956 968 284

Sarah Hobrough has spent nearly 25 years in the field of British drawings and watercolours. She started her career at Spink and Son in 1995, where she began to develop a specialism in British watercolours of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 2002, she helped set up Lowell Libson Ltd, serving as co-director of the gallery. In 2007, Sarah decided to pursue her other passion, gardens and plants, and undertook a post graduate diploma in landscape design. She established a landscape design company, which she continues to run, alongside her art consultancy practise. She has consulted for dealers and auction houses, helping Christie’s watercolour department for a number of years, as well private clients, helping them research and develop their collections.

Email: [email protected]: 07798 611 017


Monday to Friday 10am to 6pmWeekends and evenings by appointment

Guy Peppiatt Fine Art LtdRiverwide House, 6 Mason’s Yard

Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BU

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7930 3839Mobile: +44 (0) 7956 968284

Fax: +44 (0) 20 7839 [email protected]

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1Allan Ramsay (1713-1784)The Interior of the Colosseum, Rome

Inscribed verso: Rev.......Pen and brown ink and watercolour over traces of pencil on two sheets of joined laid paper53.8 by 38 cm., 21 by 15 in.

This is one of a group of watercolours of the Colosseum drawn on Ramsay’s second visit to Rome in 1754-57. It was probably drawn on a sketching exhibition made in the summer of 1755 with his friend and fellow Scot, the architect and designer Robert Adam (1728-1792) and the French draughtsman Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721-1820). The three other known views of the interior of the Colosseum by Ramsay are all in the National Galleries of Scotland. All are upright in format and relate closely in style to the present work. One of them (D1023) is on a very similarly sized sheet (see Andrew Wilton, Grand Tour – the Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue 1996, no. 108, p.155, ill.).

Although Ramsay is best known for his portrait paintings, he also had a serious antiquarian side. The principal aim of his 1750s tour was to find the lost villa of the Roman poet Horace. Indeed from 1773 he gave up painting to concentrate on classical scholarship, so the appeal to him of the Colosseum is obvious.

Ramsay was born in Edinburgh, the son of an important Scottish poet of the same name. He studied in London at the St. Martin’s Lane Academy in the early 1730s before travelling to Rome where he studied at the French Academy from 1736 under Francesco Imperiali and then under Solimena in Naples. He was very successful on his return as a portrait painter both in London and Edinburgh and was appointed official painter to George III in 1760.

Ramsay left England in the summer of 1754 accompanied by his second wife and his sister Catherine. They were intending to go straight to Rome but having enjoyed Florence they decided to stay for a few weeks. They arrived in Rome in mid December and found lodgings in the unfashionable Viminale area. He wrote to his friend Sir Alexander Dick: ‘Our rooms are spacious, and, standing high above the Tiber, the air very wholesome. But that which chiefly recommends the situation to me is its distance from the Piazza di Spagna, by which I am enabled to seclude myself a great deal from the English travellers without falling out with any of them, and to preserve the greatest part of my time for painting, drawing and reading, which, were I living in their neighbourhood, would be altogether spent in dinners, suppers and jaunts’ (letter of 12th November 1755, quoted in Allan Ramsay: Painter, Essayist and Man of the Enlightenment, 1992, p.117).

In late February 1755, the young Scottish architect Robert Adam arrived in Rome under the patronage of the Hon. Charles Hope. He stayed with his friend the artist Clérisseau in a grand house, the Casa Guarnieri, near the Spanish Steps. Adam initially found Ramsay, fifteen years his senior, morose and unfriendly, but they soon became friends. They would often meet in each other’s houses for weekly Conservazioni, at which Piranesi would often be present. They would also go on sketching expeditions together as well as long evening walks. Ramsay’s watercolours of the Colosseum were almost certainly drawn in the company of Adam and Clérisseau. The latter is the likely influence on Ramsay’s landscapes and may even have given him lessons – a watercolour of the Trevi Fountain is inscribed by Ramsay as being after a work by Clérisseau (National Gallery of Scotland, D.3772).

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2 Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827)View of Clovelly, North Devon, from the Pier

Signed lower right: Rowlandson/1792 and inscribed under mount: north coast of CornwallPen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil39.2 by 55.3 cm., 15 ¼ by 21 ¾ in.

Provenance:With the Fine Art Society, London, 1943;The Rev. Canon F. Shirley, his sale, Sotheby’s, 24th February 1960, lot 21;Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 16th November 2006, lot 50;Private Collection until 2019

Clovelly is a famously picturesque village on the north Devon coast. Situated on a steep hill, it has been privately owned by the Hamlyn family since 1738. A fishing village has been there since the 13th century and it is well known for its curved stone pier.

Rowlandson was a regular visitor to Cornwall and Devon to see his friend and patron the banker Matthew Michell from the 1790s until Michell’s death in 1819. Rowlandson frequently visited him at his estate at Hengar and also at his London address, Grove House near Enfield. Michell owned over 550 watercolours by Rowlandson at the time of his death. His country house, Hengar House, was six miles north of Bodmin and Rowlandson enjoyed sketching in the surrounding countryside.

3Paul Sandby, R.A. (1731-1809)View of Woolwich with St Mary’s Church, London

Signed lower right: P. SandbyPen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil heightened with bodycolour on laid paper45.5 by 61 cm., 17 ¾ by 24 in.

Provenance:With the Fine Art Society, London, April 1960;Mary Sayles Booker Braga (1921 – 2014)

Exhibited:London, Guildhall Art Gallery, Paul Sandby 1725-1809, 14th June to 16th July 1960, no.53

Sandby was appointed to the role of Chief Drawing Master at the Woolwich Academy in August 1768 on a salary of £150 a year. He remained on the staff until late 1796 teaching two days a week, staying in the nearby village of Charlton. The Royal Military Academy was founded in 1741 and trained engineers and artillery officers enabling Sandby to popularise the art of watercolour painting and also to meet potential clients. He also took the opportunity to sketch in the surrounding area which was mostly rural at the time. Woolwich which stands on river Thames east of Greenwich was an important naval base, as well as the home of the Royal Arsenal.

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4Paul Sandby, R.A. (1731-1809) The Eagle Tower, Caernarvon Castle, North Wales Pen and grey ink and watercolour over pencil on laid paper 36.3 by 51.6 cm., 14 ½ by 20 ½ in. Provenance: With Walker Galleries, London, by 1955; By descent from 1955 until 2015 Exhibited: Possibly London, Royal Academy, 1775, no. 275 Stylistically this watercolour dates from the 1770s and this has been confirmed by

Professor Luke Herrmann. Sandby visited Wales three times in the early 1770s. His first visit was in the summer of 1770 when he was invited to stay at the family seat of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn at Wynnstay, Denbighshire, about four miles east of Llangollen, and he returned for six weeks the following summer. In 1771 he went on an extended tour of the estate at Wynnstay and produced drawings, some of which were engraved as part of Views in North Wales published in 1776. He also toured Wales with Joseph Banks from 25th June to 16th August 1773. A slightly smaller view of Caernarvon Castle by Sandby dated 1773, taken from across the river Seiont is in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Luke Herrmann has suggested that the current work is the watercolour exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1775.

5Samuel Hieronymous Grimm (1733-1794)Caernarvon Castle, North Wales

Inscribed upper centre: Caernarvon Castle and signed and inscribed verso: A view of Caernarvon Castle taken on the spot by S.H. Grimm. 1777 - NB this drawing was taken in very thick cloudy weather, in clear weather/there are many more Mountains, wich show themselves in the distance, wich were envelloped in Cloud and Fog.Pen and grey ink and grey washes on laid paper watermarked GR with a Strasburg Lily29.4 by 47.8 cm., 11 ¼ by 18 ¾ in.

Provenance:James Tobin, 1818;Sir John Fitzherbert, 8th Bt. (1913-1989);Walter Brandt (1902-1978);By descent until 2019

This important watercolour dates from Grimm’s tour of Wales in the summer of 1777 with his patron Henry Penruddocke Wyndham (1736-1819). Few tourists or artists visited Wales before the 1770s as it was considered a wild and inhospitable place. However after Paul Sandby’s tour with Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn in 1771 (see

no.4) and Thomas Pennant’s in the company of his artist Moses Griffith two years later amongst others, the resulting accounts and engravings led to a change in attitude. Wyndham and Grimm set out in June 1777 and spent three months travelling the country. They started in Bristol and worked their way along the south coast of Wales to Pembrokeshire before continuing north via Cilgarren ending in Caernarvon. After crossing to Anglesey, they continued south-east to Llangollen then south to Llanthony and Monmouth before recrossing the Severn into England.

This view of Caernarvon Castle across the river Seint was considered one of the most Romantic in Britain and was drawn by numerous artists (see no.4 for Sandby’s version). A smaller studio version, also dated 1777, was with Guy Peppiatt Fine Art in 2012 (see Guy Peppiatt, British Drawings and Watercolours, summer catalogue, 2012, no.7) and a larger version is in the National Museum of Wales (see William Hauptman, Samuel Hieronymous Grimm, A Very English Swiss, exhibition catalogue, 2014, no.57, p.159, ill. p.160). This on-the-spot sketch is the basis for an engraving of this view published on 1st January 1780.

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6John White Abbott (1763-1851)The Church at Luss on Loch Lomond, Scotland

Signed on reverse of original washline mount: N.o36/The Kirk at Lufs on Loch Lomond./JWA. July 1. 1791.Pen and grey ink and watercolour19 by 24.2 cm., 7 ½ by 9 ½ in.

Provenance:By descent to the great-grandson of the artist, Mr Douglas;Mrs G. Walmsley, her sale, Christie’s, 14th March 1978, lot 151;With Leger Galleries, London, 1978

Literature:A.P. Oppé, ‘John White Abbott of Exeter’, Walpole Society, Vol. XIII, 1924-5, p.75

Exhibited:London, Leger Galleries, English Watercolours, 13th November to 22nd December 1978, no.2

Luss is a pretty village ten miles south of Tarbert on the west side of Loch Lomond. The current church dates from 1875. Kirk is the Scottish word for church.

7John White Abbott (1763-1851)The Convent of San Antonio, Tivoli - after Francis Towne

Signed and inscribed verso: Tivoli. Convent of St. Antonio/F.T. JWAPen and grey ink and watercolour34 by 25.1 cm., 13 ¼ by 9 ¾ in.

Provenance:By descent from the artist until sold by his great-granddaughter Rosetta Frances Dobson (1892-1965) to Agnew’s, 3rd December 1937;Bought at Agnew’s on 4 April 1938 by J. H. Scott-Mason for £10 10s;By descent to E. M. Scott-Mason, from whom bought by Agnew’s, November 1974;With Agnew’s, 1999, where bought by the father of the present owner Literature:Agnew’s, English Watercolours and Drawings, exhibition catalogue, 1999, no.15, ill.;Richard Stephens, A Catalogue Raisonné of Francis Towne (1739-1816), online catalogue, no. FT818

Exhibited:London, Agnew’s, English Watercolours and Drawings, 126th Annual Exhibition, 3rd to 26th March 1999, no.15

This is based on a Francis Towne watercolour dated 21st May 1781 (Richard Stephens, op. cit., no. FT265) which was last recorded at Agnew’s in 1980. White Abbott was a surgeon and amateur artist based in Exeter. His work is closely related to Towne’s in its use of ink and washes and it is likely that he received tuition from Towne. There are a number of known copies of Towne’s Italian views by White Abbott.

