Sold Works

General Robert Clive receiving the homage of the Nawab Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey c.1761-2Oil on canvas, 20 x 203/4 ins. (50.8 x 60.5 cm)Inscribed indistinctly on stretcher: ‘F.M. Wor… RA’ 1ProvenancePrivate collection, U.S.A., until 2012Literature: Brian Allen, Francis Hayman (New Haven & London, 1987) p.123, 177, checklist no.101;The Raj-India and the British, National Portrait Gallery catalogue 1990, ill. p.32, fig.10This is probably a preliminary oil sketch by Hayman for the huge canvas (12 x 15 feet) which formed part of the series of four gigantic pictures illustrating glorious victories from the Seven Years War (1756-63) which were installed in the annex to the Rotunda at Vauxhall Gardens by the proprietor Jonathan Tyers (1702-67).Although much acclaimed at the time of their unveiling in the early 1760s, all four large pictures had disappeared from the Gardens by 1840 (they were almost certainly removed and probably destroyed by that date or soon after) but a lengthy description of the original large pictures was published in a contemporary guidebook to the gardens and in the London press and this source enabled the identification of a larger (presumably subsequent) preliminary sketch for the same subject which is now in the National Portrait Gallery.2 Another rougher version of this subject, was with Spink in the 1970s (K2 3992) and is now in a private collection in the U.K.The subject depicted is the meeting between the victorious General Robert Clive (1725-1774) and Mir Jafar, the Nawab of Bengal (c.1691(?)–1765) after the Battle of Plassey on 23 rd June 1757. Clive was extraordinarily successful in India and, on his return to England in 1760 with an enormous personal fortune, received huge critical acclaim.3In 1756 the Nawab of Oudh, Siraj-ud-Daula, (1733-1757) captured the East India Company’s settlement at Calcutta and imprisoned British captives in the infamous Black Hole. Robert Clive, in command of the Company’s army, recaptured Calcutta in January 1757 and then took the French fort at nearby Chandernagore in March. Clive then deposed Siraj, with the help of Mir Jafar at the Battle of Plassey.Mir Jafar’s rule is usually considered to be the start of British imperialism in India. He had effectively betrayed his predecessor Siraj ud-Dulah (1733-1757) who was killed soon after the battle, in order to become the next Nawab of Bengal. He gave a fortune of around £3 million to the East India Company, but in 1760 Mir Jafar was forced to abdicate in favour of his son-in-law Mir Qasim (d.1777). In 1763 Mir Jafar was restored with the full support of the Company for the remaining two years of his life. In 1764 Clive assumed supreme military and civil power in Bengal and forced the Mughal Emperor Sah ‘Alam to allow him to collect revenue (diwan) on his behalf.It is worth quoting at length from the rather exaggeratedly effusive contemporary description of the large lost picture since the author must have spoken with Hayman to elucidate the subject matter, if indeed the painter himself was not its author: ‘General Clive, after gaining the battle of Plassey in the East Indies, which restored the English interest that had been ruined in those parts of the world, found himself under a necessity of deposing the reigning Nabob; for that purpose sent from the field of battle for Meer Jaffer, a principal General under the Subah or Nabob, and an enemy to the French. Meer Jaffer sent for, seeing the General surrounded by his victorious troops under their arms, approaches him with every symptom of doubt and dissidence in his countenance. The General is represented in the attitude of Friendship, by extending his hands to receive him. Behind the General stands his Aid de Camp with his spontoon in his hand; as bold but as graceful a figure as can well be conceived, the British colours are display’d in the hands of another English officer, with the like appearance as the former, but all of them in different atitudes. A bold horse, supposed to be the General’s that seems startled at the sight of the elephant, closes to the fore ground of this compartment of the picture. It is but justice to the Painter to say, that no figures wereever better detached from the canvas than those are; that of the General, being the principal, is inimitably free, and in a most masterly stile of painting. The painter could with no propriety avoid representing the British figures in their uniform; but to prevent a sameness in the composition, he has with great judgment introduced the Indian groom in the habit of his country, which form a most happy contrast. Meer Jaffer wears on his face strong remains of the emotions already mentioned, but his dejection seems faintly alleviated by the General’s manner of receiving him. The extension of his arms and the inclination of his body is most movingly expressive of doubt, submission and resignation, which is heightened by an Indian officer laying the Subah’s standard at the General’s feet. The future Subah or Nabob is attended by his son, a youth of about eighteen years of age, bewitchingly handsome, and painted with a masterly propriety. The other Indian figures behind Meer Jaffer are those of his friends and officers, and the countenances of them all strongly partake of the inquietudes of their principal. This co[m]partment is terminated by an elephant on the background, which the greatest judges from the East-Indies say is the best they ever saw in a painting, both co[m]partments of the picture (for so they may be called on account of the diversity of the figures they exhibit) are drawn up around the scene of interview. The painter has here taken advantage of the various dresses of the Indians, which, as well as their arms and all their other attributes, are preserved with the utmost precision, to introduce a beautiful play of colours, without departing from propriety.’4 The other two versions and the present picture correspond closely to the published description except that there is no ‘Indian officer laying the Subbah’s standard at the General’s feet’ in either of the two other preparatory works, although the present work has a native with a box which may contain a folded standard. The present work also has a golden ladder and a chair on top of the elephant. Other minor differences between the preparatory works show Clive wearing his tricorn hat in both other versions but hatless in the present picture. In the present picture Mir Jafar is shown bowing more obsequiously than in the larger NPG picture. The NPG picture shows the red banner of the other two pictures turned into a British flag.A letter in the National Library of Wales (Robert Clive Papers H1/1-4) reveals that Clive visited Hayman’s studio on 26 April 1763 when Henry Clive paid 5s to ‘Mr Hamans the painter’. This is recorded in an account book in the handwriting of Henry Clive (1709-1775), who was a first cousin of Clive of India’s father. When Robert Clive came back from India for the second time in 1760, with his young cousinGeorge in attendance, cousin Henry, who was an attorney, seems to have become a kind of steward, travelling with the party and keeping this account book (Dr Charlotte Mitchell kindly shared this information by email in October 2018). This shows that Clive almost certainly commissioned a painting from Hayman and it seems highly likely that he saw the Vauxhall Gardens work and decided that he wanted one for himself.Despite never setting foot in India Hayman was among the first British artists to exploit Indian subject matter, a genre that was to become increasingly popular towards the end of the century in the hands of artists who did travel to the sub-Continent such as Zoffany and Tilly Kettle.1. There is no record of any Royal Academician corresponding to the inscription.2. See A Description of Vaux-Hall Gardens (London, 1762) bound into the end of the BritishLibrary’s copy. See also The Public Advertiser, no.8905 (20 May 1763) and The LondonMagazine, XXXII (May 1763) pp.233-4, quoted by Allen, Francis Hayman (see Literatureabove). The larger sketch in the NPG was correctly identified by Brian Allen as by Haymanwhen it was catalogued by Christie’s as ‘English School’ in an anonymous sale on 22 June 1979(162), bought by the National Portrait Gallery. This work had previously been misidentified asby the American Mather Brown (1761-1831) by Mildred Archer in India and BritishPortraiture 1700-1825 (London, 1979) p.419. For further details of the three other largehistorical pictures see Allen, op.cit., pp.62-93. See Mark Bence-Jones, Clive of India (London, 1975)4. See A description of Vaux-Hall Gardens (London, 1762) note 2 above.

Inscribed ‘Etna 5 June 7pm 1864’ and with colour notes, numbered (183) l.r., pen and brown ink and watercolour, inscribed verso next below top/123 up/A (crossed out) A6.7 x 27 cm.; 6 5/8 x 10 ½ inchesProvenanceFine Art Society, where purchased on 30 June 1962 byMiss Rowell, Wylam, Northamptonshire, until 2022The numbering on this drawing suggests that it was done by Lear on his way back from Crete in June 1864. Lear spent seven weeks on the island. His last drawing, done in Hania was numbered 179.The artist first visited Sicily in 1842 and again in 1847 with his travelling companion John Proby. On this occasion he was passing after his travels in Crete.

Pen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil, with colour tests verso23 x 29.1 cm; 9 x 11 1/2 inchesProvenanceMrs Gilbert Miller;Dr E. Wilkes from 1969ExhibitedLeger Galleries, English Watercolours, 12 November - 31 December 1969, no. 6;Sheffield City Art Galleries, ‘Local Heritage’, 17 April – 17 May 1970, no. 70

Pen and brown ink and grey wash on laid paper partially watermarked with the Strasburg Lily, the backing paper numbered 8, inscribed on reverse of backing paper by L.G.Duke: D938 D/L.P. Boitard/LGD and numbered 4 in ink in another hand19 x 12.7 cm.; 7 ½ × 5 inchesProvenanceColnaghi (part of an album of 65 drawings by Boitard);Leonard G. Duke (1890-1971);Squire Gallery, purchased from the above March 1948;Arnold Fellows, no. 72;Bequeathed by him to Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall;Sold by a charitable trust, 2023The artist was an engraver, designer and illustrator from Paris who lived most of his life in London. He was the son of designer François Boitard (1667-1719).A distinctive line and a sense of humor characterises his work which often features mildly satirical drawings of ordinary people.This drawing comes from an album of 65 works by the artist once owned by Leonard G. Duke, the eminent collector, who bought it from Colnaghi and split it up.Arnold Fellows was a pupil at Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall, between 1911 and 1917. He became a master of the school for a brief period, before moving to spend the remainder of his life as a teacher at Chigwell School in Essex. Fellows devoted much of his life to collecting art, notably works on paper, and eventually donated his entire collection to his old school. He was the author of The wayfarer's companion : England's history in her buildings and countryside, published by Oxford University Press, 1937.

