Karen Taylor Fine Art
Agent, Advisor and Dealer in British Art
George Richmond, RA (British, 1809–1896)
Ann Oram, the artist’s mother seated in a chair
Ann Oram, the artist’s mother seated in a chair
SOLD
KT175
Ann Oram, the artist’s mother seated in a chair
Signed 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 pencil
Irregular, 16.7 x 10.7 cm
Provenance
Walter Coleridge Richmond, the artist’s son, by family descent
George 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.
Richmond 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).
Sunrise, November 12, 1874
KT172
SOLD
Signed with monogram and dated l.r. and inscribed and dated l.l.: Sunrise Nov 12.1874, watercolour with touches of white and pink bodycolour
25 x 28 cm
Provenance
Walter Coleridge Richmond, the artist’s son, by family descent