This drawing dates from White Abbott’s six week tour of north of England and Scotland in the summer of 1791. Most of his drawings from the tour are numbered, with no.1, dated 13th June, of York Minster and no. 80, dated 28th July of Glastonbury in Somerset. He was in Edinburgh by 19th June then continued north to Stirling and Dunkeld then west to loch Tay, Loch Awe, Loch Fyne and Loch Long. He continued south to Loch Lomond then on to Glasgow and the south.

This drawing is numbered 36 and dated 1st July. No. 37, dated 2nd July, is a view of Ben Lomond and was with Leger Galleries in 1982. A watercolour of Loch Long, drawn the same day, was with Guy Peppiatt Fine Art in 2017 and is now in Princeton University Art Museum.

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8John Laporte (1761-1839)View of Tivoli, Rome in the distance

Watercolour over traces of pencil27.2 by 39.3 cm., 10 ½ by 15 ½ in. Provenance:By descent from Baron Charles de X, until sold at Rossini, Paris, 12th June 2002, lot 13;Private Collection, UK

Laporte trained as an artist in London under John Melchior Barralet and became an accomplished topographical artist working in watercolour and bodycolour. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere from 1785. Laporte drew a number of Italian views in the 1820s and 1830s, but it is not recorded whether he visited Italy or whether they are based on the works of other artists. This may be the picture exhibited at the British Institution in 1831, no. 261 as ‘View of Tivoli.’

9John Laporte (1761-1839)Killarney Lakes from Lord Kenmare’s Deer Park

Signed lower centre: J. Laporte/1831 and inscribed on old label attached to the backboard: Killarney Lake from Lord/Kenmare’s Park/by the Late John LaporteWatercolour and bodycolour over traces of pencil35.4 by 51.9 cm., 13 ¾ by 20 ¼ in.

Provenance:Major Thomas Esme Baring, OBE (1882-1957)

John Laporte travelled extensively throughout Britain and Ireland and produced a number of views of the dramatic landscape of Killarney, including the present watercolour. He exhibited ‘Killarney Lake from Muckross’ at the British Institution in 1833, no.75.

Valentine Browne, 2nd Earl Kenmare (1788 – 1853) inherited the vast estate, which had been in his family since the late 16th century, on the death of his father in 1812. Lord Kenmare was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Kerry in 1831, the year this watercolour was executed, and made a member of the Privy Council of Ireland three years later. The estate now forms part of Killarney National Park. Lough Leane, or the Lower Lake, is one of the three lakes at Killarney and is separated from Muckross Lake, or the Middle Lake by a wooded peninsula. Muckross Abbey and Ross Castle lie on the edge of Lough Leane.

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10Anthony Devis (1729-1816)A view of St Mary’s Church and the manor of Puncknowle, Dorset from the North

Pen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil on laid Whatman paper, with pen and grey ink border30.4 by 43.3 cm., 12 by 17 in.

The present watercolour was traditionally said to depict the medieval church of St Peter’s, Church Knowle from the north. However, it appears in fact to depict St Mary’s Puncknowle from the north, looking towards The Knoll (on the right) and the

Jurassic coast. The distant building on a hill could be West Bexington manor, although it is uncertain whether it would have been visible from this viewpoint. Although now, the church tower is set back slightly behind the north side of the church, this seems to have been the result of a late 19th century alteration, when the north aisle was added to the church in 1891, thus altering the footprint of the church slightly.

11Edward Dayes (1763-1804)Lympne Castle, Kent

Inscribed and dated verso: Lyme Castle near Hythe/Kent/Sketch. 1784Watercolour over pencil13.9 by 21.2 cm., 5 ½ by 8 ¼ in.

Provenance:Bought at the Fine Art Society, London, by 1963;By descent until 2019

Lympne Castle sits overlooking Romney Marshes near the town of Hythe. Originally built for the Archdeacons of Canterbury in the 11th century, it has been much added to and restored over the years.

Another watercolour of Lympne Castle by Dayes, dated 1790, is in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle.

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12John Rubens Smith (1775-1849)Outer View of the Pier, Margate, from Fort Cliffs

Signed on log lower centre: J.R. Smith Jun/1803Watercolour over pencil26.4 by 60.7 cm., 10 ¼ by 23 ¾ in.

Provenance:With Berry-Hill Galleries, New York

Engraved: By Thomas Sutherland and published by Charles Richards, London, 1st June 1805

Margate became a fashionable seaside resort during the 18th century and the small town underwent a rapid building programme to accommodate its newfound status. The present watercolours show the seafront of Margate following the 1787 Act of Parliament, which allowed the rebuilding of the harbour walls in stone, but before the rapid development of the town during the 19th century and before the 1120ft Jarvis’ Jetty was built between 1823-4.

Smith was son of the artist John Raphael Smith (1752-1812), under whom he studied. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1796 and 1811. In 1806 Smith emigrated to the United States, with letters of introduction from Benjamin West, the President of the Royal Academy to three of the leading artists at the time, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully and Washington Alston. He rapidly established a successful career as an artist and drawing master, opening his first drawing academy in Boston in May 1807, before moving to New York, where he was based from 1816 until 1827. Smith produced numerous watercolours and paintings of views in and around New York and the Hudson river, as well as establishing a new drawing academy. After a brief spell back in Boston, he moved to Philadelphia where his drawing school again proved a great success and he produced a number of topographical watercolours of the city. Works by him are in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., the Boston Athenaeum, the Metropolitan Museum, New York and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

The rather precarious-looking constructions on the edge of the harbour walls, with steps leading down to the sea, were the bathing rooms, where the fashionable residents and tourists would wait to be taken in the horse-drawn bathing machines that Smith has taken such evident delight in depicting. These ‘carriages [were] covered with canvas, and having at one end of them an umbrella of the same materials; which is let down to the surface of the water, so that the bather descending from the machine by a few steps is concealed from the public view’. (W. C. Oulton, The Travellers Guide, or English Itinerary, London, 1805, p. 245.). The bathing rooms depicted here, were destroyed by a storm in 1808, although their popularity meant that they were quickly rebuilt.

13John Rubens Smith (1775-1849)Inner view of the Pier and Bathing Rooms taken from the Shipwrights, Margate

Signed lower centre: J.R. Smith Junr/1803Watercolour over pencil26.5 by 60.8 cm., 10 ½ by 23 ¾ in.

Provenance:With Martyn Gregory, London, before 1979; With Berry-Hill Galleries, New York

Literature: H.L. Mallalieu, The Dictionary of British Watercolour Artists up to 1920, 1979, Vol. II, p. 512, ill.

Exhibited:London, Royal Academy, 1803, no.422

Engraved: By Thomas Sutherland and published by Charles Richards, London, 1st June 1805

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14James Ward, R.A. (1768-1859)Study of two Donkeys

Signed and dated 1810 lower rightOil on laid paper33 by 44.5 cm., 13 by 17½ in. Provenance:Possibly James Ward sale, Christie’s, 29 May 1829, lot 94, as A Spanish Ass, bought by Colburn;Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 23 June 1971, lot 7, as Two Donkeys in a Landscape;Private collection, London

15James Ward, R.A. (1769-1859)Trees at Hamilton Palace, Scotland

Signed lower left: JWd RA/August 13/HamiltonPencil on Whatman paper dated 180119.2 by 27.1 cm., 7 ½ by 10 ½ in.

Provenance:By descent from the artist to Claude Ward-Jackson;H. Noel Whiting until 1970;With Sidney Sabin;Private Collection, USA until 2007;With Andrew Wyld by 2009;Private Collection

Literature:Susan Sloman, Drawings by James Ward 1769-1859, 2009, exhibition catalogue, p.28, no. 16, ill. p.72

Exhibited:Possibly Ward’s exhibition of his own work at his home in Newman Street, 1822, no.5, as A Young Ass of the Spanish Breed, the property of the late Thomas Garle, Esq.;Newmarket, Palace House, James Ward - Animal Painter, 4th May to 28th October 2018

Ward initially trained under John Raphael Smith as a printmaker, but abandoned this flourishing career, in order to take up painting. He rapidly established himself as one of the leading animal painters of the period, but his interests were wide ranging, from portraiture, both animal and human, to history painting, to landscapes, architecture and studies of nature. His skill in capturing and distilling the atmosphere or essence of a landscape, as well as his capacity as a draughtsman and his mastery of the full range of media from pencil through watercolour to oil, is evident in this small group of studies and sketches (see cat. nos. 14 – 19).

Exhibited:Andrew Wyld, Drawings by James Ward 1769-1859, 18th November to 11th December 2009, no. 16

This drawing dates from Ward’s tour of Scotland in the summer of 1805. He visited Hamilton Palace on 13th August and he recorded in his diary:‘Got up tolerably well but for my foot, see through Hamilton Palace…. Go down the glen and sketch Cadgow Castle, then my foot so painful I can scarce draw a line. I hobble round to the other side of the river, about three miles away, and make studies. My leg worse and worse, get very feverish with the pain, manage to go round with great difficulty back again to the Palace to draw Hamilton, but find it lost in the fog, return with much pain to the inn…’ (quoted in C.R. Grundy, James Ward RA, His Life and Works with a Catalogue of his Engravings and Pictures, 1909, p. xxxix – Grundy incorrectly dates this trip to 1811).

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17James Ward, R.A. (1769-1859)Peak Cavern, Castleton, Derbyshire

Signed with initials lower right, extensively inscribed with artist’s shorthand and inscribed on part of old backing: ‘The Peake Cave/looking in, with Rope Walk33.7 by 48.7 cm., 13 ¼ by 19 in.

Provenance:Knowles of Hanwell by 1951;Prudence Summerhayes by 1959;By descent until 2008;With Andrew Wyld, 2009;Private Collection



This drawing dates from 1810 to 1815 and is the basis for an oil sketch formerly in the Cochrane collection. This may be the picture exhibited in Ward’s Newman Street gallery in 1841 (Description of Ward’s Gallery, 1841, no.112, p.37) as ‘Looking into the Peak Cavern, Derbyshire.’ Ward noted in the catalogue that ‘The entrance into this cavern, under the shelter of the rocks, is turned into a rope-walk. The immensity of the rocks gives the men the appearance of pygmies; and the high poles erected bear the appearance of so many gibbets’ (op. cit.). Stylistically it relates to a series of studies made for one of Ward’s masterpieces, ‘Gordale Scar’ (Tate Britain) dating from 1814-15.