Signed l.r.: T. Rowlandson, pen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil, on original wash line mount13 x 20.4 cmThis subject was aquatinted by Rowlandson and published by S. W. Fores in 1798, as plate 7 of Christopher Anstey’s The New Bath Guide or The Memoirs of the Blunderhead Family, 1766. There are numerous small differences between the present drawing (and the other three known versions of it) and the aquatint: notably the central structure with a tower is missing in the aquatint.Another, smaller, version of this composition, measuring 18 x 18.1 cm, is in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Paul Mellon Collection (see John Baskett and Dudley Snelgrove, The Drawings of Thomas Rowlandson in the Paul Mellon Collection, 1977, no. 299 ill.). Another version can be found in the William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland, Maine.Bath was the most fashionable spa in England in the late eighteenth century, with several public and private baths. The King’s Bath, named after Henry II and built on the foundations of the old Roman reservoir enclosing the hot spring, was a rich source of public amusement. From 6 to 9 o’clock in the morning bathing took place, when fully dressed patients waded through the hot water. The spectacle is wittily described by Lydia Melford in Tobias Smollett’s Expedition of Humphrey Clinker, I, 77, for which Rowlandson made ten illustrations in 1793:‘Right under the Pump-room windows is the King’s Bath; a huge cistern, where you see patients go up to their necks in hot water. The ladies wear jackets and petticoats of brown linen with chip hats, in which they fix their hankerchifs [sic] to wipe the sweat from their faces; but, truly, whether it is owing to the steam that surrounds them, or the heat of the water; or the nature of the dress, or to all these causes together, they look so flushed, and so frightful, that I always turn my eyes another way. ’Provenance: Chris Beetles Gallery; Private collection UK until 2017

Inscribed l.r.: Ht. S., pen and grey ink and watercolour over pencilTop corners cut, 14.7 x 6.4 cm.; 5 5/8 x 2 ½ inchesProvenanceW/S Fine Art;Private collection, U.K. until 2019This charming drawing is typical of the intimate type of work which Sandby drew of his friends and family. His brother Thomas and his wife Elizabeth had seven children; around 1770 Thomas Sandby and his family took up residence in a former dairy in Windsor Great Park where Harriet grew up. In 1786 Paul Sandby's son Thomas Paul married his cousin Harriet, and the couple settled at the Deputy Ranger's Lodge, Windsor. A portrait of her wearing an elaborate hat by William Hamilton (1751-1801) is in the Royal Collection (RCIN 917845).

Watercolour on buff paper heightened with white, in the original frame with exhibition labels attached16 x 9.5 cm.; 6 ¾ x 7 ½ inchesFrame size 27 x 19 cm.; 10 ½ x 7 ½ inchesProvenanceThe Fine Art Society;J.T. Bennett-PoeMarks’ earlier works were usually historical and literary, especially Shakespearian and sometimes humorous. However, he became increasingly interested in painting birds and this body of work was highly praised by John Ruskin. Marks had three exhibitions in six years at the Fine Art Society in London, the first of which was Birds in Bond Street in 1889. He was a frequent visitor to London Zoo where he was frequently approached by other curious visitors . He wrote in his preface to the 1890 catalogue: “The most common remark I hear is, “Ah pretty creature! Don’t he seem to know he’s sitting for his picture?” and concluded “… I hope I may be excused, and not held too eccentric, in preferring to converse with a parrot for one hour, rather than with a politician for two”. The Victoria and Albert Museum have a holding of his work.The artist was born in London, the fourth child of John Isaac Marks, a solicitor. He studied in London at the Royal Academy Schools and later in Paris. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere from 1853. He was elected ARA in 1870 and became a full RA in 1878.

Inscribed u.r.: Ruins of [.....]/Pergamon, graphite45.2 x 59.9 cmCockerell described the ampitheatre as an extraordinary building. It stands in a narrow valley astride of a river. The two sides of the valley make the two ends of the oval, and the middle stands upon arches under which the river runs. It is half a mile from Pergamon.Near modern day Bergama in Turkey, Pergamon was a great centre of Greek culture and flourished under Eumenes II (197–159 BC), who was responsible for the construction of most of its main public buildings. It reached its heyday under Imperial Rome and grew hugely under Hadrian, with its sanctuary becoming one of the most important healing centres in the Roman world. Its library was second only to that of Alexandria.In 1842 Page exhibited at the Royal Academy a watercolour entitled Ruins of the Amphitheatre at Pergamos, Asia Minor, no. 892, which may be presumed to be based upon the present drawing, which was made with the aid of a camera obscura.Giovanni Battista Borra, the architect and artist who accompanied Robert Wood on his travels in Greece and the Levant in 1750–51, also drew this view.

Oil on canvas34.5 x 39 cm.; 13 3/8 x 15 ¼ inchesThis intimate painting depicts a Chinese woman swimming, her hair loose, wearing a necklace. Her hands are particularly well handled as are the ripples of the water where they break the surface. The subject is highly unusual and no other versions of it are known.The iconography is also unknown. Many China Trade subjects are based on European prints but thus far no prototype has been found. Mermaids recorded in Cheng Zhai Za Ji, a book composed by Lin Kun in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), are described as beautiful females with fairy skin and very long hair, and no fish-like features.In the late 18th and early 19th centuries a school of painting known as the China Trade grew up in the treaty ports of Canton, Macao and Shanghai. Chinese artists produced pictures for the visiting merchants from Europe, India and America as souvenirs. The hybrid style reflects the more stylised approach of Chinese artists and their attempts to work in a more Western style to please their patrons.With thanks to Patrick Conner for his comments on the work.

Signed and dated l.l.: F. Towne /1786, signed, inscribed and dated on reverse of original mount: Going to Hornsey, near London/Francis Towne 1786, pen and brown ink and watercolour14.5 x 18 cm.; 5 ¾ x 7 inchesProvenanceBequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), on whose death it passed to Towne’s residuary legatee John Herman Merivale (1779–1844) and his successors. Merivale’s granddaughter Emily Harriet Buckingham (1853–1923) inherited the drawing in 1915 and bequeathed it to her sister Frances Ann Laura Solly (b.1858). On 2 March 1936 she sold it to Agnew’s (no.1855) for £6, and they sold it (on 29 February 1936 according to Agnew’s) for £9 9s. to Miss N. Butler, who sold it back to Agnew’s (no.6038) on 7 October 1947 for £10. On 11 October 1949 Agnew’s sold it for £28 10s. to Gilbert Davis (1899–1983), who sold it at Sotheby’s on 19 May 1954, lot 39, for £20 to Agnew’s (no.7509), who sold it to Lieutenant Commander George Gosselin Marten of Crichel, Wimborne (d.1997). It was sold by a relative, F. W. Marten, at Christie’s on 3 March 1970, lot 102, for £441, and at Christie’s South Kensington on 28 January 2015, lot 758 where bought by Beaumont Nathan for Hugo Burge (1972-2023) for £8125. His sale at Lyon and Turnbull 19 March 2025, lot 75.LiteratureR. Stephens, A Catalogue Raisonné of Francis Towne (1739-1816) online, no. FT452.Richard Stephens suggests that this view of Hornsey may have been drawn while Towne was on his way to the Lake District in 1786.

Pastel13.7 x 22 cm.; 5 3/8 x 8 ¾ inchesPrivate collection, U.K. until 2024

Pen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil, with added signature19 x 26 cm.; 7 ½ x 10 ¼ inchesProvenanceChristie’s, New York, 1 March 1984, lot 446;With Andrew Clayton-Payne;Private collection, U.K.ExhibitedAndrew Clayton-Payne Ltd, An Exhibition of Watercolours by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), 19 November – 2 December 1998, no. 19 (as Figures brawling)The direness of doctors in late 18th century is a perennial Rowlandson theme to which he frequently returns. While a patient slumps in his chair two doctors brawl. The intense fight is joined by a dishevelled woman and who attacks a third man who is vomiting. An empty bottle lies on the floor. This drawing probably dates from 1790s.

Watercolour with bodycolour and scratching out, inscribed verso in pencil: Hors du port de Hal.The distinctive tower of Notre Dame de la Chapelle, where Pieter Bruegel the Elder is buried, is seen on the right-hand side of the composition. It was built near the city walls in the twelfth century, although the remains today date from a century later. The nearby Porte de Hal is the only surviving fortified city gate of the walls of medieval Brussels. The two towers of Brussels cathedral balance the view to the left.Boys made several visits to Belgium in the late 1820s and early 1830s and was in Brussels during the Belgian Revolution of 1830. His wife Célestine was Belgian, her home either in or near Soignies.The artist’s virtuoso mastery of watercolour techniques is splendidly illustrated in the deft handling of the medium in this drawing.Provenance: The artist’s sale; John Manning, 8 Bury Street; Thomas Agnew & Sons, London; Anthony Molins, his sale at Sotheby’s London, 24 November 1977; Private collection, UK

Signed with initials, inscribed and dated verso: G.D. 1836/Puerta Romana/Cordoba, watercolour over pencil22 x 32 cmProvenanceBernard Williams Weller (1870-1944), journalist and criticGeorge Dennis was an English artist, explorer and writer. He left school at 15 but was a prodigious linguist, who taught himself ancient Greek and Latin then learnt Spanish, French, Portuguese and several other languages. His intrepid spirit inspired his first visit to Spain in the 1830s. From Cadiz he travelled to Grenada through the Sierra Nevada, visiting Cacin, Alhama, the Tajo, the Sierra Tejada, Velez, Malaga and Ronda. He continued on to Gibraltar via Benadalid, Gaucin, Posada amongst other places and then finally returned to Cadiz. The roads were dangerous and he encountered difficulties with banditti. He also ventured further north visiting Tudela, Zaragoza, Toledo and Illesas. His first work, ‘A Summer in Andalucia’ (2 volumes) was published in 1839.Dennis travelled further in Italy and made an illustrated study of the cemeteries of Etruria, which was published in 1848 by the British Museum, London and he completed the first account of Etruscan sources in the modern era.He joined the Colonial Service later in life and became vice-consul to Sicily, and subsequently to Benghazi and Smyrna. He was a companion of the Order of St Michael and St George.

