James Ward, RA

SOLDKT344Signed with monogram and dated l.l.: JW RA. 1822 and inscribed on original mount l.c.: MARIA/ By Mr. R. Colling's George. Herd Book. P. 396, pencil25.5 x 35.6 cm; 10 x 14 inchesProvenancePresumably Charles and Harriet Arbuthnott, 1822;The Fine Art Society, 1972;Anonymous sale; James Adam & Sons, Dublin, 6 March 1973, lot 342;John Ross, by descent until 2019Ward is primarily remembered as a painter of animals. In 1800 he was engaged by the Board of Agriculture and Josiah Boydell, the print publisher, to portray two hundred examples of the various breeds of cattle, sheep and swine to illustrate the surveys of livestock which the Board had undertaken in England, Scotland and Wales. Boydell was to engrave the drawings for which Ward was to receive 15 guineas. Although the project never saw completion it led to the artist’s introduction to a group of rich patrons and many commissions.Maria was part of a commission of lithographs of cattle from Charles Arbuthnott (1767-1850), and specifically referred to by name, in a letter to the artist dated 30 October 1822, in which he expressed his desire to receive a lithographic drawing of Maria, presumably the present drawing (see Edward J. Nygren, ‘James Ward RA (1769-1859): Papers and Patrons’, The Walpole Society, vol. LXXV, 2013).Charles Arbuthnott was a Tory politician, a diplomat, who served as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1804-1807 and a good friend of the Duke of Wellington. His second wife, Harriet Fane, who owned Maria the cow, was a hostess at Wellington’s dinners and the author of a diary recording political intrigues of the day.John Ross (1919-2011) built up a collection of drawings and watercolours at his home at Knockmore, outside Dublin. He was an active member and Chairman of the Irish Friends of the National Collections, playing an important role in securing many great works for the Irish national collection.

SOLDSigned in pen and brown ink with initials and dated l.r.: JW.RA./July.1814-, inscribed: Cossack/Tamorfait. Carborlof/King Street Barracks, and again l.c.: It was stated that this man killed/ 14 Frenchmen one morn.g [sic] before breakfast-, pencil29.4 x 22.4 cmThis is a study for a figure in an oil painting, commissioned by the Duke of Northumberland, entitled Portraits of Prince Platoff’s favourite charger and of Four of his Cossacks (in the collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle). This oil was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1815 (no. 148).After Napoleon’s defeat in April 1814 and the ensuing Treaty of Fontainebleau and Peace of Paris, the Prince Regent invited the Allied sovereigns, including Emperor Alexander I of Russia, to London from 6 to 27 June. There were great festivities and the Emperor threw a lavish levée at the house of the Duke of Cumberland which cost £25,000.Alexander I was accompanied by members of his retinue, who were housed in King Street Barracks (home to the Royal Life Guards) to the north of Portman Square. Their distinctive costumes aroused much comment. Ward clearly shared this interest as he depicted this soldier on at least four other occasions. There is another head and shoulders drawing of him in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (which originally belonged to the Duke of Wellington, P D41-1991) and a full-length study of him seated in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (WA1938.107). Further examples of drawings and sketches of his colleague Gregory Yelloserf are in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven and in a private collection. An oil of Matvei Ivanovitch, Count Platov in the uniform of a Cossack general by Peter Edward Stroehling (1768–c. 1826), which was probably commissioned by George IV, is in the Royal Collection.Provenance: Christie’s London, 6 February 1968, lot 23, to Christopher Powney, by whom sold to Walter Brandt; Sold by his descendants, Sotheby’s, London, 7–8 July 2011, lot 246 (£11,250)