Peak Cavern is the largest of Derbyshire’s natural caves and was used by ropemakers for well over 500 years and into the mid 20th century. The Duke of Devonshire allowed them to occupy the site rent free with each terrace occupied by one family. In the early nineteenth century, there were forty families mostly living in thatched cottages within the cave (one is seen to the right of this drawing). There were also stables, inns and shops, all of which were demolished in the 1860s.

16James Ward, R.A. (1769-1859)Tintern Abbey from the South, South Wales

Signed with initials lower left and inscribed lower right: TinternPencil13 by 26.4 cm., 5 by 10 ¼ in.

Provenance:With Lowell Libson Ltd, 2013

Literature:Lowell Libson Ltd, Breadth & Quality - Oil studies, Watercolours & Drawings, exhibition catalogue, 2013, p.15, no.6, ill.

Exhibited:Lowell Libson Ltd, Breadth & Quality - Oil studies, Watercolours & Drawings, exhibition catalogue, 28th June to 12th July 2013, no.6

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19James Ward, R.A. (1769-1859)Neath looking towards Pontneddfechan, North Wales

Signed lower left: JWd RA/Neath looking to PontnevaughanPencil on wove paper watermarked: 1801/J WHATMAN20 by 37.3 cm., 7 ¾ by 14 ½ in.

Provenance:Knowles of Hanwell by 1951;Prudence Summerhayes by 1959;By descent until 2008;With Andrew Wyld, 2009;Private Collection



Pontneddfechan stands on the confluence of the Mellte and Need Fechan rivers in the vale of Neath. The word means `bridge over the Little Neath’ in English. Ward’s inscription reads `Pontnevaughan’ – Pontneathvaughan is a nineteenth century word for Pontneddfechan.

18James Ward, R.A. (1769-1859)A Mountainous Landscape with a winding Road

Signed with monogram lower rightGrey washes over pencil17.2 by 24.1 cm., 6 ¾ by 9 ½ in.

Provenance:By descent from the artist to Claude Ward-Jackson;H. Noel Whiting until 1970;With Sidney Sabin;Private Collection, USA until 2007;With Andrew Wyld by 2009;Private Collection



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20Francois Louis Thomas Françia (1772-1839)Figures on a Beach

Signed centre right: LFrançiaWatercolour over pencil heightened with touches of bodycolour14.5 by 22.2 cm., 5 ¾ by 8 ¾ in.

Provenance:Anthony Bude, New York

Françia moved to England in 1795 and exhibited for the first time that year at the Royal Academy. He studied at Dr Munro’s informal Academy, alongside Turner and

21Francois Louis Thomas Françia (1772-1839)A Ruined Castle overlooking a Harbour

Signed lower left on bank: L Françia/1829Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of bodycolour and stopping out18.1 by 14.5 cm., 7 by 5 ¾ in.

Provenance:With Anthony Reed, 1985;With the Lyver and Boydell Galleries, Liverpool

Literature:Anthony Reed, Louis Françia and his son Alexandre, exhibition catalogue, 1985, p.74, no.36, ill.

Exhibited: London, Anthony Reed, 3 Cork St, Louis Françia and his son Alexandre, 1st to 23rd October 1985, no.36

Girtin, the latter in particular proved influential on the young Frenchman. Despite some success and his appointment as Painter in Watercolours to the Duchess of York, he returned to Calais in 1817, where he remained for the rest of his life. Back in his native France, he established himself as a watercolourist and drawing master. Amongst his pupils was Richard Parkes Bonington (1802 – 1828).

His early works are clearly influenced by Girtin’s use of a restricted palette, however, after his return to Calais, his watercolours became lighter and brighter, and full of atmosphere. As evidenced in the present watercolour, his influence on the young Bonington is clear both in subject matter and style with his use of rapid, clear washes, touches of bodycolour and low viewpoint.

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22John Constable, R.A. (1776-1837) The Porch at East Bergholt Church, Suffolk With an ink off-print verso Pencil 17.3 by 11.4 cm., 6 ¾ by 4 ½ in. Provenance: The 28th Earl of Crawford (1900-1975);By descent to the present owner This appears to show one of the ruined arches of the unfinished tower of East Bergholt Church, probably the north one (see Graham Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, 1996, nos. 6.4, 6.6, 6.8 and 6.9) and is likely to originate from the same sketchbook as ‘Tomb of James Gubbins, Epsom’ used in 1815 and 1816. The ink markings on the reverse of this drawing indicate that it was drawn with an apparatus invented by Constable to record as accurately as possible the main outline of what he saw in front of him. He got the idea from a new edition of Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting which he bought in 1796. Two of these tracing were included in the exhibition of Constable drawings at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1994 and the process is described in full (see Constable – a Master Draughtsman, exhibition catalogue, 1994, nos. 23 and 24, p.130-133). These drawings of Flatford Lock and East Bergholt House were dated 24th November 1813 and 5th October 1814 respectively. We are grateful to Anne Lyles for her help in cataloguing this drawing.

23John Constable, R.A. (1776-1837) The Tomb of James Gubbins, Epsom Churchyard Inscribed lower left: Epsom June 11.1816 and inscribed verso: Beneath this stone are deposited/the mortal remains of/James Gubbins Esqr of Epsom/who departed this life on the/7th day of June 1814 - Aged 69. And it is/also inscribed to the memory of/his son Captn James Gubbins/of the 13th Dragoons who was killed/in the 18th of June 1815 - in the battle/of Waterloo in Flanders/Epsom 11th 1816 Pencil 18 by 11.2 cm., 7 by 4 ¼ in. Provenance: The 28th Earl of Crawford (1900-1975);By descent to the present owner This drawing dates from a previously unrecorded trip to Epsom by Constable in June 1816, presumably to see his aunt on his mother’s side Mary Gubbins. The subject of the present drawing, and the inscription on the reverse, suggests he was also there to see the newly installed tombstone for his uncle James. Constable’s own parents had recently died, his mother in March 1815 and his father on 14th May 1816 and Graham Reynolds points out that the design of James Gubbins’s tomb closely resembles Constable’s parents’ tomb in East Bergholt. The present drawing reinforces the theory that the latter was based on the former. The size of the present drawing suggests it originates from the sketchbook used by Constable in 1815 and 1816. Graham Reynolds lists other drawings from this sketchbook which he calls 1815 (a) (see Graham Reynolds, The Early Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, 1996, no.257). Constable made two other more finished drawings of this subject in 1822 (see Graham Reynolds, The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, 1984, nos. 22.7 and 22.8). We are grateful to Anne Lyles for her help in cataloguing this drawing.

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24Thomas Churchyard (1798-1865)Study of Trees

Oil on panel21.6 by 16.1 cm., 8 ½ by 6 ¼ in.

Provenance:With Spink and Son, London;Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 13th November 1991, lot 193;With Xanthus Gallery, where bought 28th January 1992;Private Collection until 2018

Churchyard was born in Suffolk, the son of a cattle dealer and butcher. He trained as a solicitor and had set up a legal practice in Woodbridge by 1822. His great love was painting however with his work particularly influenced by John Constable and John Crome. He exhibited in London and Norwich from 1829.

25John Constable, R.A. (1776-1837)Fittleworth Mill, Sussex

Inscribed lower left: July 16. 1835Pencil 22 by 28.5 cm., 8 ¾ by 11 ¼ in.

Provenance:Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 20th November 1964, lot 3;Dr and Mrs W. Katz, by descent until 2019

Literature:Graham Reynolds, The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable, 1996, p. 277, no.35.16, ill. pl. 1001 Fittleworth Mill is on the north bank of the river Rother just south of the village of Fittleworth, about three miles south-east of Petworth. Constable, and his children Maria and John Charles, went to stay at Arundel in July 1835 with his friend the amateur artist and collector George Constable (1792-1878). Constable had first visited his namesake in July 1834 and, enjoying the Sussex countryside, he returned the following year. There is a watercolour, produced on similar sized paper, of the same subject from his first visit, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Reynolds, op. cit, 34.46).

This drawing originates from the large sketchbook of 1833 Whatman paper, that Constable used on his trips to Arundel and Worcester in 1835. There is sketch of the waterwheels of the mill, as well as two studies of the surrounding countryside from the same sketchbook (see Reynolds, op. cit. 35.13 – 35.15). These late pencil drawings are amongst the last studies that Constable was to make directly from nature. They are characterised by a strong sense of energy, through the broad, rapid, sweeping pencil lines and sudden dots and dashes which the artist has employed.

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26Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A. (1775-1851)Study of a Dead Pheasant

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour27.4 by 39.2 cm., 10 ¾ by 15 ¼ in.

Provenance:Probably Walter Fawkes (1769-1825) of Farnley Hall, Yorkshire, or his family;Probably John Ruskin (1819-1900), his sale, Christie’s, 15th April 1869, lot 10, bt. Vokins;Sir Donald Currie (1825-1909);By descent until 2019

Literature:Anne Lyles, Turner and Natural History – The Farnley Project, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, 1988, p.60, no.39, ill.

Exhibited:London, Tate Gallery, Turner and Natural History – The Farnley Project, 10th October 1988 to 2nd January 1989, no.39

This is one of a group of watercolours of birds drawn by Turner between 1815 and 1825 for Walter Fawkes and his family. Walter Fawkes was one of Turner’s closest friends and most important patrons between 1803 and Fawkes’s death in 1825. Turner was a regular visitor to Fawkes’s house at Farnley Hall near Otley in West Yorkshire from 1808 and there was a room reserved there for his own use whenever he wanted it. Fawkes’s collection of Turners eventually numbered around 200 in all. Between 1816 and 1819, Turner produced almost forty finished watercolours of the house, grounds and neighbourhood, which are still at Farnley Hall. There are also a number of sketchbooks of drawings executed at Farnley and the surrounding area now in the Tate Gallery.

Turner produced twenty drawings for Fawkes’s five volume Ornithological Collection which included details relating to over 250 species of birds, many accompanied by a watercolour illustration. Others are illustrated by engravings taken from other books or bird feathers. It was put together by members of the Fawkes family between 1815 and 1820. Turner’s drawings were removed from the albums on the advice of John Ruskin after Turner’s death in 1851 and remained at Farnley until they were sold to Leeds City Art Gallery in 1984. This present watercolour is part of a group of bird studies which were too large to have been included in the Ornithological Collection. It is thought they may have been drawn for other members of the Fawkes family or perhaps for Turner’s own use but it is likely they were drawn at Farnley. Ruskin certainly thought so: `Nowhere but at Farnley. He could only do them joyfully there!’ (quoted in E.M. Fawkes, `Mr Ruskin at Farnley’, The Nineteenth Century, 1900, vol. 47, p.622). Fawkes’s niece Amelia

Hawksworth is known to have owned two game studies and three studies of bird’s heads by Turner.