North-East view of Lyte’s Carey, Somerset and South view of Lyte’s Carey, Somerset A pair, each signed and dated l.r.: J.C. Buckler 1834, each inscribed with title on mount, pen and grey ink and grey wash over traces of pencil, in period burr maple frames stamped JB180 and JB186Each 30 x 38 cm; 11 3/4 x 15 inchesProvenanceHartnoll and EyreThe artist was an architect, the eldest son of the architect John Buckler, who drew Lyte’s Carey and the nearby church in 1834. A pair of unsigned sepia sketches of the same views, probably studies for the present works, hang at the house. These crisp works are typical of his meticulous draftsmanship and attention to architectural detail.Buckler specialised in the restoration of country houses, rebuilding Costessey Hall, Norfolk in 1825-6, a project acclaimed as an important instance of Gothic Revival in domestic architecture by Charles Locke Eastlake. In 1836 he came second in the competition to rebuild the Palace of Westminster after the fire. He also completed a number of restoration projects in parish churches including St Mary’s, Adderbury, Oxfordshire, St Nicholas’, Old Shoreham, West Sussex, St Mary’s, Steeple Barton, Oxfordshire and others.Buckler worked at a number of Oxford colleges, notably Brasenose, Oriel, Magdelen and Jesus and at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. He also restored Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk, Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, and designed Butleigh Court in Somerset in 1845 and Dunston Hall, Norfolk from 1859.

Inscribed above: Furness Fells with a fall that runs into Coniston Water and Blawith Bridge, pen and grey ink and watercolour over pencil, with a grey line border, on laid paper watermarked JWHATMAN38 x 54 cm; 15 x 21 1/4 inchesProvenance: Sotheby’s 15 July 1976, lot 151;Where bought by the previous owner, the Pemberton collection until 2019The younger brother of Arthur Devis the portrait painter, Anthony Devis exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1761-1781. He travelled extensively in the British Isles and made several trips to the Lakes. By the end of the 1750s he had begun producing Lake District views, including the large oil painting now in Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, a ‘View of Derwentwater and Skiddaw from Lord’s Island’. Nothing is known of his visits to the Lake District but he produced a number of drawings in his characteristic style. The Wordsworth Trust own a drawing of Furness Abbey by Devis amongst a group of several others.

KT341Signed, inscribed and dated l.r.: On the Holmwood/Dorking/H. Gastineau/1864(?), watercolour over pencil with touches of gum arabic27 x 37.5 cm.; 10 5/8 x 14 ¾ inchesA prolific and successful watercolourist, Gastineau travelled widely in the British Isles and abroad. He was based in Camberwell, London from 1827. Gastineau exhibited numerous views of Surrey throughout his long career. His work may be found in many UK museum collections.

Inscribed on the reverse: Henry Acland from W (?) Severn- March 26 1839 – Drawn together May 1838 Oil on paper25 by 39.5 cm., 9 3⁄4 by 15 1⁄2 in.Provenance:Given by Joseph or Walter Severn (b. 1830), to Sir Henry Wentworth Acland; By descent to his daughter, Sarah Angelina Acland; Purchased from her estate in 1931 by Sir Roger Mynors, and thence by descentThis sparkling oil sketch of the top of the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla with the Alban hills beyond shows a seated figure, wearing a blue coat and grey trousers, drawing in the sunshine in May 1838. The inscription on the reverse suggests it was executed while Severn and Acland were sketching together at the Baths and that it was given to Acland when Severn visited England in June 1838. One of his aims was to find a school for his son Walter.Joseph Severn was the eldest son of a music teacher from Hoxton. At the age of 14 he became apprenticed to the engraver William Bond before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1815. Here, in 1820, he was awarded the gold medal for historical painting for his ‘Una and the Red Cross Knight in the Cave of Despair’, which granted him a travelling scholarship. This coincided with the illness of his friend, the poet John Keats, and together they travelled to Rome in search of a better climate for the ailing poet. During the winter of 1820-21 Severn nursed Keats in their apartment near the Spanish Steps, his detailed letters from the period of great importance, but on 23 February 1821 Keats died. Severn remained in Rome, launching his own artistic career as a painter of landscapes, portraits and subject paintings. A companionable and likeable character, his large apartment in the Via de San Isidoro became an artistic centre for English visitors to Rome. In the winter of 1837 he met Sir Thomas and Lady Acland who were to become important patrons,and helped to promote his work in England. In 1838 their son, Henry, visited Severn in Rome. Sir Henry Wentworth Dyke Acland, later Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, became a great friend of Severn and his family. Acland gave his Oxford friend John Ruskin a letter of introduction to Severn when he visited Rome in 1840, resulting in another key relationship for the Severn family.The sketch remained in Acland’s collection in Oxford, passing along with the other contents of the house to his daughter, the pioneering photographer Sarah Angelina Acland. On the death of Sarah Acland in 1930, it was acquired by Sir Roger Mynors, then a fellow and classics tutor at Balliol.Severn remained in Rome for most of his life other than a spell in England from 1841-1861. With the help of William Gladstone, a patron, he became British Consul from 1860-72. He died in Rome in 1879 and, at his request, was buried next to Keats in the Protestant cemetery near Porta San Paolo and adjacent to the Pyramid of Cestius. Shelley, who died in 1822, lies nearby, and Severn’s posthumous portrait of him writing ‘Prometheus Unbound’ at the Baths of Caracalla of 1845 is on display at Brantwood. This portrait shows the same stretch of the Alban hills in the distance.Severn’s children, Walter, Arthur Joseph and Ann Mary Newton also became artists. Arthur Joseph was to marry Ruskin’s niece Joan Agnew and looked after him during his last years at Brantwood.The Baths of Caracalla were the second largest public baths in Rome, probably built between AD 211/212 and 216/217, during the reigns of emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla. They were excavated in the 1780s and became a very popular sketching ground for visiting artists.

Signed and dated l.c.: Amelia Noel 1795, watercolour over pencil with scratching out46.6 x 66.5 cm; 18 G x 26 ¼ inchesProvenance : Michael Bryan Fine Art; From whom purchased by the present owner in 1985; Private collection, UK. Exhibited : Probably at the Royal Academy, 1795, no. 429, ‘a drawing’.A most interesting and resourceful Jewish artist, who had an American father, Noel exhibited landscapes, historical works and other undescribed drawings which were probably watercolours at the Royal Academy between 1795 and 1804. The large size of the present work suggests it is highly likely to have been an exhibition watercolour.Amelia Noel was drawing mistress to the daughters of George III. She also worked from 38 St James’s Place, London, and advertised instruction to ladies in drawing & painting (in oil, water colours and crayons) landscapes, figures, cattle, flowers, transparencies &c , at two guineas for twelve monthly lessons. 1 She also, together with her daughter Frances, gave lessons in painting on velvet.Noel was also an engraver and publisher and made a series of topographical etchings of Kent views which she published in 1797 and dedicated to Princess Charlotte. She presented a set of these to Princess Elizabeth (Royal Collection). The Royal Collection also has a series of copies by Princess Sophia after Noel’s prints of views of Kent.Noel’s elegant premises at 32 Albemarle Street impressed contemporaries: The elegant and scientific works of this lady for her superior talents and genius, are patronized by the royal family, nobility, &c. They may be viewed gratis, and consist of paintings and drawings in oil, water colours, crayons, and chalks; and the grandeur, taste, and spirit, of the ancient masters are admirably preserved. The apartments are fitted up after the French, Turkish, and Chinese, style, decorated with ornamental paintings, by Mrs Noel. The chairs, sophas, borders, draperies, &c. are all of painted velvets, executed in a manner peculiarly tasteful, and exclusively her own, and consist of historical figures, landscapes, &c. the recesses are painted in imitation of bronzes, basso reliefs, cameos, and marbles; and the window blinds and screens are transparent paintings. A Turkish saloon, a Chinese Boudouin, and a French salle, form a most pleasing and unique coup d’œil. Mrs Noel and daughter engage to teach ladies, in a few lessons, these arts, by a manner peculiarly easy, and unclogged by the usual methods of protraction . 2Joseph Farington’s diary records Noel’s networking abilities and personal charm. She visited him with her daughter Frances on 8 April 1804 to ask for his support in having her work accepted and well placed at the Royal Academy that year, as the previous year it had been rejected and damaged. She won over Farington, who agreed to help her. 3Amelia Noel was the daughter of Judah Levy, ‘an American merchant’, of Heydon Square, Minories (a chapman, whose bankruptcy is recorded in 1777). She married a Jew called Zebe or Zvi Noah, known as Henry Noel, in the synagogue in Duke’s Place, London, in 1781. His bankruptcy was recorded in 1783, 4 after which he appears to have run off with her money. Three children are recorded as having reached maturity: Noel’s artist daughter Frances Laura, later Mrs John Bell (1786–1863); Lewis Joseph John Noel (1784–1839), a solicitor; and Horace Morton Noel (1788–1814), Lieutenant in the 8th Foot, killed in the assault on Fort Erie in Canada.A nephew, Captain Uriah P. Levy, of the USS Vandalia, owned a portrait of her, said to be by Sir Joshua Reynolds, at his home in Monticello. The American artist Mather Brown exhibited a portrait of Noel at the Royal Academy in 1797 (no. 75, described as ‘a lady’) and it has been suggested that the pair were romantically linked, although there is no firm evidence for this. 51. The Times, 19 October 1799.2. John Fetham, The picture of London, 1804, pp. 260ff.3. Joseph Farington, The Diary of Joseph Farington, republished 1978–1984.4. European magazine III.5. Dorinda Evans, Mather Brown, 1982, pp. 142 & 220. All references are cited in Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800 (online edition).

Signed l.l.: J Herbert Snell, watercolour with touches of white28 x 43.5 cm.; 11 x 17 ¼ inchesA tiny view from a similar vantage point by the artist was commissioned for the library in Queen Mary’s Doll’s House and is in the Royal Collection (RL 27382).Snell trained at Heatherley’s in London, Paris and Amsterdam and exhibited work at the Paris Salon as well as in London. He was a prolific painter and exhibited his work extensively including at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Art, the Royal Scottish Academy as well as the Royal Cambrian and Hibernian Academies. He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy London and his work can be found in several public collections.

KT197BSigned verso in pen and brown ink: W. Payne, watercolour over pencil21.1 x 29.7 cmProvenanceBlair Castle, Blair Atholl, Scotland

Brown wash heightened with bodycolour over traces of pencilSight size 12 x 8 cm; 4 ¾ x 3 ¼ inchesFramed in the original gilt moulding 30.5 x 23.5 cm.; 12 x 9 1/4 inchesThe artist studied in Paris with William Bouguereau and Jean-Léon Gérome. He exhibited both in Paris and at the Royal Academy and Society of British Artists in London where he lived in St John’s Wood. He also exhibited his work with the London dealers Vicars Brothers.Seymour specialized in Orientalist work, taking his cue from Gérome, and may be presumed to have visited North Africa from where the majority of his Orientalist subjects are taken. He favoured working in brown washes which he worked up with bodycolour to achieve an intense and dramatic finish.

