Sarah Stone

One hundred and forty-four drawings on sixty-eight pages, laid into an album bound in vellum, the fly leaf with a large label inscribed: Miss Stones/First Efforts/plates.71The drawings are of various sizes, on laid paper, each page 31.5 x 19.7 cm.; 12 1⁄4 x 7 3⁄4 inchesProvenancePrivate collection, U.K.;Private sale by Sotheby’s Australia, January 25 2001; Patrick Dockar-Drysdale (1929-2020)ExhibitedTate Britain, 'Now you See Us- Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920', May - October 2024, ill. p.42, p. 205Sarah Stone was the daughter of James Stone, a fan painter and is thought to have assisted her father. The family lived in London.The dated drawings in this album suggest that Stone executed many of them when she was ten or eleven years old and identify her as something of a child prodigy. This album contains many copies from drawing books which were a popular means of allowing an artist to develop their technique by copying. The number of drawings and the repetition of certain subjects reflect a systematic approach and a determination to improve and there are drawings after Holbein, Ribera and Boucher, the minor details may be after Le Brun.One of the drawings is inscribed ‘The New Drawing Book‘ which could be a reference to Francis Vivares, A New Drawing Book, in the Manner of Chalk fit for Youth to Draw after. 6 sepia soft ground etchings, by W. Hebert after Vanloo and Boucher, 4to. Frans. Vivares. Sept. 1759. The plates in this were in the manner of red chalk.The range of subjects in the present album suggests Stone was using one of the compilation drawing books, such as Carrington Bowles, The School of Art; or, most compleat Drawing-Book extant: consisting of an extensive series of well chosen examples, selected from the designs of those eminent masters, Watteau, Boucher, Bouchardson, Le Brun, Eisen, &c. engraved on sixty copper plates, and performed in a method which expresses the manner of handling the chalk, 1765 and later editions.

Signed and dated l.r.: S:Stone 1788, inscribed in pen and brown ink verso: Sam: Lysons., watercolour with gum arabic and touches of bodycolour on wove paper37 x 30 cm.; 14 1⁄2 x 11 3⁄4 inchesProvenanceProbably Samuel Lysons, FSA (1763-1819);Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven (1900-1973);By family descent;Sotheby’s, London, sale of the Library of Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven, Part II, 29 November 2022, lot 478Sarah Stone was the first female British painter of birds and animals to achieve professional recognition. Her drawings of birds are a highly important visual record of the specimens held in collections in late eighteenth-century England, and include some of specimens collected on the voyages of Captain Cook.The Mandarin drake from China (Aix galericulata) is shown raising the fan-shaped, cinnamon coloured innermost pair of secondary wings on his back like sails in a courting gesture. Stone evidently admired the Mandarin duck as she made several versions of the present drawing. One is in the Natural History Museum, London (see Christine Jackson, Sarah Stone Natural Curiosities from the New Worlds, 1998, p. 113, NHML no. 54, ill. Pl. 54 p. 81). Another, smaller version dated 1781 (in poor condition) was sold at Bonhams, London, 12 October 2022, lot 3.Stone was employed when she was still in her mid-teens to draw the objects in the Holophusican or Leverian Museum, a major cultural institution of the day housed in the former royal palace of Leicester House. She was to work there for nearly thirty years. Its owner, Sir Ashton Lever (1729-1788) commissioned her by 1777 to record specimens and ethnographic material brought back by British expeditions to Australia, the Americas, Africa and the Far East.For financial reasons, Lever had to dispose of his collection in the 1780s, by lottery. Before doing so, he apparently commissioned Sarah Stone to depict the birds, ethnography and antiquities. From January to March 1784 Lever exhibited Stone’s work, advertising the show as:‘a large Room of Transparent Drawings from the most curious specimens in the collection, consisting of above one thousand different articles, executed by Miss Stone, a young lady who is allowed by all Artists to have succeeded in the effort beyond imagination. These will continue to be open for the inspection of the public until they are removed into the country. Admittance HALF-A-CROWN each...Good fires in all the galleries.’ (See C. Jackson, ibid, p. 22).Lever kept Stone’s drawings after the exhibition. The Leverian Museum continued to grow under new ownership through the 1780s and 1790s, and Stone continued to work there.Stone drew items from other private collections and the British Museum. As most of the actual specimens have not survived, her drawings are a vital record of contemporary collections, few of which produced catalogues, and give valuable insight into the collecting practises of Enlightenment museums.Sarah’s father James Stone was a fan painter, and it is likely that Sarah assisted him. As a child she was taught to make her own pigments using natural ingredients. She practised working in bodycolour as well as watercolour as a child, and the exquisite brushwork which can be seen in the drawing of the feathers of the duck demonstrates her skill at using bodycolour and gum arabic to intensify the colours.Stone exhibited at the Royal Academy, London in 1781, 1785 and 1786. She exhibited paintings of birds at the Society of Artists in 1791. She married John Langdale Smith, a midshipman, on 8 September 1789; she exhibited as a ‘painter’ before her marriage and in her married name as an ‘Honorary Exhibitor.’ She painted less after her marriage, predominately drawing live birds which her husband, also an artist, brought back from his travels.Stone was twenty seven when she married. A, daughter Eliza, who probably died in infancy, was baptised in September 1792 at St John the Evangelist, Westminster. A son, Henry Stone Smith (1795-1881) was baptised in the same church in March 1795. The family has a note by him recording a bird ‘Topial’, probably a troupial, which was brought back from the West Indies by his father and lived with the family (see C. Jackson, ibid, p. 30).Further examples of Stone’s watercolours can be found in the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, London, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Library of Australia, the State Library of New South Wales, the Yale Center for British Art, the Getty, the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii and the Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand.Paris Spies-Gans has written about Stone’s participation in the imperial project in Paul Mellon Centre Notes, No. 20, ‘Colonialism in the Photographic Archive’, January 2022, pp. 11-12).Samuel Lysons, FSA (1763-1819)The inscription on the reverse of the drawing suggests it was owned by Samuel Lysons, FSA. Lysons was a Gloucestershire antiquarian, engraver and archaeologist, whose interests centred on Roman archaeology and mosaics and Gloucestershire church architecture. He was the Director of the Society of Antiquaries from 1798 to 1809. He illustrated his brother Daniel Lysons’ Environs of London, and the two collaborated on Magna Britannia, Being a Concise Topographical Account of the Several Counties of Great Britain, published in several volumes from 1806 to 1822.Henry Rogers Broughton (1900-1973)Henry Rogers Broughton succeeded his older brother Urban Huttlestone Broughton as the 2nd Lord Fairhaven in 1966. He was born in the United States and educated at Harrow, before joining the Royal Horse Guards in 1920. Their father, English emigré Urban Broughton (1857-1929), had a successful career building sewerage systems in the USA in the 1890s and married Carla Leland Rogers (1867-1939). She was the daughter of the wealthy oil and railroad tycoon Henry Huttlestone Rogers (184-1909). In 1912 the family moved to London. The title Lord Fairhaven was awarded to Urban for his political activities, but he died before he could use it and his eldest son Huttlestone became the first Baron Fairhaven.Both brothers were great collectors and Henry put together one of the largest twentieth-century collections of depictions of natural history. He left a large bequest of one hundred and twenty flower paintings, over nine hundred watercolours and drawings and forty-four volumes of drawings by botanical artists such as Redouté and Ehret to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (the Broughton Bequest). The brothers’ home, Angelsey Abbey near Cambridge, with its large natural history collection, was left to the National Trust in 1966.

KT496Signed l.c.: Sarah Smith, watercolour heightened with bodycolour and gum arabic, with a black line border44 x 34 cm.; 17 ¼ x 13 3/8 inchesProvenanceFrances Smith Beale (1800-1849), the artist’s niece, daughter of Frances Mary Stone (1769-1852), sister of the artist;Ellen Beale Brooker d. 1900, (m. in 1868 William Watkiss Lloyd, 1813-1893);Eireene Watkiss Lloyd; daughter of the above m. William Docker Drysdale (1866-1952) of Wick Hall, Radley, Oxfordshire;William Docker Drysdale (1906-1985); Park End, Radley;Patrick Dockar-Drysdale (1929-2020), Wick Hall, Radley;LiteratureChristine Jackson, Sarah Stone Natural Curiosities from the New Worlds, 1998, p. 131 no. 6 (Watercolour Drawings by Sarah Stone in Public and Private Institutions-Private Collection A)Sarah Stone was the first female British painter of birds and animals to achieve professional recognition. Her drawings of birds are a highly important visual record of the specimens held in collections in late eighteenth century England and included some from the voyages of Captain Cook, and were exhibited at the Leverian Museum in 1784. This spectacular drawing with its finished background is an important work intended for display.Stone was employed when she was still in her mid-teens to draw the objects in the Holophusican or Leverian Museum, housed in the former royal palace Leicester House, and a major cultural institution of the day. She was to work there for nearly thirty years. Its owner, Sir Ashton Lever (1729-1788) commissioned her by 1777 to record specimens and ethnographic material brought back by British expeditions to Australia, the Americas, Africa and the Far East.For financial reasons, Lever had to dispose of his collection in the 1780s, by lottery. Before doing so he apparently commissioned Sarah Stone to depict the birds, ethnography and antiquities. From January to March 1784 Lever exhibited Stone’s work, advertising the show as:‘a large Room of Transparent Drawings from the most curious specimens in the collection, consisting of above one thousand different articles, executed by Miss Stone, a young lady who is allowed by all Artists to have succeeded in the effort beyond imagination. These will continue to be open for the inspection of the public until they are removed into the country. Admittance HALF-A-CROWN each…Good fires in all the galleries.’ (See C. Jackson, ibid, p. 22).Lever kept Stone’s drawings after the exhibition was over. The Leverian Museum continued to grow under new ownership through the 1780s and 1790s, and Stone continued working there. This exceptional drawing of a macaw can be linked with one of the three specimens of this bird sold at the sale of the Leverian Museum in 1806 when the collection was dispersed (see Christine Jackson, ibid, p. 131).Stone also drew items from other private collections and the British Museum. As most of the actual specimens have not survived, her drawings are a vital record of contemporary collections, few of which produced catalogues, and give valuable insight into the collecting practises of contemporary museums.Stone was the daughter of James Stone, a fan painter, and it is highly likely that she assisted her father. As a child she was taught to make her own pigments using natural ingredients - the intense blues and yellows of this work are extraordinary and a testament to her skill at mixing pigments. She practised working in bodycolour as well as watercolour as a child, and the exquisite brushwork which can be seen in the drawing of the feathers of the macaw also demonstrates her skill at using bodycolour and gum arabic to intensify the colours. The tree branches which Stone habitually included in her drawings are a distinctive feature of her work. Very few of her works include a sky, and Christine Jackson ibid, p. 16, suggests that she included them in watercolours which were intended to be framed. The spectacular and carefully draw nature of the present work appears to bear this out and suggests that it was an important work intended for display which remained in her family.Stone exhibited at the Royal Academy, London in 1781, 1785 and 1786. She exhibited paintings of birds at the Society of Artists in 1791. She married John Langdale Smith, a midshipman, on 8 September 1789 and exhibited as a ‘painter’ before her marriage and in her married name as an ‘Honorary Exhibitor’ thereafter. She painted less after her marriage, mainly drawing live birds which her husband, also an artist, brought back from his travels. She signed her work with her married name of Smith and thus the present work must date from after September 1789.Stone was nearly thirty when she married, and a daughter Eliza, who probably died in infancy, was baptised in September 1792 at St John the Evangelist, Westminster. A son, Henry Stone Smith (1795-1881) was baptized in the same church in March 1795. The family has a note by him recording a bird ‘Topial’, probably a troupial, brought back from the West Indies by his father and living and domesticated with the family (see C. Jackson, ibid, p. 30).Further examples of Stone’s watercolours can be found in the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, London, the National Library of Australia, the State Library of New South Wales, the Yale Center for British Art, the Getty, the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii and the Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand.Paris Spies-Gans has written about Stone’s participation in the imperial project in Paul Mellon Centre Notes, No. 20, ‘Colonialism in the Photographic Archive’, January 2022, pp. 11-12).The blue and yellow macaw (Psittacus arauna), also known as the blue-and-gold-macaw is a large South American parrot, and one of the most popular. They live in forests and woodlands. In captivity they are known for their skill at mimicry.Patrick (Paddy) Dockar-Drysdale (1929-2020)Born in Shropshire, after his education at Oxford Paddy went to Canada with his wife Olwen, as a stage-manager of a theatre company in Newfoundland. They stayed in Canada from 1955 until 1982. Paddy switched from theatre to teaching English as an assistant professor at the University of Newfoundland and then to publishing in Toronto. His specialisms were the use of language, dialects and lexicography. He made an important contribution to the codification of Canadian English.The Dockar-Drysdales returned to England to Wick Hall, Radley where they restored the grounds and gardens.Patrick Dockar-Drysdale was a descendant of Sarah Stone and had a lifelong fascination with her work about which he was knowledgeable and which he collected throughout his life. It seems likely that the macaw may have come down in the family of the artist’s niece, Frances Smith Sheppard (1800-1849), who married Lionel John Beale, a surgeon. In 1868 their daughter Ellen Brooker Beale (d. 1900), married the businessman (who worked in the family tobacco firm) and writer William Watkiss Lloyd (1813-1893). He wrote on the classics and history, his best-known work ‘The Age of Pericles’, 1875. Sophia Beale (1837-1920), the artist, writer and sister of Ellen Beale, discussed his work in a ‘Memoir’ prefixed to Lloyd’s posthumously published ‘Elijah Fenton: his Poetry and Friends’, 1894. Their daughter Eireene Watkiss Lloyd was Patrick Docker-Drysdale’s grandmother, who took the drawing to Wick Hall after her marriage to William Docker-Drysdale (1866-1952).