Anne Lyles suggests that this may be one of the two studies of dead pheasants by Turner in John Ruskin’s sale at Christie’s in 1869 as lots 10 and 11. We know that lot 11 is now in the Whitworth Art Gallery (Lyles, op. cit. no.40) and is described by Ruskin in the catalogue as `Dead Pheasant. Finished study. Superb.’ This is likely to be lot 10 described as `Dead Pheasant. Slight, but a beautiful example of Turner’s most rapid work in the middle period.’

John Ruskin is known to have owned at least five studies of dead game by Turner with others examples in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Lyles, op. cit., no.38), Indianapolis Museum of Art (Lyles no.60) and one location unknown (Lyles no.65). Ruskin praised Turner’s natural history drawings as `ultimate refinements’ of colour, highlighting ‘the grey down of the birds and the subdued iridescences of the fish’ (see E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (eds.), Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, p.370.

A study of a dead pheasant by Ruskin himself, clearly influenced by Turner, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (D.394-1907).

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27David Cox (1783-1859)The Ricks Yard, Willan’s Farm, Paddington

Inscribed on old label attached to the backboard: Working in the Ricks Yard, Wellings Farm, PaddingtonWatercolour over pencil23.5 by 33 cm., 9 ¼ by 13 in.

Provenance:Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 13th November 1980, lot 196

Willan’s Farm, or Marylebone Park Farm, was in the possession of Thomas Willan (c.1755-1828) of Twyford Abbey, Ealing, in the early nineteenth century. He was a stagecoach proprietor of the Bull and Mouth Inn near Aldergate. The large dairy farm covered 288 acres and stood in the south-west corner of what is now Regents Park and had between 800 and 1,000 cows. The land belonged to the Duke of Portland but when the leases expired in 1811, the Prince Regent commissioned John Nash to design Regent’s Park. A portrait of Willan on horseback, by Benjamin Marshall, is in the National Sporting Library and Museum, Virginia.

28David Cox (1783-1859)Shipping off Greenwich

Signed on sail: D. CoxWatercolour over traces of pencil heightened with bodycolour and scratching out15.6 by 22.6 cm., 6 by 8 ¾ in.

Provenance:Bought at the Fine Art Society, London, by 1962;By family descent until 2019

Exhibited:Probably London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1829, no.321 as ‘Boats on the Thames, off Greenwich’, bought D. Colnaghi for 4 guineas

This is one of a series of Thames views by Cox dating from the late 1820s.

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29David Cox (1783-1859)Redcoats riding through the Pass of Nant Ffrancon, North Wales

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour22.3 by 33.8cm. 8 ¾ by 13 ¼ in.

Provenance:With Spink and Son, London, where bought by the present owner

The Nant Francon pass in Snowdonia is a steep road (now the A5) between Bethesda and Llyn Ogwen. The original road, constructed by Lord Penrhyn in the late eighteenth century, mainly followed the valley floor. However Thomas Telford built the current road, between 1810 and 1826, on the north-east slopes of Nant Francon, a steep-sided glacial valley.

This relates closely to the print published in Roscoe’s ‘Wanderings in North Wales’, 1836, p.164, pl. XXV

30David Cox (1783-1859)A Rocky Hillside, North Wales

Signed lower left: David CoxWatercolour over pencil36.9 by 53.6 cm., 14 ½ by 21 ¼ in.

Provenance:With Andrew Wyld, London, 2006;Private Collection, UK

Literature:Andrew Wyld, Watercolours and Drawings, 2006, no.37, ill.

Exhibited:London, Andrew Wyld, Watercolours and Drawings, 7th June to 7th July 2006, no.37

This unusually large late work by Cox dates from the late 1840s or early 1850s.

3736

31David Cox (1783-1859)Windmill in a Landscape

Signed lower left: David CoxOil on board21.3 by 36.3 cm., 8 ¼ by 14 ¼ in.

Provenance:Count Vladimir Caruana (1926-2009), Stour House, Sandwich, Kent, his sale, Woolley and Wallis, 16th February 2010, lot 197;Private Collection, UK

Although early in his career Cox experimented with oil, it was only in 1839, when he took lessons in oil painting from William James Müller (see no.32) and then following his retirement as drawing master in 1841 that he was able to fully develop his interest in the medium. His enthusiasm for his ‘adopted’ medium is evident in the letter he wrote to his son in 1843, when he stated, ‘I only wish I had begun earlier in life; the pleasure in oil is so very satisfactory’. (Stephen Wildman in Scott Wilcox, Sun Wind and Rain, the Art of David Cox, 2008, p. 113). He continued ‘there is not half the trouble with oil as with water-colours. I should never again touch water-colours only for my honour and duty to the society I belong to.’ (op. cit, p. 117).

32William James Müller (1812-1845)Wooded Landscape with Sheep

Signed lower left: W. Muller 1843Oil on panel22.8 by 40 cm., 9 by 15 ¾ in.

Provenance:Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 10th June 2003, lot 62;Private Collection until 2019

After his trip to Greece and Egypt in 1838-9, Müller moved to London where he found lodgings on Rupert Street and then 22 Charlotte St, with his fellow artist

Edward Dighton. His friend George Arthur Fripp was already in London and introduced him to the artist David Cox (1783-1859). Cox had just started painting in oil and having watched Müller’s virtuoso handling of oil, took some lessons from the younger artist. ’Cox afterwards told Fripp how much he had been pleased, and that his expectations had been even more fulfilled’ (see N.Neal Solly, Memoir of the Life of David Cox, 1875, pp.89). In October 1841, Cox wrote to his son in London asking him to visit Müller’s dealer with the aim of swapping some of his own drawings for works by Müller: ‘I very much admire Mr Müller’s style, it is quite to my feeling, both in breadth and colour. I should much prefer a scene with some trees and water….’ (Solly, op. cit., p.113).

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33Joshua Cristall (1768-1847)Glen Falloch, Scotland

Inscribed lower right: Glen FallochBrown washes over pencil on two sheets of laid paper joined19.4 by 31.6 cm., 7 ½ by 12 ¼ in.

Provenance:With Spink Leger, London, 2000;Private Collection, London Exhibited:London, Spink Leger, Feeling through the Eye – The ‘New’ Landscape in Britain 1800-1830, 14th March to 19th April 2000, no. 10

Literature:Sarah Hobrough and Lowell Libson, Feeling through the Eye – The ‘New’ Landscape in Britain 1800-1830, exhibition catalogue 2000, no. 10, p.58, ill. Despite the inscription, this was misidentified as a Welsh view in the 2000 exhibition. This sketchbook page dates from Cristall’s only trip to Scotland in July and August 1818. Glen Falloch runs between Crianlarich and the north end of Loch Lomond mostly following the course of the river Falloch. A similar, although smaller, brown wash sketch drawn at Killin in Scotland and dated 1818 is in the Oppé collection in the Tate Gallery. Two finished watercolours of Scottish views are in the V & A, ‘A Scottish peasant girl embroidering muslin at Luss, Loch Lomond’ dated 1846, and ‘Highlander Drovers at Inverary.’

34Francis Danby, A.R.A. (1793-1861)Cader Idris, North Wales

Watercolour over pencil18.6 by 29.7 cm., 7 ¼ by 11 ½ in.

Provenance:With Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd (no.47584), 1986;Private Collection

Literature:Francis Greenacre, Francis Danby 1793-1861, exhibition catalogue, 1988, p.168

Francis Greenacre (op. cit.) dates this watercolour to circa 1820. An earlier view of Cader Idris by Danby is in the Courtauld Institute (D.1952.RW.4553). Danby is recorded as visiting Wales in 1813 but there is little firm evidence to support it.

Danby had trained in Dublin and in 1813 visited London with his fellow artists James O’Connor (1792-1841) and George Petrie (1789-1866). They were there only a few weeks before they ran out of money and Danby and O’Connor walked to Bristol with the intention of finding a boat to take them back to Ireland. However Danby found in Bristol a market for his landscapes and portraits and resolved to stay a while. In 1824, he moved to London and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1817. By the 1820s he became famous for his grand landscape paintings. According to Redgrave ‘Danby will always take high rank with the lovers of art and genius. His imagination was of the highest class, his landscapes of the truest poetry’ (see Samuel Redgrave, A Dictionary of Artists of the English School, 1878, p.113).

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35Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding (1787-1855)View of Ben Vorlich, looking up Loch Lomond, West Highlands

Signed lower left: Copley Fielding 1847 and inscribed verso: View of Loch Lomond looking up to Ben VorlichWatercolour over traces of pencil heightened with bodycolour, scratching out, stopping out and gum arabic18.4 by 26.3 cm., 7 ¼ by 10 ¼ in.

Provenance:The Rev. Humphrey Waldo-Sibthorp (1786-1865) of Washingbury near Lincoln, 1848;By descent to Mabel Waldo-Sibthorp (1878-1964);By descent to her daughter Rosamund Mary Edith Cholmeley (1904-1984);With Spink and Son, London, 1993

Exhibited:London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1848, no.273, bt. Rev. Sibthorp for 7 gns

Copley Fielding drew this view on a number of occasions and the composition, looking up a loch with a mountain beyond, is typical of his watercolours

The first owner of this watercolour was The Rev. Humphrey Waldo-Sibthorp who was born into an ancient Lincolnshire family, the 4th son of Col. Humphry Waldo-Sibthorp. He served as Rector of Washingborough, Lincolnshire between 1817 and 1824, before serving as Rector at Hatton, Lincolnshire until his death. It remained with descendants until 1984.

36Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding (1787-1855)Caistor Castle, near Yarmouth, Norfolk

Signed lower right: Copley Fielding 1846Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and gum arabic25.6 by 35.7 cm., 10 by 14 in.

Provenance:Henry Wilkinson of Clapham Common, 1846

Exhibited:London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1846, no.139, bought Wilkinson for £1.18.0

Caistor Castle lies about five miles to the north of Yarmouth and was built for the distinguished soldier and diplomat, Sir John Fastolf between 1433 and 1446. It was one of the earliest brick houses in England and despite being largely ruined, is one of the best-preserved brick castles of the period. Its impressive 90ft tower is still standing, and the castle houses the largest private collection of motor vehicles in the country.

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37Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding (1787-1855)Vessels on the Shore at Southampton

Signed lower right: Copley Fielding and signed verso: Vefsels on the Shore at Southampton Copley Fielding/1833Watercolour heightened with bodycolour, gum arabic and scratching out25.7 by 36.3 cm., 10 ¼ by 14 ½ in.

Provenance:John Lewis Brown (d.1836);With Leger Galleries, London, 1954;With Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, 2016, where bought by the father of the present owners

Literature:Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, British Drawings and Watercolours, 2016, no.46

Exhibited:London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1833, no.321, bought J.L. Brown

This watercolour was bought at the Old Watercolour Society by John Lewis Brown (d.1836), a Bordeaux wine merchant and an important collector of Bonington’s work. Four auctions of his collection took place between 1835 and 1843.