Signed l.l.: Emily Farmer, watercolour over traces of pencil with gum arabic and scratching out43 x 32 cm.; 15 17/18 x 12 5/8 inchesProvenanceSir Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne, Blackmoor House, HampshireExhibitedNew Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1860, no. 344; Winchester Art Loan Exhibition, 1875 (lent by Lord Selborne); Hiscock Gallery, Southsea, HampshireThis watercolour is the artist’s most famous work, executed in 1860, which was reproduced in different media. When it was exhibited in 1875 it was given special mention in The Hampshire Advertiser, June 23, 1874, p. 4, issue 3028: WINCHESTER ART LOAN EXHIBITION‘Lord Selborne-lent by his lordship- who has also a delightful picture “Deceiving Granny”, in which Emily Farmer, the artist has caught a scene thoroughly natural, and by no means rare, where a lovely girl and boy are being measured back to back by a loving grandmother, and the latter young rascal is rejoicing in gaining a half-inch over his merry sister by a surreptitious “tip toe”.’Emily Farmer exhibited over one hundred works at the New Society of Painters in Water Colours during her lifetime, achieving good notices from contemporary critics, but her work has fallen from public view like that of many other women artists.She was the daughter of John Biker Farmer who worked for the East India Company and his wife Frances Ann (née Frost). Like many women of her generation Emily was home educated and was taught art by her brother Alexander Farmer, the genre painter.Farmer’s early work was in miniature and she exhibited twice at the Royal Academy in 1847 and 1849 but from 1850 she began to concentrate on genre painting and developed her particular love of painting children.Farmer was elected to the New Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1854.Of a membership of fifty-seven artists in 1850 she was the tenth female member of the Society added four years later, the other nine being Fanny and Louisa Corbaux, Jane Egerton, Fanny Harris, Mary Margetts, Mrs William (Emma) Oliver, Sarah Setchell and Fanny Steers. She exhibited nearly one hundred works there, including the present watercolour, over the course of her artistic career.Pamela Nunn points out that although there was not much women’s work exhibited at the New Society’s exhibitions it was often regarded as the most interesting.1 Farmer was singled out for special mention by contemporary critics:“...Miss Farmer’s pictures, which are, all things considered, the best figure pieces in the collection. They are true in gesture and expression, conscientious in execution and harmonious in colour”, Spectator, May 3, 1862, p. 495.“Miss Farmer is the only figure artist (here) whose drawings give any hope or promise”..., ibid, April 28, 1866, p. 467.“Let us call attention to the two modest bits of Domestic by Miss Farmer, the best of that class in the room”, Critic, April 28, 1860, p. 351.Farmer also exhibited work at the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours and the Liverpool Academy.Emily Farmer lived for over half a century at Porchester House in Porchester, Hampshire where she died in 1905. She is buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s, Porchester.Examples of her work can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.Roundell Palmer, 1st Earl of Selborne (1812-1895), PC, FRCS, was an English lawyer and politician. He was appointed Solicitor General in Lord Palmerston’s government in 1861 and promoted to Attorney General in 1862.He handled many questions of international law which arose from the American Civil War including the Alabama Affair and was the leading counsel for Britain before the Alabama Claims tribunal in Geneva. In 1872 he was appointed Lord Chancellor under Gladstone, an office he held again from 1880-1885. He lived at Blackmoor House in Hampshire, built from 1865-1882 to the designs of Alfred Waterhouse. Two chairs and a hanging corner cupboard designed by Waterhouse for Blackmoor are now in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Signed l.l.: Kate Gardiner Hastings, red and black chalk46.7 x 36.9 cm.; 18 ½ x 14 ½ inchesEllen Terry (1847 - 1928) is portrayed against a background of blossom. Her hair is pinned behind and she wears a blouse with a frilled collar and a knotted scarf. The background, costume and pose bear a strong resemblance to other portraits of Terry as Ophelia.The famous actress was born in Coventry in actors’ lodgings, where her parents were on tour, and she started acting as a child. She married the much older artist, George Frederick Watts in 1864, but they separated within a year. He painted her in many guises, including as Ophelia and Joan of Arc. Terry became known as the Painters’ Actress and was painted and photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron, John Singer Sargent and Aubrey Beardsley, amongst many others.Terry and the architect and designer Edward William Godwin (1833-1886) had two children, Edith Craig and Edward Gordon Craig. She returned to the stage in 1872 to establish herself as a leading actress with the Bancroft's and John Hare’s company. In 1878, Terry joined Henry Irving's company at the Lyceum Theatre as its leading lady, playing Ophelia opposite Irving's Hamlet. Her acting career became increasingly successful with tours of America and ventures into theatre ownership and management. In 1907, Ellen Terry married her third husband, the American actor James Carew (1876–1938) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, whom she first met at the Royal Court and with whom she toured America in George Bernard Shaw’s Captain Brassbound’s Conversion. She graduated successfully to film and continued her career after the First World War on both stage and screen.In later life she continued to act, but also produced plays, lectured and wrote. Terry moved in artistic and literary circles, and her friends included Henry James, George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. Her great-nephew was the actor, Sir John Gielgud (1904-2000).Born in London in 1837, as Katherine Carr, Kate Gardiner Hastings received her artistic education at the Slade School in London. From 1871 - 1876 she studied with John Poynter and upon the completion of her studies, in 1877, she married Alfred Gardiner Hastings. For the next few years she exhibited regularly showing her work at the Dudley Gallery and the Walker Gallery.The artist drew a series of portraits of Terry’s family circa 1890 which are now part of the National Trust Collection and held at Terry's former home, Smallhythe Place in Kent (NT/SMA/D/20, 21, 22, and 23). These portray Benjamin and Sarah Terry, (the actress’s mother and father) and her children Edith, the theatre director and activist and Edward Gordon Craig, the theatre designer. The pastel of Sarah Terry (1817-1892) was exhibited at the Summer Exhibition of 1890 at New Gallery, London.Another red chalk portrait of the actress as Ophelia in Hamlet c. 1878 by the artist is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum (S.1484-2014).

Watercolour over graphite38 x 52.7 cmThis drawing gives a good view of the aerial residence on top of the architrave of the two western columns of the middle range. It is very similar in style to catalogue nos. 7 and 11, and exhibits the clear washes of Page’s earlier style. The figures appear slightly elongated.In 1843 Page exhibited a view of this temple at the Royal Academy (no. 1195).Two large later views of the temple by Page, from different vantage points and measuring 66 x 101 cm and 63 x 97 cm, were sold at Sotheby’s in 1991.Lady Ruthven may have made a copy of this drawing, which is now in the National Gallery of Scotland.

SOLDIncluding a group of views of and from Kelbarrow and the surrounding area of Grasmere, the church, Grasmere, where I fish, the view from the front of the house where we have all our meals in the summer in the shade of tall rhododendrons, also including the front quad of Oriel College, Oxford with Merton tower, Magdelen tower, Oxford, boathouses on the Isis, a lion of Trafalgar Square, interior of York Minster and othersTwenty-seven, pencil, all laid into the sketchbook and most with drawings of plants in pen and black ink decorating the surrounding page, a photograph and a couple of slips of paper with annotations inserted,inscribed on the flyleaf: E.S./from/M.L.S./Xmas.1875 (E.S.is presumably Elizabeth Lily Sumner (1855–1930), her oldest sister)The drawings 10.8 x 13.8 cm and smaller, the sketchbook 13.5 x 16.8 cm, bound in green boards with a leather spineProvenance: The family of the artist, by descent until 2019This sketchbook includes a group of very fine drawings of Kelbarrow and the surrounding area of Grasmere in the Lake District and was presumably a Christmas present from the artist to her sister Elizabeth in 1875. The detailed pencil landscapes are surrounded by pen and ink drawings of plants drawn directly onto the pages of the book. The plants include ivy, lily of the valley Convallaria majalis, dog rose Rosa canina, snowberry Symphoricarpus albus, Ash Fraxinus excelsior, holly Ilex aquifolium, rush, primrose Primula vulgaris, grasses, apple blossom Malus domestica, Gingko biloba, blackberry Rubus fruticosus, snowdrop Galanthus nivalis, foliage of an umbellifer, bracken Pteridium aquilinum, english bluebell and others.Maggie Sumner was the only female artist to contribute to the first five issues of The Yellow Book, the fashionable magazine edited by Aubrey Beardsley which ran from 1894–97, taking its name from the notorious covering into which controversial French novels were placed at the time. Her pen and ink landscape sketch Plein Air appeared in number four, the last of the volumes issued under Beardsley’s editorship. Her career after this is as yet unrecorded.A collection of papers relating to the Sumner family in the possession of the Cumbria Archive Centre includes a series of eleven (unpublished) autograph letters by John Ruskin to his promising pupil, Maggie Sumner, dating from 1881–1886, which suggests that they may have met both in Oxford and at Brantwood. Towards the end of his life Ruskin had a number of correspondence pupils. His first comment in June 1881 was that her drawings were excellent with scarcely any fault. He gave her constructive criticism as in this letter of 5 July 1881 with detailed commentary on a drawing of a photograph of Rouen:I must not keep your drawings longer, though they still puzzle me, and not a little. With most students, the tendency to lose breadth in defining parts is a mere weakness: - in you, it is a kind of strength; the intensity with which you fasten on complex forms and colours having something in it like old German involved Gothic. Still, I must check the exaggerated - power, I will call it, rather than fault - and ask you to tell me if on seeing your copy of the Rouen Photo again with a fresh eye, it does not appear to you patchy, chippy - gritty, - hatchy, - botchy - (I don’t mean all these things - but something which they all partly describe) - as compared with the original? - Try a little bit again and see if you cannot get it softer and more like shade, where shade is, and more [broad] in light where light is. And - in trees, do a single branch instead of a whole tree. And do it perfectly or as perfectly as you can - keeping the shades mysterious.In May 1883 he wrote:In May 1883 he wrote: I liked your drawings much more than I told you... Work at anything you can do without too much trouble while you’re here - mossy rock if possible, and send it me.On 6 Jun 1883 Ruskin instructed Sumner what to draw: In the first place - attend to sky. - drawing all interesting cloud forms you can seize - and noting effects of morning and [evening]. In the second place, draw tree branches and foliage masses for light and shade only and anatomy of branch - letting colour alone. In the third place - draw any birds you can see - any here and paint any that are going to be cooked. Fish also, if to be had. I don’t think there’s any chance of your getting a scold from me, unless you stop working.And on 15 July 1888:Sketch the clouds in pencil - add from memory all you can, in colour the day after, if possible...The birds I meant were geese - ducks - cocks and hens... try to draw a Hen’s wing! or a duck’s breast! - I am so glad you are happier in your work - Be sure you will be more & more so. -and more useful than in any other way. The last letter dating from 24 September 1886 praises the development in Sumner’s work: your becoming fastidious in choice is the best possible sign. - But try to see how by a little change in place or introduction of minor object, even the imperfect subject may be made effective. I hope to be well enough to give you a scolding at Brantwood next time you are near me.

