George Richmond, R.A.

Watercolour over pencil20.5 x 38 cm.; 8 1/8 x 15 inchesProvenanceWalter Coleridge Richmond (1852-1931), the son of the artist, by descent;With Radnorshire Fine ArtRichmond continued to draw and paint landscapes throughout his successful career as a portraitist. These works remained private and stayed mainly in his family. This beautiful sketch has a directness which reflects his enjoyment of the opportunity for contemplation when drawing from nature.

Signed and dated in gold paint l.l.: Geo Richmond.1834, watercolour over pencil heightened with white and gold and touches of gum arabic35.3 x 25.1 cm.; 13 ¾ x 9 7/8 inchesProvenanceBy descent in the family of the sitter until 2015;Their sale, Bonhams, London, 24 November 2015, lot 95;Private collection, U.K.LiteratureR. Lister, George Richmond A Critical Biography, 1981, p. 162, nos. 203 and 204The sitter wears the uniform of the Madras Horse Artillery, and the Order of the Bath Companion’s breast badge, and is standing in an Indian landscape with his hand upon a cannon.Lieutenant Colonel Sir Charles Hopkinson was born on September 14th, 1783, in Grantham, Lincolnshire. He had a distinguished career in the service of the East India Company and commanded the Company's artillery during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826). He was made a Companion of the Most Honourable Military Order of The Bath and subsequently knighted for his services. He died in December 1864.The Madras Army was the army of the Presidency of Madras and run by the East India Company until 1858. It was finally merged into the Indian army in 1895.After his marriage to Julia Tatham in 1831 George Richmond turned to portrait painting. He quickly established a fashionable painting practise and became one of the most fashionable portrait painters of his time.

Ann Oram, the artist’s mother seated in a chairSigned with initials, dated 1829 and inscribed in pencil l.r.: My dear Mother, pen and brown ink and brown and grey wash over traces of pencilIrregular, 16.7 x 10.7 cmProvenanceWalter Coleridge Richmond, the artist’s son, by family descentGeorge Richmond was the son of the miniaturist Thomas Richmond and Ann Oram (1772-1859), a good-looking woman, possibly of Jewish descent, whose father had been an innkeeper at Kew Green. He has captured her in a moment of repose, her hands in her lap. This drawing was presumably made at the family house at 42 Half Moon Street, Mayfair, which remained the base to which the young George returned if he ran out of money. He records that in 1827 while living at Shoreham, where Samuel Palmer found him lodgings, he tried to live on 10 shillings a week ‘excepting some Tea and Sugar sent by my dear mother from London’ (Hartley MSS, quoted in R. Lister ‘George Richmond’, 1981, p. 16). This work shows traces of the influence of Henry Fuselli who was Professor of Painting and Keeper of the Royal Academy where the artist enrolled aged 15 in 1824.Ann Oram was also painted by her husband Thomas who made a miniature of her wearing a bonnet in 1808, of which a stipple engraving was made by William Holl Jr.

Signed with monogram and dated l.r. and inscribed and dated l.l.: Sunrise Nov 12.1874, watercolour with touches of white and pink bodycolour25 x 28 cmProvenanceWalter Coleridge Richmond, the artist’s son, by family descentRichmond was the son of the miniaturist Thomas Richmond, who enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools in December 1824 at the age of 15. His earliest influences were the Keeper of the R.A., Henry Fuseli and William Blake, whom he met in 1825. Although his major output was portraiture, a genre he chose to meet his family responsibilities, Richmond returned to the subject of sunrises and sunsets throughout his life. A similar watercolour of the same size dated May 1874 and inscribed ‘Recollection of an evening sky’ is in the collection of the Huntington Library, San Marino. In 1872 he painted an oil entitled ‘Sunrise over the sea at Margate’ (see R. Lister, George Richmond, 1981, p. 101).

Signed with initials lower right: GR, pen and brown ink13 by 20.9 cm; 5 ¼ x 8 ¼ inchesProvenance: Cyril and Shirley Fry until 2021This beautiful, spare drawing probably dates from the 1840s. Richmond added his initials in pencil to many of his drawings towards the end of his life.

Signed and inscribed l.r.: Geo. Richmond./Margate. Oct 2d. 1850, watercolour over pencil with touches of gum arabic18 x 26.2 cm; 7 x 10¼ inchesProvenance: A. C. Richmond; A. W. Richmond, by family descent from the artist until 2018.Richmond continued to draw and paint landscapes throughout his successful career as a portraitist. These works remained private and stayed mainly in his family. This charming unfinished sketch has a directness which reflects his enjoyment of the opportunity for contemplation when drawing from nature.Richmond travelled to Margate at the end of August 1850 to join his wife Julia and their children and his friend the artist Charles West Cope and his family. 1 Julia had given birth to a daughter, Margaret, on 3 July, but the baby died of whooping cough on 10 October.Another watercolour, A Field near Margate , in the Oppé collection (Tate, T08272), has a red cottage with a red-tiled roof in the distance, which may be the farm in the present watercolour. A further, similar landscape of the same size (sold at Sotheby’s, 29 November 1975, lot 20) and also drawn on 2 October suggests Richmond must have enjoyed working outdoors that day.1. Raymond Lister, George Richmond: A Critical Biography, 1981, p. 76.