38William Turner of Oxford (1789 - 1862)Otmoor, near Oxford

Signed lower right: W. TurnerWatercolour over touches of pencil heightened with bodycolour and scratching out20.9 by 37.5 cm., 8 ¼ by 14 ½ in.

Provenance:With the Fine Art Society, London, 1957;Private Collection until 2019

Otmoor is an area of wetland to the north-east of Oxford and is now a nature reserve. This may be the picture exhibited at the Society of Painters in Watercolour in 1831 as ‘Ottmoor, Oxfordshire – as it occasionally appeared previous to the Enclosure’.

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39Peter de Wint (1784-1849)A Ruined Abbey by a River

Watercolour over pencil26 by 39.3 cm., 10 ¼ by 15 ½ in.

Stylistically this watercolour dates from circa 1815-20 when the influence of Thomas Girtin is still evident in de Wint’s work.

40William Green (1760–1823)The Foot of Wastwater Lake near Ravenglass, Cumberland

Watercolour over traces of pencil36.1 by 50.6 cm., 14 by 19 ¾ in.

Provenance:Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 7th October 1975, lot 88 as by Amos Green

Situated in the Wasdale valley, Wastwater is the deepest of the Lakes and covers an area almost 3miles long by ½ mile wide. The present view looks across Wastwater towards Yewbarrow on the left and Great Gable in the centre, largely hidden by the dramatic sky.

The Manchester born Green, initially trained as a surveyor and cartographer, before establishing himself as an artist. He settled in Ambleside in about 1800, and spent the next twenty years exploring and recording the region. The watercolours that he produced of the Lake District proved enormously popular not only with local residents, but also with tourists. This popularity encouraged him to publish various series of aquatints and etchings of the area, including in 1804 a series of 60 aquatints. In 1810 he published his Studies from Nature, a series of 60 large etchings and in 1819 his two volume Tourist’s New Guide. On his death, the poet William Wordsworth wrote his epitaph. There is a similar watercolour from the same viewpoint, with a less dramatic sky, in Manchester Art Gallery.

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41 John Varley (1778-1842) View of Willesden Church lighted for Evening Service; Harrow in the distance

Signed lower right: J. Varley and again verso: Wilsden church/Middlesex with/Harrow church in the distance/J. Varley/April 7. 1829Watercolour over traces of pencil heightened with bodycolour, varnished17 by 24.5 cm., 7 by 9 ½ in.

Provenance:With Walker Galleries, London, 1959;With Leger Galleries, London, December 1967;Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 5th June 2008, lot 215, where bought by the present owner

Exhibited:Probably, London, Royal Academy, 1829, no.602

This shows St Mary’s Church, Willesden depicted looking west from the High Road. It originally dates from the tenth century and was home to one of the great medieval pilgrimage sites until the shrine to the Madonna was destroyed in 1538 during the Reformation.

42John Varley (1778-1842)View of Belgrave House and Westminster Bridge from a Sketch taken in 1811, shortly before it was pulled down

Signed lower right: J. Varley/1824 and signed and inscribed verso: View of Belgrave house & Westminster Bridge/from a Sketch taken in 1811. A Short time before it was pulld down/J. Varley Nov.r 8th 1824. and inscribed with notes of identificationWatercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour, stopping out and gum arabic20.9 by 29.1 cm., 8 ¼ by 11 ½ in.

Provenance:Spetchley Park, Worcestershire

Exhibited:London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1825, no.121 as ‘Belgrave House – Milbank’

Belgrave House, situated on the Thames at Millbank, was called Grosvenor House when it was owned by the Grosvenor family from 1677 until 1806 when the family house was moved to Park Lane. It was renamed Belgrave House but was demolished in about 1813. The site is now roughly where Millbank Tower, built in 1963, stands.

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43John Varley (1778-1842)Ouse Bridge, York

Signed lower right: J. VARLEY. and verso: Ouse Bridge/York/J. VarleyWatercolour over pencil heightened with scratching out14.5 by 19.7 cm., 5 ¾ by 7 ¾ in.


Exhibited:London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1826, no.65, sold for 4 guineas

Varley visited Yorkshire in the summer of 1803 and the places he visited and the sketches he produced during that visit provided inspiration throughout his life. The present subject shows Ouse Bridge from the south, with St William’s Chapel on the end of the bridge. St William’s Chapel was turned into apartments following the Reformation. The bridge in this watercolour with its wide central span, was opened in 1566 and demolished in 1810. The bridge which currently spans the river was its replacement, finished in 1821.

44John Varley (1778-1842)London from Greenwich

Signed lower right: J. Varley and signed again verso: London/from Greenwich/J. Varley 1822Watercolour over pencil heightened with stopping out15 by 19.5 cm., 5 ¾ by 7 ¾ in.


Exhibited:London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1823, no.72

This is one of Varley’s most popular London views taken from the top of Greenwich Park. To the left is the Royal Observatory founded in 1675 with the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral prominent in the distance across the Thames. Greenwich was in the news in 1822 as the point of departure of George IV on his way to Scotland in August of that year.

There are a number of versions of this view by Varley (see Timothy Wilcox, John Varley 1778-1842, 2008, no.24, ill.).

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45John Varley (1778-1842)A Cottage by a River

Signed lower left: J. VarleyWatercolour over pencil heightened with stopping out14.5 by 20.3 cm., 5 ¾ by 8 in.


This is likely to be one of the pictures exhibited at the Society of Painters in Water-colours in the mid 1820s entitled ‘Cottage Scene’.

46John Varley (1778-1842)Doe Castle, Co. Donegal, Ireland

Signed verso: General Harts Castle/Ireland/J. VarleyWatercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and gum arabic14.2 by 20.4 cm., 5 ½ by 8 in.

Provenance:Sir Charles Forbes, 1st Bt. (1774-1849);Spetchley Park, Worcestershire

Exhibited:London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1825, no.135, bt. Sir Charles Forbes, Surrey Square, for 4 guineas

Doe Castle stands near Creeslough in County Donegal. The castle was probably built by the O’Donnell family in the early fifteenth century but by the 1440s it belonged to the MacSweeney family. The castle changed hands repeatedly in the seventeenth century during the Anglo-Irish wars for the control of Ireland. Eventually the castle was bought by the English army officer General George Vaughan Hart (1752-1832) and it remained in his family until 1843.

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47John Varley (1778-1842)View of Box Hill from the Park at Polesden Lacey, Surrey

Watercolour over pencil heightened with gum arabic on laid paper29 by 47.4 cm., 11 ¼ by 18 ½ in.

Dr Thomas Monro invited Varley to his house in Fetcham in 1800 (see note to no.48) and Varley frequently returned to the area. He took Varley sketching in the local area, to Polesden Lacey, and to the nearby Norbury Park where he drew ‘Box Hill from Norbury Park’ and another view of Norbury Park (see Adrian Bury, John Varley of the ‘Old Society’, 1946, plates 4 and 5).

48John Varley (1778-1842)View of Polesden Lacey, Surrey through Trees

Watercolour over traces of pencil heightened with gum arabic37.2 by 26.7 cm., 14 ½ by 10 ½ in.

John Varley first visited Polesden Lacey with Dr Monro, who lived in nearby Fetcham, in 1800, when the house belonged to Richard Sheridan. Dr Thomas Monro (1759-1833) was an early supporter and patron of Turner and Girtin whose works Varley would have seen in his collection. He was the physician at Bethlem Hospital and his London house on Adelphi Terrace off The Strand was a magnet for young artists.

A watercolour in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle is inscribed on the verso: View from Polesden near Bookham made in company with Dr. Monro by J. Varley Oct. 1800 (see C.M. Kauffmann, John Varley 1778-1842, 1984, p.15, fig. 2). The present watercolour dates from a much later visit (see Kauffmann, p.18, no.7) and shows the house designed by Thomas Cubitt for Joseph Bonsor, thus dating it to 1823 or after. This watercolour show’s Cubitt’s classical building from the side with its ten column colonnade visible to the left. The house was knocked down and rebuilt in 1903.

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50William Wyld (1806-1889)Figures on a Beach, Northern France

Signed on barrel lower right: W Wyld 1832Watercolour over traces of pencil heightened with bodycolour, gum arabic, scratching out and stopping out50.3 by 73.8 cm., 19 ¾ by 29 in.

Provenance:Miss B.A. Thorpe, her sale, Sotheby’s, 20th July 1978, lot 141

This early work dates from the period that Wyld was living in Epernay, France. In 1826 he was asked by a London-based wine importer to set up a branch in France and he remained there for six years making regular trips to Paris and the French coast. In 1833, Wyld’s younger brother took over his job in Epernay and he set off on a sketching tour to Algiers where he remained for six months.

A watercolour of the same size and similar composition. `View of Algiers’ is in the Musee Boucher de Parthes, Abbeville (see Marcia Pointon, Bonington, Francia & Wyld, 1985, p.73, ill. as fig. 35). This work shows the early influence of Bonington on Wyld’s work. He knew Bonington’s father while working in Calais in the 1820s and took lessons in watercolours from Françia, another important influence.

49Thomas Hartley Cromek (1809-1873)Houses on the Tarpeian Rock, Capitol Hill, Rome

Inscribed lower right: The Tarpeian rockWatercolour over pencil34.6 by 33.3 cm., 13 ½ by 13 in.

Provenance:With Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, London, 2000, where bought by the father of the present owner

Literature:Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, English Watercolours, Drawings and Small Oil Paintings, exhibition catalogue, 2000, no. 88, ill.

Exhibited:London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, English Watercolours, Drawings and Small Oil Paintings, 1st to 24th March 2000, no. 88

The Tarpeian Rock or Rupe Tarpea was in the gardens of the Casa Tarpea on the Capitol Hill. In Roman times, criminals were thrown off it. Cromek was born in London, the son of engraver, and was apprenticed to a portrait painter in Wakefield, Yorkshire. He soon became a landscape painter and lived and worked on the continent, mainly in Rome, from 1831 to 1849. He built up a successful teaching practice there until 1849 when he was forced home by Garibaldi’s threatened attack on Rome.

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51Thomas Miles Richardson Senior (1784-1848)Conway Castle, North Wales

Signed lower right: T.M. Richardson/Senr/1847Watercolour over traces of pencil heightened with bodycolour and scratching out47.3 by 77 cm., 18 ½ by 30 ¼ in.

Provenance:With Appleby Brothers, London;With Thos Agnew & Sons Ltd (no.23640);Private Collection since 2006

Richardson Senior was referred to during his lifetime as ’The Father of the Fine Arts in Newcastle’ He succeeded his father as Master of St Andrew’s Charity School, Newcastle in 1806, while also working as a drawing master. In 1813 he resigned to devote himself to art alone and organised many of the earliest art exhibitions in Newcastle. He remained in Newcastle all his life but travelled and exhibited widely, mostly British topographical views.