Pen and brown ink, drawn on the back of a Royal Academy invitation to elect Associates dated 30th October 1776 inscribed: Jos Nolleke..and signed: F.M. Newton RA./.32 x 37 cmThis spontaneous drawing of 1776 provides a rare insight into the working practices of the sculptor at the height of his powers. There is no recorded statue of Hebe but here she is drawn in three different poses with the eagle, illustrating how Nollekens considered several alternatives of a possible statue in marble. We are grateful to Dr Danielle Thoms for suggesting that the drawing might be connected in some way to the work Nollekens undertook for Lord Yarborough around this time. Yarborough was a significant patron throughout the sculptor’s career, and in 1778 took delivery of the Venus Chiding Cupid which he had commissioned from Nollekens at some point in the early 1770s, possibly as a companion to his figure of Mars acquired from John Bacon. It’s now in the Usher Gallery, Lincoln, and the standing figure of Venus is not unlike these sketches of Hebe, with elongated ‘Giambologna-esque’ limbs and a gently spiralling posture. While there is no known reference to an actual, executed figure of Hebe with the eagle, it is plausible that these sketches were produced with another possible Yarborough commission in mind.The Victoria and Albert Museum has similar drawings by Nollekens of the same date.One (E643 1950) depicts two deities, the one on the right most likely to be a preliminary sketch for his statue of Diana, one of four statues of goddesses executed for the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham between 1776 and 1778 (now in the V&A). These were originally in Lord Rockingham's house in London, but were brought to Wentworth Woodhouse , near Rotherham, Yorkshire after his death in 1782, by his nephew, William Fitzwilliam, 4 th Earl Fitzwilliam. The statues remained at Wentworth Woodhouse until 1986.The other three statues of Juno (1776), Venus (1773) and Minerva (1775) are now in the Getty Museum, Los Angeles. These three originally formed part of a Judgement of Paris series, but it is unclear what happened to the statue of Paris, which would appear to have been replaced by the one of Diana. Another drawing (E581 – 1950) depicts four classical deities, similar in character and date to this group of statues.The reverse shows that Nollekens drew on the back of an invitation to the Royal Academy. Francis Milner Newton, R.A., (1720-1794) was one of the founders of the Royal Academy and its first Secretary. The invitation was sent out to all members of the Royal Academy, summoning them to a General Assembly, at old Somerset House. George III had given apartments in the palace in 1771 and the Royal Academy operated its schools there until it was demolished, to be replaced with the current building. General Assemblies were attended by all available members of the Academy and occurred several times a year. On 4th November Nollekens joined the President, Keeper and Secretary of the Academy and fifteen other members. They heard that the King had formally agreed to recent Academy decisions and passed a resolution that each year, at the exhibition, no painting or sculpture would be moved or taken after down the Royal private view. They then entered into an election, whereby William Parry and John Singleton Copley were elected Associates.Nollekens is generally considered to be the finest British sculptors of the late 18th century. He was born in London on 11th August 1737, the son of a Flemish painter, Josef Frans Nollekens (1702–1748), who had moved from Antwerp to London in 1733. In 1750, he was apprenticed to the sculptor Peter Scheemakers (1691 - 1781), another Flemish immigrant in London.In 1760, he moved to Rome, where he continued studying, as well as working as an antiques dealer, restorer and copier. Sculptures he made in Rome included a marble of ‘Timocles Conducted before Alexander’, for which he was awarded fifty guineas by the Society of Arts, and busts of David Garrick and Laurence Sterne , who were visiting the city.Nollekens returned to London in 1770. His reputation preceded him and, once he had set up his studio in Mortimer Street, he received many commissions from fashionable society and built up a large practice. In Rupert Gunnis’s words ‘he soon became to contemporary sculpture what Reynolds was to painting’ (Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660 – 1851, London 1951). Although he preferred working on mythological subjects, it was through his portrait busts that he became famous, as one of the most fashionable portrait sculptors in Britain.He enjoyed the patronage of King George III and went on to sculpt many leading figures, including William Pitt the Younger , Charles James Fox , the Duke of Bedford and the Marquess of Rockingham. He also made busts of figures from the arts such as Benjamin West . Most of his subjects were represented in classical costume.Nollekens became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1771 and a full Academician the following year. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1771 – 1816. He died in 1823, leaving a fortune of £200,000.

ABPPaul Sandby, R.A. (1731- 1809)The River Wye at New Weir, HerefordshireSigned in brushpoint l.l.: P Sandby RA, watercolour and bodycolour, with old labels attached to backboard (illegible)ProvenanceThe Fine Art Society, London;Private collection, U.K.The Longstone can be seen prominently on the left of the composition above the Wye where fishermen and rowers are enjoying the river. Sandby includes the busy iron manufactory on the opposite bank. Many of the tourists who flocked to the river Wye to enjoy its picturesque scenery and to climb Yat Rock also included a visit to the forge, and images of this stretch of the river often include depictions of the lime kilns, stone quarries, and iron and tin works that dotted its banks. Paul Sandby and his brother Thomas (1717-1798) began their careers making maps and military drawings in Scotland. Founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768, they both taught in military establishments and Paul was recognised as the leading topographical artist of his time. The artist toured South Wales with Sir Joseph Banks and others in 1773 which resulted in his series of aquatints of published in 1775-1776. His detailed watercolours of the picturesque landscape and the popular prints fuelled the nascent tourism attracting visitors to the Wye Valley.

Signed and dated u.r.: Rothenstein 99, red, black and white chalk on brown paper28 x 30.5 cm; 11 x 12 inchesProvenanceGloria, Countess Bathurst (1827-2018)UnframedThe artist’s training at the Académie Julian is reflected in this elegant and rather French looking drawing aux trois crayons drawn in 1899.Countess Bathurst was a successful model for couturiers such as Jacques Fath and Christian Dior as well as featuring in Vogue. Born Gloria Clarry, she married William Rothenstein’s nephew, the lawyer David Rutherston (1925-1975) in 1965, the son of the artist Albert Rutherston (1881-1953).Following husband’s death in 1975, Gloria married Henry, 8th Earl Bathurst (1927-2011) in 1978 and moved to Cirencester Park, Gloucestershire.

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and scratching out24.5 x 35.5 cmProvenanceSotheby’s, 13 July, 1989, lot 173, bought by Neuberg;Private collection, U.K.Legend has it that a giant called Gwendol Wrekin ap Shenkin ap Mynyddmawr had a grudge against the town of Shrewsbury and decided to flood it to kill all its inhabitants. He collected a giant-sized spade of earth and set off towards the town. When he was near Wellington he met a cobbler returning from Shrewsbury market with a large sack of shoes for repair. The giant asked him for directions, adding that he was going to dump his spade of earth in the River Severn and flood the town. "It's a very long way to Shrewsbury," replied the quick-thinking shoemaker. "Look at all these shoes I've worn out walking back from there!" The giant changed his mind and dumped the earth on the ground beside him, creating the Wrekin.

Signed and dated l.l.: Ann Baring delt 1789, watercolour over pencil on laid paper watermarked with the Strasburg Lily34.8 x 47.9 cm; 13 5/8 x 18 7/8 inchesProvenancePrivate collection, U.K., until 2019This charming work shows Ann Baring’s watercolour style as similar to that of her fellow Devonian Francis Towne and she may be presumed to have been one of his pupils. The watercolour shows several similarities to Towne’s work, especially the trees in shade immediately above the white cow, and the figure and his donkey crossing the bridge. This would appear to be a composition drawn from elements learned from Towne. The strong shadow cast by the tree trunk in the right, and the fussy foreground plants in the bottom right corner are also characteristic of this kind of Towne. She is also known to have painted oils.Ann Baring, who lived in Devon all her life, was the daughter of John Baring, (1730-1816) of Mount Radford House, Devon, an English merchant banker and M.P. and the eldest son of Johann Baring (1697–1748), a clothier from Bremen in Germany who had settled in Exeter, where he built up a large business and obtained English citizenship. Her mother was Ann Parker, the daughter of Francis Parker of Blagdon near Paignton in Devon. She is known to have worked in Ireland as well as Devon. A Miss Baring commissioned a watercolour from Towne of Lago Maggiore in 1781 (Tate Gallery, Francis Towne online catalogue FT 350).After John Baring’s father's death in 1748, he inherited the large family cloth business in Exeter. Together with his younger brother Francis, he extended his commercial interests to London and set up the partnership of John and Francis Baring, of which he was the senior partner. He soon retired from activity in London for Devon and left the running of the London business to Francis, under whose guidance it evolved into Barings Bank. In 1802, Barings and Hope & Co. were called on to facilitate the largest land purchase in history, the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the area of the USA.John Baring founded banks in Plymouth and Exeter and was elected Member of Parliament for Exeter in 1776. He was also appointed Sheriff of Devon for 1776. He retired from Parliament in 1802. His daughter Ann had three sisters, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Margaret and two brothers.The Baring daughters and their cousins were prominent in Exeter society and were known in the circle that included Towne’s friends and customers. In 1786 Ann’s sister Charlotte married John Short of Bickham, one of Towne’s patrons (see FT240), and in 1790 Frances, daughter of Charles Baring, married William (see FT876), the son of Towne’s musician friend William Jackson, whose house, Cowley Place, was very near to Barton Place. In 1791 Frances’s sister Jaquetta married Sir Stafford Northcote of Pynes, another nearby estate where Towne had sketched (FT143). Charles Baring’s daughter Lucy was a close friend of Frances, daughter of John Merivale, Towne’s major patron, and after Lucy’s death in 1815 Frances married her widower, John Lewis Mallet of the Audit Office.I am grateful to Richard Stephens for his comments on this watercolour.

