Henry Edridge, A.R.A.

Pencil and grey wash20.2 x 14.6 cm.; 8 1/8 x 5 ¾ inchesFrame size 41 x 34 cm.; 16 x 13 2/8 inchesProvenance: By descent in the Seymour family and that of Earl Spencer, until sold at Christie's, London, 'The Althorp Attic Sale', 7 July 2010, lot 1;with Martyn Gregory, London;with Ellison Fine Art, London; Timothy Clowes until 2020The brothers, drawn here in the mid 1790s, were the children of Vice-Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour and Lady Anne Horatia Waldegrave. Sir Horace entered the army and served as an MP. Frederick was to marry twice, firstly Lady Mary Gordon, daughter of the 9th Marquess of Huntly and then, in 1832, Lady Augusta Hervey, daughter of Frederick, 1st Marquess of Bristol.This picture descended in the Spencer family until the Christie's sale of 2010. The Seymours were related to the Spencers by marriage. Sir Horace married, as his second wife, Frances Poyntz, whose sister was Georgiana, wife of Frederick, 4th Earl Spencer. She died in 1851 and three years later the Earl married Sir Horace's daughter, Adelaide.

Pencil and washes, in its original early 19th century frame with acanthus leaves at the corners33 x 22.1 cm; 13 x 8 ¾ inchesProvenance: Miss Elizabeth Broadwood, Canterbury, by descent; Colt Clavier Collection, Bethersden, Kent, until 2018.Literature: David Wainwright, 'Broadwood by Appointment: A History', 1985, ill. facing p. 185.This portrait of Thomas Broadwood shows him as a young man of leisure. He was the second surviving son of John Broadwood, and the third generation of the piano manufacturers John Broadwood & Sons, who made upright and grand pianos, where he worked as business manager of the company. He met Beethoven as a young man in 1818 and sent him a newly improved triple stringed piano (which subsequently belonged to Liszt and is now in the National Museum in Budapest). Thomas Broadwood purchased the Holmbush estate in Lower Beeding, Sussex, in 1824–1825, and employed Francis Edwards to design a two-storey castellated mansion with octagonal turrets. He grew dahlias in the gardens, which were highly fashionable in the 1820s and 1830s. Broadwood was High Sheriff of Sussex in 1833. Edridge’s work can be found in the collections of Britain’s major museums.