Interestingly his depiction of Conwy Castle looking north up the estuary of the Conwy river does not show Telford’s suspension bridge across the river which was built in 1822-26. The catalyst for this picture which dates from 1847 may have been the construction of the railway bridge, next to Telford’s bridge, which began in 1846.

52James Baker Pyne (1800-1870)Figures sketching near the Avon Gorge, Bristol

Signed lower left: PYNE 33 Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour20.3 by 28 cm., 8 by 11 in.

Provenance:With Agnew’s, 2002;Private collection, UK, until 2011;With Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, 2012;Private Collection

Exhibited:London, Agnew’s, 129th Annual Watercolour Exhibition, 2002, no.68;Guy Peppiatt, British Drawings and Watercolours, summer catalogue, 2012, no.53

This shows a painter and his companion sketching above the Avon Gorge looking towards the Severn estuary with the sun setting behind Cook’s Folly. Cook’s Folly was a tower built by the Bristol City Chamberlain John Cook in the late seventeenth century on his Sneyd Park estate.

Bristol-born Pyne was initially intended for a career in law but abandoned this in about 1821 in favour of painting. He travelled through France with fellow Bristol artist, Edward Villiers Rippingille in 1832 and on his return helped re-establish the Bristol School sketching club with his former pupil, William Muller amongst others, before moving to London in 1835. In 1842 he was made a member of the Society of British Artists, serving as Vice-President for many years.

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53David Roberts, R.A. (1796-1864)Oberwesel on the Rhine, Germany

Signed lower right: D. Roberts/1831Watercolour heightened with bodycolour, scratching out and gum arabic21.2 by 31.1 cm., 8 ½ by 12 ¼ in.

Provenance:With Thos. Agnew & Sons, London (no.2380);With Walker’s Galleries, London;With Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, 2016;Private Collection, UK

Literature:Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, British Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, 2016, p.33, no.29, ill.

Exhibited:London, Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, British Drawings and Watercolours, May to June 2016, no.29

Engraved:By E. Goodall as a steel engraving, 1831

Roberts visited Oberwesel on his trip down the Rhine in the summer of 1830. He was in Cologne on 29th July and went as far south as Heidelberg. Oberwesel is a town on the Middle Rhine about 25 miles south of Koblenz. The tower in the foreground, the Ochsenturm or ‘Ox’s Tower’ has an octagonal top tower and is part of the town walls originally built in the early thirteenth century with sixteen defensive towers. On the hill beyond is the Schönburg, a castle originally built in the twelfth century.

54William Callow, R.W.S. (1812-1908)Piazza Maggiore, Bologna, looking towards Piazza del Nettuno

Signed lower left: W. CallowWatercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour22.5 by 31 cm., 9 by 12 ¼ in.

Provenance:With the Fine Art Society, London, November 1957;Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 12th June 2003, lot 157, where bought by the father of the present owner

This is a view looking north from Piazza Maggiore, Bologna. To the left is the façade of the Palazzo Communale with the tower called Torre Scappi beyond. The elaborate church is the façade of the Cattedrale di San Pietro.

Callow was a frequent visitor to Italy from 1840 onwards. Another version of this view, dated 1844, was sold at Christie’s on 8th July 1986, lot 152 and a later pencil drawing, dated May 1877, was sold at Sotheby’s on 16th November 1989, lot 143. A slightly smaller watercolour of the two towers, Bologna was sold at Christie’s on 7th July 2015, lot 99 for £11,250.

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55William Callow, R.W.S. (1812-1908)Looking up the Grand Canal, Venice

Signed lower right: William Callow/1866 and again verso: No.3/Venice from near the St Giorgios & grand Canal/by/William Callow R.W.S./The Firs/G.t MissendenWatercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour29.4 by 76.5 cm., 11 ½ by 30 in.

Provenance:Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 16th March 1982, lot 142;Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 14th April 1994, lot 521;Private Collection, UK

Exhibited:London, Society of Painters in Water-Colours, 1866, no.4

Callow first visited Venice in 1840 when his visit coincided with Turner and they were staying in the same hotel. Callow wrote in his diary:‘The next time I met Turner was at Venice, at the Hotel Europa, where we sat opposite at meals and entered into conversation. One evening whilst I was enjoying a cigar in a gondola I saw Turner in another one sketching San Giorgio, brilliantly lit up by the setting sun. I felt quite ashamed of myself idling away my time whilst he was hard at work so late’ (William Callow – an Autobiography, edited by H.M. Cundall, 1908, pp.66-67). Venice was Callow’s favourite city and his Venetian views are his most sought after pictures.

This is a view looking west along the Riva degli Schiavoni. To the left is the dome of the church of Santa Maria della Salute which stands at the entrance to the Grand Canal. To the right is the gothic façade of the Doge’s Palace with the Campanile behind.

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56William Page (1794-1872)An Album of Watercolours of Turkish, Greek, Swiss and Italian Views and Figure Studies

Including views of or figure studies taken at Berne, Geneva, Fribourg, Brientz, Mont Blanc, between Domodossola and Baveno, St Maurice, Lauerzer Zee, Engelberg, Brig, the Hubschhorn, Pisa, Mytilene, Athens, on the Bosphorus, Alexandria Troas, Morea, Zante, Ithaca, Constantinople, Boursa Bashi and Koum KaliFifty-nine, twenty-two signed, most inscribed with title on sheet or mountEach watercolour or brown washesVarious sizes

William Page was born in London and studied at the Royal Academy from 1812 and exhibited there from 1816. Otherwise little is known of his early life. Presumably in 1817, Page left London for an extended tour to Greece and Turkey via Switzerland, with Lady Ruthven (1789 – 1885) and her brother William Campbell (1793 – 1821), who were cousins of Lady Elgin’s and thus would have heard at first hand the Elgin’s accounts of their time in the region. They were in Athens by 1818. The Italian artist Giovanni Battista Lusieri wrote to his patron Lord Elgin from Athens on 7th May 1819 that Page ’has much talent…. and has made a quantity of drawings which will bring him much honour’ (Elgin Family archive, quoted in Aidan Weston-Lewis, Expanding Horizons: Giovanni Battista Lusieri and the Panoramic Landscape, 2012, p.185, note 82). Page continued to Constantinople where he arrived in May 1821.

In the spring of 1821, the Greek war of Independence broke out, which cut Page’s trip short. Views in the album of Corfu, Zante and Ithaca suggest they travelled home via the west coast of Greece. Campbell died in Corfu in the summer of 1821 having contracted a fever. They then likely crossed to Southern Italy, perhaps visiting Naples and Pisa (see drawings in the album) on their way north. This previously unrecorded album is a fascinating record of Page’s trip. Apart from the many Greek and Turkish views, it gives us an insight into Page’s route there through Switzerland which has never previously been recorded. The grouping of subjects suggest that he travelled one way on a more northern route via Fribourg, Berne, lake Brienz, the Lauerzer Zee and Engelberg, and perhaps on the way back via the Simplon Pass, the Valais Region and Geneva.

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57John Middleton (1827-1856)A Pile of Logs by a Barn in a Clearing

Watercolour over pencil43.6 by 65.7 cm., 17 by 25 ¾ in.

Provenance:With Anthony Reed, London, 1979, where bought by John Byng Kenrick (1911-2002), his sale, Christie’s, 5th June 2003, lot 91;Eustace Gibbs, 3rd Baron Wraxall (1929-2017)

Middleton trained under Henry Bright and John Berney Ladbrooke and is regarded as the last member of the Norwich School of Artists, founded in 1803 by Ladbrooke’s father Robert and uncle John Crome. Apart from a brief two year spell in London from 1847, Middleton spent his life in his native Norwich. Throughout his career, he was especially captivated by trees, both standing trees and woodland, as well as cut timber and piles of logs in landscapes, which afforded him the opportunity to explore the full range of the visual effects of different textures and the interplay of light and shade.

58Edward Lear (1812-1888)Mount of Olives, Jerusalem

Inscribed lower left: Mount of Olives/4.20 PM 10 April 1867. and numbered 31 lower rightPen and brown ink and watercolour over traces of pencil24 by 50.1 cm., 9 ½ by 19 ¾ in.

Provenance:Sir Franklin Lushington (1823-1901);By descent until 1929;With Craddock and Barnard, London, where bought by Lady Alethea Buxton, December 1931;Private Collection until 2019

This on-the-spot sketch dates from Lear’s second visit to Palestine in the spring of 1867 and he was once more captivated by the beauty of Jerusalem. He initially intended to only spend a few days there, wanting to visit Nazareth and Galilee, which he had not made on his first trip, but the volume of numbers of pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem, stopped his plans and he remained in Jerusalem. Lear records in his diary

for 10th April, that he ‘went to Mount of Olives to fix plan for tents: - & drew the most beautiful view towards the dead sea until 4 or 4.30. Came down slowly towards Siloam’. (Diary, 10th April).

This drawing belonged to Sir Franklin Lushington, a close friend of the artist who amassed a considerable collection of the artist’s work. In 1929 Lushington’s daughter Mildred sold the collection through the dealers Barnard and Craddock of Museum St, London. Some entered the British Museum, whilst most were dispersed on the open market.

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59David Roberts, R.A. (1796-1864)View of Tetouan from the Terrace of Cohen’s House, Morocco

Indistinctly signed lower left: D. Roberts and inscribed lower centre: Tituan from the Terrace of Cohen’s house in the/Jews town april 10th 1833Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour on two sheets of joined grey paper23 by 67.9 cm., 9 by 26 ¾ in.

Provenance:The Artist’s studio sale, Christie’s, 15th May 1865, lot 350;Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 25th January 1902, lot 90;Mrs Viola Bicknell, her sale, Christie’s, 17th June 1969, lot 170, bt. Agnew’s;Private Collection, circa 1971 until 2019

Literature:Katharine Sim, David Roberts, R.A. (1796-1864) - A Biography, 1984, p.86

Exhibited:London, Architectural Association, 9 Conduit Street, A Collection of Pictures, Drawings, Sketches, & Etchings by David Roberts RA, 1865, no.616

This on-the-spot sketch is a rare work from Roberts’s first foray outside Europe, to Morocco in March and April 1833. Leaving London in October 1832, he reached Madrid in December and travelled on to Cordoba, Granada, Malaga, Ronda and crossed to Tangiers from Gibraltar in March 1833. He wrote to his friend David Ramsay Hay at the end of March from Tangiers that he was ‘indeed in a New World’ and that ‘Yesterday was Market day – only fancy an African Market – I am so bewildered I cannot trust myself to write about it, only rely upon it I am not idle..’ (letter to Hay, 29th March 1833, National Library of Scotland).

Tetouan lies about 35 miles south-east of Tangiers at the foot of the Rif Mountain and the journey took Roberts through beautiful countryside. Having reached Tetouan, he got into trouble for not announcing his visit in advance as Christians were supposed to do. He was rescued by his host Mr Cohen who acted as his interpreter and guide during his eight days in Tetouan. Four views of Tetouan after Roberts were engraved for Thomas Roscoe’s Spain and Morocco published in 1838. A watercolour preparatory to an engraving, Tetuan: The Great Square, is in the Wallace Collection, London.