John Webber, R.A. (1751-1793)A traveller standing by a waterfallInscribed u.c.: No 22. august 15. 1788, watercolour over pencil on laid paper35 x 23 cm; 13.8 x 9.1 inchesProvenanceSotheby's London, July 14, 1988, lot 87;Spink;Private collection, U.K., bought from the aboveIn 1787 to early 1788 he travelled to Switzerland and Northern Italy. Later in 1788 the artist made a tour of the west of England and the Wye Valley where the present drawing must have been done. He favoured a limited palette of greys and blues, like John Robert Cozens, and his work is characterised by the very fine detail exhibited in the present work, which would have been drawn on the spot and finished in the studio.Examples of Webber’s work may be found in the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Mitchell Library, Sydney and many other museums.

Watercolour over pencil, the original wash-line mount inscribed recto: View from the Gate of St John Lateran, Rome and signed, titled, inscribed and dated verso: I. Trevelyan 179516.7 x 24.1 cm.; 6 ½ x 9 ½ inchesProvenanceSir John Trevelyan, 5th Baronet (1761-1846);Abbott and Holder Ltd., June 2018;Private collection U.K. until 2024The original wash-line mount is behind the watercolour inside the frame.Sir John Trevelyan, 5th Baronet, travelled in Italy in 1781 and was to become one of the artist’s most important patrons. There are groups of Smith’s Italian watercolours from Trevelyan’s collection in the British Museum and in the V&A, which has a similar watercolour looking back towards the Porta St. Giovanni dated 1795 (FA.582).St John Lateran is considered to be the oldest church and Archbasilica in the world, founded by Pope Melchiade in 324 on the ruins of the villa of the Laterani family.

Pen and brown ink and watercolour on laid paper, numbered 29 on old mount, inscribed with initials and artist’s name by L.G.Duke verso17.8 x 11.9 cm; 7 x 4 3/4 inchesProvenanceL.G. Duke, no. DG38HThe artist was an engraver, designer and illustrator from Paris who lived most of his life in London. He was the son of designer François Boitard (1667-1719). His distinctive line and sense of humour characterises his work which often features mildly satirical drawings of ordinary people.This drawing comes from an album of works by the artist once owned by Leonard G. Duke, the eminent collector.

A pair, each signed with initals and dated 1870 and 1869 l.l. and l.r., watercolour over traces of pencil heightened with bodycolour and gum arabic, one signed and inscribed on label attached to backboard: Lilies (1876)/Fanny Vallance/Farnham Royal/Bucks, the other inscribed on label verso: Within the bush, her covert nest/A little linnet fondly rests/’BurnsOne 37 x 27.5 cm.; 14 ½ x 10 7/8 inches; the other 38.5 x 27 cm.; 15 1/8 x 10 5/8 inchesProvenanceLady LongmoreThe little-known artist exhibited a work entitled ‘Fruit’ at the Royal Academy in 1876, her address given as 43 Porchester Square, Hyde Park West, London.Fanny Vallance was the daughter of Henry Vallance (d. 1905), who built Farnham Park, in Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire in 1865, and his wife Emily, née Carr. Most of the contents of the house were sold after his death in 1905.A photograph of the artist taken in 1862 by Camille Silvy in her Bayswater studio is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

Signed and dated l.r.: Edward Lear del.1839, inscribed l.l.: Capri from above Massa., pencil heightened with white on buff paper26 x 43 cm.; 10 ¼ x 16 7/8 inchesProvenanceEugene Thaw, New York; sold on 26 February 1973 to David Carritt, LondonLear spent his summers at the end of the 1830s travelling in Italy and first drew Massa in the summer of 1838 on 22nd August, a working drawing with extensive colour notes (Christie’s, 16 July 2014, lot 570, 10 x 14 inches). The present drawing relates quite closely to his first sketch. He returned to the subject again in 1840.

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.

Inscribed l.r.: Buah rambootan./Nephelium lappaceum./Monaecia pentandria L. and with further botanical notes, watercolour and bodycolour over traces of pencil with gum arabic, on laid paper watermarked: RUSE & TURNERS/1825 and with the Strasburg Lily38.2 x 48.7 cm; 15 x 19 inchesProvenanceSharon and Anne Hamlyn until 2019These fine examples of watercolours by Chinese Artists of the Straits School are in the style of the Chinese artists who worked for Sir Stamford Raffles in Singapore and Major-General William Farquhar (c.1771-1839) who was Resident of Malacca from 1808-1818. The frequent movements of trade and personnel between India and China, via ports on the Malay peninsula including Malacca and Prince of Wales Island, meant that collectors frequently had both Indian and Chinese drawings in their collections. Henry Noltie has suggested that this school is named ‘Straits School’ (see Forgotten Masters Indian Painting for the East India Company, ed. W. Dalrymple, 2019, pp. 78-82).British patrons commissioned local Chinese artists to draw the flora and fauna of Malacca and the extensive botanical annotations in Jawi, the Malay script derived from Arabic, Romanised Malay, Latin and Greek and with reference to the Linnaean system of classification, created by Carl Linnaeus (1707-78) are typical of this material.The accumulation of natural history drawings by officials of the British East India Company gave rise to the term ‘Company School’, now out of favour, which has been used to describe the work of Indian or Chinese artists for British patrons. The distinctive style is a result of a fusion of two artistic traditions, the European with its desire for realism and the Asian taste for a more stylised approach.The eighteenth and early nineteenth century saw an enormous rise of interest in Europe in the study of natural history by both scientists and amateurs. A knowledge of the subject was considered to be an important part of a liberal education and many people studied ‘natural philosophy’ and the various branches of natural history. Accurate drawings were vital tools in classification as well as a reminder of the excited reaction to new discoveries.

A sheet of knee studiesExtensively inscribed, dated 15.7.1838, pencil, black, red and white chalkIrregular 25.8 x 21 cmMulready was elected to the R.A. in 1816 and became an Attending Visitor (teacher) at the Royal Academy Life School, where he was noted as still hard at work, like any young student, at the age of 73. His life drawings are acclaimed for the fineness of their execution and the level of detail and understanding of anatomy which they display.Queen Victoria, on her visit to the 1864 R.A. exhibition commented favourably on his ‘fine chalk drawings of the naked figure which dear Albert so admired’.The full pencil inscription on the sheet reveals a close observation of the working of the joint:These sketches are not worth one moments consideration (either in)/ point of form, taste, or execution, but they are well enough to illus trate a mode of study that would be found more useful than any other that I am acquainted with. T he student should first be able to draw from casts.No 1 & No 2The same limb in the very same view.The knee perfectly strait, (sic) but the mus:s (muscles) of No 1 with the least possible action, and the muscles of No 2 in a very strong action, supporting the weight of the body, the centre of gravity being supported near the heel.No 3The same limb in the same view but the knee a little bent supporting the weight of the body.

Signed l.r.: JHP Bouverie, watercolour over traces of pencil with touches of white and gum arabic22.5 x 34 cm; 8 3/4 x 13 3/8 inchesProvenanceAugusta Raymond-Barker of Fairford Park, Gloucestershire, by family descent until 2016.Ampney Park is a late 16th century house. The large room on the south-west corner of the ground floor is a complete Jacobean survival with oak panelled walls with strapwork pilasters, elaborate plaster ceiling with pendant bosses, and a very large carved stone fireplace and overmantel with the figures and arms of the Pleydell family, the original owners of house till 1724.(David Verey, Buildings of England - Gloucestershire: the Cotswolds, 1979).The artist was the daughter of the 3rd Earl of Radnor born at Coleshill in Berkshire, and the wife of William Ellice (1816-1892) whom she married in 1847. She was a childhood friend of Princess Victoria with whom she was taken to play aged six and told by the young princess that she could not play with her toys and was not to address her by her christian name. She was one the Queen’s bridesmaids, the last survivor of the group, and wrote about it in the Cornhill Magazine of June 1897.Jane was actively involved in the temperance movement from the mid-1850s and chaired many meetings in London and elsewhere on the subject and was President of the Faringdon, Berkshire branch of the British Women’s Temperance Association. In 1887 Jane wrote a book titled ‘The shadow of a coming danger to the cause of temperance from the celebration of the Jubilee of Queen Victoria’ which highlighted the social problems caused by alcohol.There is a portrait of her after John Hayter in the Royal Collection and a portrait of Jane as a young girl was illustrated in the 23 June

Signed and inscribed l.r.: PARTHENON./ATHENS/W.PAGE, pen and brown ink over traces of graphite63.5 x 97 cmThis drawing, made with the aid of a camera obscura, depicts the east end of the south side of the Parthenon and clearly shows the empty spaces left after the removal of the sculpted metopes in 1801 by Giovanni Battista Lusieri and his team, acting on the instructions of Lord Elgin. Edward Dodwell witnessed the removal of some of these metopes, which were fixed between the triglyphs, causing the destruction of the cornice which covered them, as it had to be thrown to the ground in order to lift them out. Most of the metopes on the south side depict Centaurs fighting Greeks, and the fifteen metopes in the British Museum today all come from here. The original position of eight of them is shown in this drawing and would have been of great interest to the British public.The Parthenon was used as a powder store by the Ottomans, who held the Acropolis during its bombardment by the Venetians in 1687. The attack inflicted significant structural damage on the building, as recorded in this drawing. The small mosque was built in the ruins circa 1700, and a minaret was made from the old bell-tower. The mosque was demolished in 1840.

Signed and dated l.r.: Laura Knight/Dec 1923, watercolour and black chalkSight size 41.2 x 33 cm.; 16 1⁄4 x 13 inchesWhole sheet 45.6 x 39.5 cm; 41.2 x 15 1⁄2 inches; 16 1⁄2 x 15 1⁄2 inchesProvenancePrivate collection, U.K.ExhibitedMK Gallery, Milton Keynes, Laura Knight a panoramic view, 2021, ill. p. 144;Nottingham Castle Museum, Laura Knight & Caroline Walker: A Female Gaze, 2021 (no catalogue)LiteratureEd. Fay Blanchard & Anthony Spira, Laura Knight A panoramic view, 2022, ill. p. 144This striking work by Laura Knight was drawn in 1923 and is a notable example of her ‘female gaze’. Her portrait drawings of women are invariably strong and vital. Here, she adds emphasis with her trademark black chalk creating strong lines, which contrast with the vivid background in blue watercolour.It has been suggested that the sitter was Lilian Ryan, who was married to Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, one of the most fashionable society portraitists in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century and president of the Royal Academy from 1949 to 1954. During Kelly’s tenure as President, Lilian ‘Jane’ Ryan, as she was more commonly known, exhibited under the alias ‘Lilian Jelly’ to avoid accusations of cronyism.From a working-class family, Ryan (c.1898 – c.1980) had been a model for Sir George Clausen in the 1910s, and he introduced her to Gerald Kelly in 1916. They were to marry four years later and spend over fifty happy years together: indeed, Gerald painted her portrait at least fifty times, exhibiting each year at the Royal Academy and titling them ‘Jane,’ his nickname for his wife. Her many likenesses became so recognisable that when Queen Mary was introduced to her, she exclaimed “Jane, of the many Janes!”.Lilian took an interest in painting for herself in the early 1940s, and her husband encouraged her curiosity. She had a natural affinity to oils and she advanced quickly and exhibited at the Royal Academy for the first time in 1944, continuing to exhibit there for thirty years.In 1936 Laura Knight was the first woman to be elected to full membership of the Royal Academy since its foundation in 1768. She battled against the structural inequalities of the art world throughout her professional life, from when she was excluded from the life room at Nottingham School of Art in 1891. In 1922 she wrote a pamphlet entitled Can Women Succeed as Artists where she identified inequality of opportunity as a major factor in the near exclusion of women from the arts in Britain. In 1937, she became the first woman to join the selection committee of the R.A., but was not invited to its annual banquet until 1967.Knight campaigned for greater recognition and status for women in the arts throughout her career and was President of the Society of Women Artists from 1932-1968. Throughout her life she took the opportunity to promote herself and her work, fight for equal renumeration and obtain high-profile commissions.

KT586Inscribed and dated l.l.: 17 April.1864/6.40 PM./Canéa and indistinctly in pencil and numbered l.r.: (15) and again in pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour22.5 x 34.5 cm.; 8 ¾ x 13 ½ inchesProvenanceCradock and Barnard, London;Christie’s, London 6 June 2002, lot 109;Maurice Edward Dear, from whom bought in 2008 byPeter Roberts, until 2023Edward Lear arrived in Crete on 11 April 1864 and stayed until 31 May.His diary tells us that he had a busy day on Sunday 17 April and sketched first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening (see ed. Rowena Fowler, Edward Lear The Cretan Journal, 2012, p. 15).Lear had a characteristically productive time on the island and referred to ‘196 drawings - & a vast number of small bits’ when working on his Cretan sketches in England in the summer of 1864.Peter Roberts was a school master and collector of English watercolours who taught English at Oundle School until his retirement in 2007.

Graphite38 x 55 cmThis drawing, made with aid of a camera obscura, shows the picturesque temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, which stands on Mount Panhellion and commands a view of the Saronic Gulf. The temple is dedicated to Aphaia, a goddess whose cult was found only at Aegina, and it is one of the loveliest late Archaic temples in Greece. In 1811 C. R. Cockerell and Baron Haller von Hallerstein excavated the site and found the fallen pedimental sculpture from the temple, dating from circa 510 to 490 BC. Seventeen of the statues that they excavated were acquired by Ludwig I of Bavaria, and are today in the Glyptothek in Munich.Pomardi drew this view from the same spot on Mount Panhellion He and Dodwell evidently liked Aegina, and they produced nearly thirty drawings of the temple and its surroundings.

Signed, dated and inscribed l.r.: Napoli./EdwardLear./7.07.1840.-, pencil with white on blue paper17 x 24 cmProvenancePrivate Collection, London until 2017Lear lived in Rome from December 1837 until 1848 as part of an international community of artists, a happy and productive time in his artistic development. During the summers he travelled to other parts of Italy. This characteristic, crisp drawing heightened with white on blue paper is typical of his work of the period.

Signed with monogram and dated 24th. Octr. 57. l.r., watercolour over pencil18.5 x 24.3 cmThis free sketch is a delightful example of Holland’s virtuosity. He first visited Venice in 1835 and was to return throughout the rest of his life, inspired by the beauty of the city, like so many other artists. He valued his own sketches greatly and once commented that parting with a sketch was like parting with a tooth; once sold it cannot be replaced (L. R. Valpy, Memoir of Samuel Palmer, 1881, p. 76).The facade of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, one of the six great philanthropic confraternities of the Venetian Republic, is by Pietro Lombardo (1435–1515) and Giovanni Buora (1487–90?) and was finished by Mauro Codussi in 1495. The lion of San Marco can be seen in the middle of Holland’s composition. The building is situated next to Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the interior is now occupied by the civic hospital of Venice which stretches to the lagoon.Provenance: Sir Henry Houldsworth, Bt; Leger Galleries Ltd, February 1962; Private collection, UK

Signed and dated l.l.: No. 14/F. Towne delt/1777 and inscribed on the reverse of the original mount (attached to backboard): No. 14/A View of the Cataract of the Mothvaye/in Merionethshire North Wales/drawn on the spot by/Francis Towne/1777/London/Leicester Square/June 20th 1777, stamped with collector’s mark, pen and black ink and watercolour heightened with touches of bodycolour and scratching out on five sheets of paper joined, with watermark: I VILLEDARY.31.8 x 43.2 cm.; 12 x 17 inchesProvenanceBequeathed by the artist to James White (1745-1825);By bequest to John Herman Merivale, 1825, and by descent in the family to his granddaughter Emily Harriet Buckingham, 1915;By descent to her sister Frances Ann Laura Solly, 1923;With Thos. Agnew, London, from whom purchased by Wayland Wells Williams (188-1945);By descent to Mrs Elizabeth Williams Garstin (1897-1979) by1950;By descent to Mrs Cynthia Garstin Blackwell by 1962, her sale,Christie's London, 21 November 2007, lot 27, £31,700, to Andrew Wyld;His sale Christie’s 10 July 2012, lot 60;With Guy Peppiatt Fine Art;Private collection, U.K. until 2024ExhibitedLondon, Old Water-Colour Society, no. 46 as 'Cataract of the Mothvay';London, Agnew's, Exhibition of Selected Watercolour Drawings by Artists of the Early English School, February - March 1922, no.120, lent by Emily Buckingham;Manchester, Agnew's, The 49th Exhibition of Selected WatercolourDrawings by Artists of the Early English School In Aid of the Manchester Royal Infirmary, November to December 1922, no. 7;Manchester, Agnew's, The Fiftieth Annual Exhibition of Selected Water Colour Drawings, November to December 1923, no. 22;Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Special Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Prints and Drawings from New England Collections, not dated, no. 632;Yale, Yale University Art Gallery, Prospects: An Exhibition of English Landscape Watercolors from English and American Private Collections, 1950, no. 60, lent from the Wayland Wells Williams Collection by Mrs Elizabeth Williams Garstin;London, W/S Fine Art Andrew Wyld, 2008 and 2009 Summer exhibitions, no. 9LiteratureAdrian Bury, Lone Star of Watercolour Painting, London, 1962, p. 151;Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, London, 1997, p. 43, fig. 14;Richard Stephens, A Catalogue Raisonné of Francis Towne (1739-1816), FT079This substantial, exceptionally well-preserved watercolour dates from Towne’s first major sketching tour outside his native Devon to North Wales in June and July 1777 with his friend the lawyer James White. Wales was becoming a fashionable destination for tourists and the sublime landscape and medieval buildings provided many appealing subjects for artists.Towne’s numbered works from this tour start with Shropshire views (no. 1, a view of Bridgenorth dated 20th June) and end with views of Somerset (no. 54, a view of Glastonbury Abbey). Richard Stephens (op. cit.) has researched the itinerary and suggests that after Bridgenorth Towne travelled to Wenlock and then on to Shrewsbury via the Wrekin. By 27 June he was at Bala and then he headed south-west over the Cambrian Mountains to Machynlleth. The next week saw him sketching around Cadair Idris and Dolgelly and by 6 July he was near Tan y Bwlch. A few days later he headed towards Caernarvon, via Aberglaslyn and Llyn Cwellyn. From Caernarvon he took the coastal road to Conwy. He followed the River Clwyd south-east to Denbigh and then went on to Llangollen before starting to make his way home.Towne used sheets of differing sizes on this tour and this drawing is executed on one of the largest.

Grey wash over pencil with pen and brown ink, on laid paper with a partial Strasburg Lily watermark, indistinctly inscribed verso: .amk(?)/.-.-., mounted, unframed18.9 x 12 cmThe lady in this drawing appears to be using an embroidery frame.

Signed and dated l.l.: Wm Callow/1885., watercolour over pencil with scratching out and touches of white37.4 x 26.7 cm; 14¾ x 10½ inchesExhibited: Probably the Society of Painters in Water-colours, 1885, entitled A Relic of Venetian Architecture in Padua.This colourful drawing shows the triple-arched Venetian Gothic window of the Palazzo di Ezzolino in the centre of Padua, above an archway over a busy thoroughfare bustling with locals shopping. The palace was built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by Ezzelino da Romano. A further view of Padua by Callow showing the Market Place and Palazzo Ragione is in the collection of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College.