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60Edward Duncan (1803-1882)A ship in distress off the Coast at Sunset

Signed lower right: E. Duncan/1865Watercolour over traces of pencil heightened with bodycolour, stopping out and scratching out25 by 37 cm., 9 ¾ by 14 ½ in.

Provenance:Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 4th December 2008, lot 159

Duncan was born in St Pancras, London, and apprenticed as a young man to Robert Havell, who specialised in aquatint engravings, and his brother the watercolourist William Havell. After his apprenticeship he set up his own studio

working principally for the publishers Fores of Piccadilly. In 1826 he embarked on a project to engrave maritime scenes after paintings by the artist William Huggins and this appears to have sparked his interest in marine subject matter. He married Huggins’s daughter and embarked on a successful career as a marine and coastal painter exhibiting over 500 watercolours at the New and Old Watercolour Societies from 1833, as well as at the Royal Academy and the Society of British Artists. He also produced country scenes, mainly of the South of England.

61Alfred William Hunt (1830-1896)Hart O’Corry, Glen Sligachan, Isle of Skye

Signed lower left: AWHunt/1878Watercolour heightened with stopping out and scratching out25.5 by 35.3 cm., 10 by 13 ¾ in.

Provenance:With the Fine Art Society, London, July 1970

Exhibited:London, Society of Painters in Water-colour, Summer 1881, no.124

Hunt visited the west coast of Scotland on various occasions in the late 1860s and 1870s. His first visit was in the summer 1868 when he was invited on a friend’s yacht to sail around the west coast of Scotland. Glen Sligachan runs along the course of river Sligachan into the Cuillin Hills south of the village of the same name.

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62William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)A House on the Nile at Damietta, Egypt

Inscribed with notes Pencil22.2 by 14 cm., 8 ¾ by 5 ½ in.

Provenance:By descent in the artist’s family until sold by Mrs Elisabeth Burt, Sotheby’s, 10th October 1975, lot 17;Bought Fine Art Society; Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 20th November 2003, lot 155 (part).

Exhibited: Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery and London Victoria and Albert Museum, William Holman Hunt, 1969, no. 146;Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, on loan 1965 – 1985;London, Fine Art Society, Style; Art and Design 1830 – 1880: Selections from Stock, 1998, no 75.

Literature: W. Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1905, vol. I, pp, 395, 396, ill.;W. Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1913, vol. I, pp, 287, 290, ill.; J. Bronkhurst, William Holman Hunt: A Catalogue Raisonné, Vol II, Drawings and Watercolours 2006, D.98, p. 59

In January 1854, Holman Hunt set out for Egypt and Palestine in order to gather material for his plan to depict biblical scenes in their actual settings and thus to add ‘truth to nature’, which was so key to Holman Hunt’s work. He and Edward Lear had initially discussed undertaking a trip to Egypt and the Near East, when the two artists were staying at Clive Vale Farm, near Hastings in the summer of 1852. Lear took lessons from Hunt and in return taught Hunt Italian. In the end the two men never travelled together. Lear arrived first, reaching Cairo in December 1853, and although Lear’s initial plan was to wait for Hunt, the latter was delayed finishing The Light of the World. Lear was offered the chance to travel up the Nile and so Thomas Seddon, who was also in the region and Holman Hunt travelled without Lear.

In May 1854, Hunt and Seddon travelled by boat down the Nile from Cairo to Jaffa and found themselves becalmed for a few days in Damietta (Dumyat), waiting to cross the bar. Hunt described the town as having ‘some pleasantly arranged houses on the harbour, with courtyards looking on the water, reminding one of Holland or Venice’. (W. Holman Hunt, op. cit, p. 287). Thomas Seddon further described the town as lying very picturesquely upon a hill, sloping down to the riverside, where many of the merchant’s houses have small court-yards in front, fitted up with benches, and with

roofs of trellis-work covered in vines, and with stone steps leading down to the river’. (J. Bronkhurst, op. cit, p. 59)

63William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)The Descent to the Tomb of David, the Coenculum, Jerusalem

Inscribed lower centre: Over the descent to the tomb of David in the church built by the Empress Helena to/commomorate [sic] the place of the Last Supper Jerusalem June 1854Pencil22.2 by 14 cm., 8 ¾ by 5 ½ in.

Provenance:By descent in the artist’s family until sold by Mrs Elisabeth Burt, Sotheby’s, 10th October 1975, lot 27 (part); Bought Fine Art Society, London;Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 20th November 2003, lot 155 (part)

Exhibited: Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery and London Victoria and Albert Museum, William Holman Hunt, 1969, no. 158;Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, on loan 1965 – 1985;London, Fine Art Society, Style; Art and Design 1830 – 1880: Selections from Stock, 1998, no 77.

Literature:W. Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1905, vol. II, p. 274, ill.;W. Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1913, vol. II, p. 220, ill.;J. Bronkhurst, William Holman Hunt: A Catalogue Raisonné, Vol II, Drawings and Watercolours 2006, D.108.

Holman Hunt first visited Jerusalem in the early autumn of 1854. He initially stayed with James Graham (1806 – 1869) who rented a small stone tower near the summit of the Mount of Olives as his summer retreat, before the artist took a house in the city, which served as his base until October 1855.

Hunt recorded his first sight of Jerusalem, ‘Suddenly and unbidden our beasts stopped, we raised our eyes and there all the scene had opened, a great landscape was spread out before us, and in the centre stood the city. Foursquare it was and compact in itself, without suburb, except the enclosure round the tomb of David…This then, was the stage on which the dramas were enacted which have stirred the blood of all the greatest Races on the face of the earth, and turned the current of all their purpose’. (W. Holman Hunt, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brothehood, 1913, vol. 1, p. 292).

The coenaculum sits on the southern brow of Mount Zion and is traditionally identified as the site of the Last Supper, as well as being the venerated as the Tomb of David (although he is not actually buried there) and is sacred to Christian’s, Jews and Muslims.

The artist’s focus in the present drawing is clearly the capital of one of the medieval columns which support the colonnade with its carvings of pelicans. The capital appears in one of Hunt’s illustrations for Sir Edwin Arnold’s The Light of the World, 1893, as well as in the background of Hunt’s 1857 illustration of Tennyson’s Godiva. (see Bronkhurst, op. cit., app. B36 and app. B9).

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64Andrew Nicholl, R.H.A. (1804-1886)Study of Eve’s Apple, Ceylon

Signed lower right: A Nicholl RHA and inscribed verso: Eve’s Apple. Ceylon/22nd March 1847./The flower has a texture like wax the fruit…Watercolour over traces of pencil36 by 25.2 cm., 14 by 9 ¾ in.

Provenance: The artist and by descent; Miss Nicholl, probably his sister Jane, by 1866; By family descent to c.1981.

Exhibited: 55 Donegal Place, Catalogue of Watercolour Drawings by the late Andrew Nicholl R.H.A., 26th May 1886, part of no., 199; London, Spink, Andrew Nicholl, the plants of Ceylon, 4th – 28th August 1981, no. 6

Literature: London, Spink, Andrew Nicholl, the plants of Ceylon, 1981, no. 6.

Born in Belfast, the son of a bootmaker, Nicholl was apprenticed to a printer for seven years from 1822. He came to the attention of the politician Sir James Emerson Tennent (1804-1869) who paid for him to spend two years in England in 1830. In 1845, Tennant was appointed Colonial Secretary to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and soon Nicholl joined him as drawing teacher at the Colombo Academy. In 1848 he accompanied Tennent on an official tour of the island recording its topography and vegetation and provided illustrations for Tennent’s book on Ceylon. As well as his views of Sri Lanka, he is known for his topographical views of Ireland often with a foreground of wild flowers.

An exhibition of more than 280 works by the artist, was organised by William Nicholl in Belfast in May 1886. In the introduction to the catalogue William stated that the object was to ‘vindicate the reputation of the late Mr Nicholl as an artist of no mean order’ (London, Spink, Andrew Nicholl, the Plants of Ceylon, 1981, introduction).

65John RuskinStudy of the Skeleton of a Dalmatian Pelican

Inscribed lower right: PelicanPencil on light blue paper15.8 by 23.1 cm., 6 ¼ by 9 in.

Provenance:Mr and Mrs Arthur Severn, Brantwood;Private Collection since 2003

Exhibited:London, Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, Ruskin Exhibition, 1901, no. 60 as ‘Pelican’s Head and Skull [two drawings]’;Manchester City Art Gallery, Ruskin Exhibition, 1904, no. 413 as ‘Pelican’s Head and Skull [two drawings]’ . London, The Fine Art Society, Ruskin Exhibition, 1907, no. 119 as ‘Pelican’s Head and Skull [two drawings]’ . London, Royal Academy of Arts, Ruskin Centenary Exhibition, 1919, no. 31 as ‘Head and skull of Pelican’.

This drawing was made from life at the Zoological Gardens in London. It relates to a drawing of a Dalmatian Pelican (sold at Christie’s on 17th June 2014, lot 51 for £20,000) and the two drawings were evidently mounted and exhibited together. E.T. Cook records that this latter drawing was ‘one of a large number of [studies of] different birds which Ruskin made from life at the Zoological Gardens’ (see E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn (eds.), Works of John Ruskin (Library Edition), 1912, vol. 25, p. liii). Ruskin mainly worked on natural history studies from 1870 onwards.

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66John Ruskin (1819-1900)The Matterhorn from the north-east, Switzerland

Signed with initials and inscribed lower centre: State of snow on Matterhorn in 1849. {J.R, on the spot, Aug. 2nd}/Sketch never completed; but if I cut the margin away, I should make the angles false, inscribed lower left: Matterhorn. 2nd August. P. 163. I and numbered 3 upper rightWatercolour over pencil24.2 by 33.7 cm., 9 ½ by 13 ¼ in.

Provenance:Given by Ruskin to his Drawing School Collection at Oxford but taken back by him in 1887;W.H. Willink by 1912; Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 26th September 2007, lot 243, where bought by the present owner

Literature:E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (eds.), The Works of John Ruskin, 1903-1912: vol.5, 1904 (Modern Painters, vol.3), p.xxvii; vol. 6, 1904 (Modern Painters, vol. 4), pl.38 (right) and pp.283 and 288; vol. 21, 1906 (The Ruskin Collection at Oxford), p.278, no. 119; and vol. 38, 1912, (Catalogue of Ruskin’s Drawings), p.267, no. 1121;E.T. Cook, The Life of John Ruskin, 1911, vol. I, p.250;Joan Evans and John Howard Whitehorse (eds.), The Diaries of John Ruskin 1848-1873, 1958, p.416, note 2. (where the drawing is incorrectly identified as ‘probably no. 1118 of Cook and Wedderburn’s catalogue of Ruskin drawings).

Exhibited:Kendal, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Sublime Inspiration: The Art of Mountains from Turner to Hillary, 1997, ex-catalogue

Engraved:By J.C. Armytage for Modern Painters, 1856, vol. 4, pl. 38

This important drawing is probably the first detailed study of the summit of the Matterhorn, a mountain that was not successfully climbed until 1865. Ruskin’s annotation ‘State of snow on Matterhorn in 1849’ is fascinating showing his early interest in what we would now call ‘climate change.’

Ruskin’s Swiss tour of 1849 was intended partly as a rest from his recent undertaking, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, which had been published in May and partly at preparation for further work on his Modern Painters. He arrived at Zermatt on 2 August and remained for a week, before returning to Chamonix. The present drawing was made the first day in Zermatt and Ruskin recorded in his diary: ‘A lovely day with sharp north wind. Drawing Matterhorn. Then up to a bed of overhanging rocks which I thought were marble, but found to be a pure and lovely quartz rock in thin folia.’

He wrote in more detail to his father, who had remained in Geneva, ‘I had glorious weather, and on Friday… I got up to a promontory projecting from the foot of the Matterhorn and lay on the rocks and drew it at my ease. I was about three hours at work, as quietly as if in my study at Denmark Hill, though on a peak of barren crag above a glacier and at least 9000 feet above sea’. (Cook and Wedderburn, op. cit.)

On 9 August, just before leaving, Ruskin made another study of the mountain, from further east from the moat of the Riffelhorn. (now in the Guild of St George at Sheffield) . A third drawing from the same trip is now in the Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard.

Ruskin made detailed descriptions and drawings of the Alps, including of the Matterhorn in Volume IV of Modern Painters, which he sub-titled ‘Of Mountain Beauty’. He not only drew the mountain, but also took a number of photographs in order to check the accuracy of his studies He describes the ‘Matterhorn or Mount Vervin [standing] on the whole unrivalled among the Alps, being terminated on two of its sides, by precipices which produce on the imagination nearly the effect of verticality’ (Cook and Wedderburn, op. cit, p. 283). Despite various attempts, the first successful ascent of the Matterhorn did not take place until July 1865 and Ruskin’s detailed drawings and photographs were intended to help the artist and the viewer fully understand the intrinsic nature and form of the mountain. The present drawing, along with the version in the Guild of St George, formed two halves of plate 38, in Modern Painters, which was engraved by J. C. Armytage, an engraver who Ruskin particularly favoured. The present drawing forms the right hand section.

Ruskin was fascinated by the effects of perspective on mountains and particularly on the Matterhorn, recording, ‘No mountain in the Alps produces a more vigorous impression of peakedness than the Matterhorn. In Professor Forbes’s work on the Alps, it is spoken of as an “obelisk” of rock... Naturally … we assume the mass to be a peak. However, Ruskin goes on to explain that the line we assume to be the steep slope of its side, is in fact ‘a perspective line. It is in reality perfectly horizontal…more or less irregular and broken, but so nearly horizontal that, after some prolonged examination of the data [he has] collected about the Matterhorn, [he is] at this moment in doubt which is its top. (Cook and Wedderburn, op. cit, p. 224). However, despite the scientific nature of Ruskin’s study and his desire to capture the ‘peakedness’ of the Matterhorn, the romantic nature of the subject with its awe-inspiring dominance of its surroundings clearly captivated the artist.

Despite Ruskin’s intention to continue work on Modern Painters in 1849, it was not until 1854 that he actually began working formally on it again and a further two years until volumes 3 and 4 were published. As James Deardon has noted, ‘This long interval, however, did not dull Ruskin’s impressions of Switzerland, so richly recorded in notes and drawings in 1849. Many a jotting in his notebooks was worked up into more formal prose, including some of the book’s most famous purple passages, while the plates are often based on his Alpine sketches’.

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67John Ruskin (1819-1900)The Ponte Vecchio, Florence

Signed lower right: JRuskin, inscribed lower left: Ponte Vecchio and lower right: B. 16.Pencil17.9 by 11.4 cm., 7 by 4 ½ in.

Provenance:Given by the artist to Joan Ruskin Severn (1846-1924);Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 12th July 1984, lot 45;Private Collection since 2007

Ruskin first visited Florence in 1870, the same year that he established the Oxford Drawing school. He returned in 1872 with the intention of drawing the Baptistery in connection with a series of lectures on architecture that he was giving at Oxford. Ruskin believed that the Baptistery was of crucial significance for the history of Christian architecture and painting. He returned a further twice to the city in 1874 and finally again in 1882, accompanied by William Gershom Collingwood. The two stayed at the Hotel Grand Bretagne near the Ponte Vecchio and the bridge and its environs formed the subject of several sketches by the artist.

During the early 1880s, Ruskin began work on a series of drawings which were to illustrate a proposed 9 volume history of Christianity. The first part, the Bible of Amiens was published in 1880 and he intended that one of the other volumes should be titled Ponte Vecchio. The current bridge was built in 1345, following a flood, which destroyed the old bridge. There have been shops on the bridge since it was built, although from the end of the 16th century only jewellers and goldsmiths were allowed to use these.

This drawing belonged to Joan Severn, Ruskin’s cousin who married the artist Joseph Severn (1793-1879) and who nursed Ruskin in his old age at Brantwood.

68John Ruskin (1819-1900)The West Towers of Laon Cathedral, France

Signed with initials lower rightWatercolour over pencil heightened with white on buff paper20 by 12.4 cm., 7 ¾ by 4 ¾ in.

Provenance:With Andrew Wyld, 2011, where bought by the present owner

Literature:Andrew Wyld (W.S. Fine Art), exhibition catalogue, Summer 2011, no. 42, pp.86-87, ill.

The present drawing is one of a small group of surviving pages from a small sketchbook that Ruskin used during his ten-month tour of France and Italy between September 1840 and end of June 1841. Undertaken on the advice of his doctor, to recover from a bout of ill health, Ruskin travelled with his parents and his cousin Mary Richardson. The party stopped in Laon on 21st June during the last few days of their tour.

Laon lies in the north-east of France, between Reims and Amiens and although Ruskin described the town as a ‘pretty old-fashioned French place’, they had not initially intended to stop there. Ruskin was particularly captivated by the cathedral and especially by the sculpture over the doors and the abundance of slender columns, which characterise both the interior and the exterior towers. Ruskin returned to Laon many years later, accompanied by William Collingwood in August 1882.

Laon Cathedral was built between 1160 and 1230. It was damaged during the French Revolution, but at the time of Ruskin’s visit, the cathedral had recently been declared an Historic Monument and a programme of restoration planned. The restoration began in 1846 and was not completed until shortly before the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Luckily the cathedral remained undamaged by the War.

Before setting out on his journey, Ruskin approached various leading artists who he admired, including Peter de Wint, David Roberts, James Duffield Harding and J.M.W. Turner for advice as to what drawing materials he should take with him and most appropriate techniques to employ. Turner advised him to vary his technique depending on the subject, however, it was Robert’s use of delicate pencil and wash that Ruskin had seen and admired in a recent exhibition of Holy Land drawings, that Ruskin decided to adopt. Although Ruskin did not adopt Turner’s advice as to technique, his influence is apparent in Ruskin’s diary entries which make detailed notes of atmospheric and colour effects. Furthermore, Ruskin made detours to look first-hand at the landscapes that had appealed to him in Turner’s recent publication, Rivers of France, published three years earlier in 1837.

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69John RuskinA Bough of Phillyrea

Pen and black ink over traces of pencil on laid paper6.6 by 9.1 cm., 2 ½ by 3 ½ in.

Provenance:Mrs E.M. Gordon, her sale, Christie’s, 8th July 1986, lot 42 (part);Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 5th June 2007, lot 172, where bought by the present owner

Literature:Christopher Newall, John Ruskin – Artist and Observer, exhibition catalogue, 2014, p. 324, no. 115b, ill. p.325

Exhibited:Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, John Ruskin – Artist and Observer, 14th to 11th May 2014, no. 115b;Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland, John Ruskin – Artist and Observer, 4th July to 28th September 2014, no.115b

70John RuskinSpanish Chestnut at Carrara, Italy

Pen and black ink over traces of pencil10.1 by 12.3 cm., 4 by 4 ¾ in.

Provenance:Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 5th June 2007, lot 173, where bought by the present owner

Literature:Christopher Newall, John Ruskin – Artist and Observer, exhibition catalogue, 2014, p. 324, no. 115a, ill. p.325

Exhibited:Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, John Ruskin – Artist and Observer, 14th to 11th May 2014, no. 115a;Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland, John Ruskin – Artist and Observer, 4th July to 28th September 2014, no.115a

These two drawings (nos. 69 & 70) date to the winter of 1856-7 and relate to Ruskin’s publication The Elements of Drawing published between 1857 and 1861. The Elements of Drawing offered advice to amateur artists on what he thought was worthy of attention in landscape and nature in the form of a latter. Ruskin particularly enjoyed drawing trees and thought they each had their own character. In the second letter of The Elements of Drawing, he explained how the lines on a tree trunk ‘show what kind of fortune it has had to endure from its childhood: how troublesome trees have come in its way, and pushed it aside, and tried to strangle or starve it; where and when kind trees have sheltered it and grown up lovingly together with it, bending as it bent; what winds torment it most; what boughs of it behave best, and bear most fruit; and so on’ (Elements of Drawing, vol. 15, p.91, quoted from Newall, op. cit.).

This drawing is based on a detail from an untraced 1845 drawing ‘Spanish Chestnut at Carrara’. Another study based on the same drawing appeared as fig. 24 of The Elements of Drawing.

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INDEX

Callow, W. 54-55Churchyard, T. 24Constable, J. 22,23,25Cox, D. 27-31Cristall, J. 33Cromek, T.H. 49

Dayes, E. 11Danby, F. 34Devis, A. 10De Wint, P. 39Duncan, E. 60

Fielding, A.V.C. 35-37Françia, F.L.T. 20-21

Green, W. 40Grimm, S.H. 5

Hunt, A.W. 61Hunt, W.H. 62-63

Laporte, J. 8-9Lear, E. 58

Middleton, J. 57Müller, W.J. 32

Nicholl, A. 64

Page, W. 56Pyne, J.B. 52

Ramsay, A. 1Richardson Senior, T.M. 51Roberts, D. 53, 59Rowlandson, T. 2Ruskin, J. 65-70

Sandby, P. 3-4Smith, J.R. 12-13

Turner, J.M.W. 26Turner of Oxford, W. 38Varley, J. 41-48Ward, J. 14-19White Abbott, J. 6-7Wyld, W. 50

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BRITISH DRAWINGS AND WATERCOLOURS 2020 · 2020. 9. 12. · Pen and grey ink and watercolour over pencil on laid paper 36.3 by 51.6 cm., 14 ½ by 20 ½ in. Provenance: With Walker