Watercolour over pencil with a touch of bodycolour on brown paper8 x 11 cmProvenanceHolland & Holland

Black chalk and pencil on laid paper watermarked with the Strasburg Lily56.5 x 48.5 cm.; 22 ¼ x 19 inchesProvenanceChristopher Powney, 1980; from whom bought byPrivate collection, U.K. until 2023ExhibitedMorton Morris & Company with Christopher Powney, ‘Drawings by George Romney’, 21 October – 7 November 1980, no. 48 (ill.)The drawing shows Antigone mourning the death of her brother Polynices at the hand of their sibling Eteocles who also perished in their fatal duel.Powney suggested that the subject taken from the Thebaid of Statius, Book XII (see Drawings by George Romney, op cit.). The Latin epic poem in twelve books, published in the last decade of the first century, tells of the clash between the two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices over the throne of Thebes.This substantial early work by Romney dates from the end of the 1760s or the early 1770s. It exhibits the bold and incisive characteristics which are hallmarks of Romney’s drawing style but is an unusually finished composition, controlled and tempered by the demands of neoclassicism.Romney’s friend the writer William Hayley (1745-1820) fuelled the artist’s desire to learn more about literature and the classics, and on Romney’s visits to his home in Sussex Hayley kept a notebook in which he, Romney and the other guests wrote down ‘Hints for Pictures’ to encourage the enlargement of his knowledge of the classics. Hayley was planning a new translation of Statius (see A. Kidson, George Romney, (1734-1802, 2002, p. 6).Like most Romney's drawings, this work is of a subject which was not turned into an oil. Romney destroyed many of his drawing before leaving for Paris in 1764 as he lacked the space in which to store them. The majority of those that survive date from after 1775 and his return from Rome. Another drawing of Antigone is in the Romney collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Inscribed l.l.: Fordland/June 5/1841, pen and grey ink and wash over traces of pencil26.5 x 21.5 cm.; 10 3/8 x 8 ½ inchesAbbott was one of the best amateur watercolorists of the late eighteenth century. An Exeter surgeon and apothecary, he lived in the city until 1825. He exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy from 1793 and received contemporary acclaim for the style of his work. The artist John Downman said that ‘he prefers his drawings before his paintings, as they are done with more spirit’ (J. Farington, Diary 26 June 1804; vol. VI, p. 2362).In 1825 the artist inherited the Devon estate of Fordland from his uncle James White a barrister and non-conformist. He delighted in drawing the woodland on his estate, developing the style he learnt from Francis Towne, his drawing master, with sophisticated handling of light and shade in the depiction of trees in monochrome.

Watercolour over pencil on laid paper 37.5 x 53 cm.; 14 3⁄4 x 20 3⁄4 inchesFrame size 60 x 74.5 cm; 23 5/8 x 29 1⁄4 inchesProvenance: Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd.Exhibited: Lupton’s Gallery, Eton College, 27 May – 10 September 2009, no. 11Labruzzi, the son of a weaver, studied at, and was later received into, the prestigious Accademia di San Luca, one of the few Italians in Rome who worked mainly as a landscape artist. His studio was one of those usually visited by British Grand Tourists and his work enjoyed contemporary popularity and commercial success.He accompanied the antiquarian Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838), of Stourhead in Wiltshire, along the Via Appia from Rome to Brindisi in 1789, commissioned to sketch the monuments along the way. Bad weather and Labruzzi’s ill-health stopped the trip however, and the project was never completed, but he drew over two hundred and fifty views. His patron had intended to publish an account of the journey with prints and had the drawings bound in five volumes. Labruzzi made some more finished drawings in sepia, some modified for reproduction, and twenty-four plates etched by him were issued by Colt Hoare as 'Via Appia illustrate ab Urbe Romam ad Capuam', published in 1794 (see Timothy Clifford, 'Carlo Labruzzi the Grand Tour', 2012, Dickinson exhibition catalogue).

Inscribed and dated u.l.: Sa Ma de’ Monti/6 May 1781, pencil and grey wash on laid paper18.8 x 26.4 cm; 7 3/8 x 10 3/8 inchesProvenanceIolo Williams (1890-1962);Leger, 1992;Private collection, U.K., purchased from the aboveExhibitedMarble Hill House, Twickenham,Thomas Jones, 1970, no. 52;Leger,British Landscape Painting, 4 March - 3 April,1992, no. 25Thomas Jones was born at Trefonnen near Llandrindod in Radnorshire. At the request of his uncle, he attended Jesus College, Oxford, in order to enter the church, but in 1761 Jones went to London and enrolled at Shipley's drawing school. By March 1763, Jones had decided to pursue landscape painting and persuaded Richard Wilson (1713-1782) to take him as an apprentice. He subsequently established a thriving landscape practice. However, despite his success in London, Jones hankered after Italy.Jones had long wanted to travel to Italy; a favourite project that had been in agitation for some years, and on which my heart was fixed (A.P. Oppé, ed., Memoirs of Thomas Jones , Walpole Society, XXXII, 1946-1948, p. 37). This may have been heightened by the example of Richard Wilson, whose artistic success had been assured by the Italian scenes he painted on his return to England after six years in Rome in the 1750s. Jones had studied and copied his sketches and studies during his apprenticeship. However, for years his trip to the continent had been thwarted by mounting debts and his parents' disapproval of the scheme and Jones did not leave until October 1776.Jones was greatly affected by the changing landscape and light as he travelled through France to Italy. After a brief stay in Florence, he arrived in Rome on 27 November 1776. In his lively and informative memoirs, Jones refers to Wilson’s influence when expressing his joy at travelling through Italy and entering Rome, the: new and uncommon Sensations I was filled [with] on my first traversing this beautiful and picturesque Country ... It appeared Magick Land - In fact I had copied so many Studies of the great Man, & my Old Master, Richard Wilson ... that I insensibly became familiarized with Italian Scenes, and enamoured of Italian forms ( ibid. p. 55).From May 1780 to August 1783 Jones was based in Naples and delighted in the picturesque scenery on the road to Santa Maria dei Monti, a monastery to the east of Naples of which a number of drawings by him are known. He was influenced by the fashionable work of Salvator Rosa, with its treatment of banditti in rocky landscapes. His old friend Francis Towne arrived in Naples in March 1781, and, in his memoirs, Jones describes their trip along the wild road to the monastery : I was able to conduct him to many picturesque scenes of my own discovery, entirely out of the common road of occasional Visiters, either Cavaliers or Artists (Thomas Jones, ibid . p. 102). He drew the road many times- ten are listed in the 1970 Marble Hill catalogue- and further examples are included in the collections of the Tate, the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven and the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.Two other drawings of the subject executed on 6 May, the same day as the present drawing, one coloured and one pencil and grey wash, are in the collection of the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. They are of a similar size to the present work and a grey wash drawing (D2002.14) is taken from almost the same spot.Jones further recorded how he felt about this place in his Memoirs on 2nd June 1781 and another incident which he and Towne had experienced: I proceeded to meet Pars..at an Osteria in the road to S’a M’a de Monti- in this hollow Way is a most beautiful series of picturesque Objects, which I discovered by Accident in one of my perambulations-Here may visibly be traced the scenery that Salvator Rosa formed himself on-Only taking away Pine trees, which were, perhaps planted since his time, and which indicate a state of cultivation not suited to his gloomy mind, with the addition of Water and a few Banditti-And every hundred yards present you with a new sand perfect composition of that Master- When Towne was in Naples I took him with me to see this romantic place, with which he seemed much delighted- but the following whimsical incident put a stop to further explorations at that time and which I forgot to mention in its proper place- Proceeding up the valley whose boundaries contracted more and more as we advanced, increasing in proportion the Gloominess of the Scene; We arrived at a Spot, which might very properly have been termed the Land of Darkness & the Shadow of Death…Here, says I, Mr Towne, is Salvator Rosa in perfection we only want Banditti to compleat the picture- I had scarcely uttered these words when turning round a projection of the rocks, we all at once pop’d upon three ugly-looking fellows dressed in the fantastic garb of the Shirri di Campagna, with long knives cutting up a dead jackAss.-…Towne started back as if struck by an electric shock, strongly impressed, I suppose, with our late adventure on the Coast of Baja-‘I’ll go no further’, says he, with a most solemn face, adding with a forced smile, that however he might admire such scenes in a Picture- he did not relish them in Nature- (ibid. pp. 104-5).Thomas Jones’s reputation has soared in recent years, notably after the 2003 landmark exhibition Thomas Jones (1742-1803) An Artist Rediscovered (at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, the National Gallery, London, and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester) reinstated his reputation as one of the most idiosyncratic and innovative eighteenth-century British artists.Iolo Williams (1890-1962) was the author of Early English Watercolours (published in 1952), one of the bibles of the field. He left a large part of his collection to the British Museum, but this drawing was held back. He took a keen interest in Welsh matters, serving on the Council of the National Museum of Wales and on the Welsh Committee of the Arts Council.

Inscribed u.l.: Temple of Jupiter Olympus Athens, graphite38 x 52.5 cmConstruction of the Temple of Zeus Olympios was begun in the Doric order in the sixth century BC under the Peisistradid tyranny, but was discontinued after its fall. A new version in the Corinthian order was commenced by Antiochos IV of Syria (175–164 BC). When it was completed some 300 years or so later, around AD 131–2, in Hadrian’s reign, it was by far the largest building in Athens.The brick structure upon the architrave of the two western columns of the middle range is supposed to have been built as an aerial retreat around 1209 by Nicholas de la Roche, the canon of Athens. It measured three feet high, twenty feet long and seven feet wide, and was removed circa 1870.This drawing was made with the aid of a camera obscura. Page has left the fluting of the columns unfinished, although the capitals are carefully observed.

Signed and dated l.r.: N. Chevalier/1887., watercolour over pencil with scratching out36 x 48.5 cm.; 14 1/8 x 19 1/8 inchesProvenancePrivate collection, U.K. until 2023Born in St Petersburg of a Swiss father and Russian mother, Chevalier moved to Switzerland in 1845 where he studied at the drawing academy affiliated with the Musée Arlaud in Lausanne before studying architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He travelled to London in 1851 to see the Great Exhibition, where he also trained as a lithographer and exhibited watercolours at the Royal Academy.Chevalier arrived in Melbourne in 1854 and found employment on the magazine Melbourne Punch. Alongside his work as a commercial illustrator he also published in 1865 a portfolio of 12 landscape prints, the earliest examples of chromolithography in Australia. Chevalier visited New Zealand in 1865–66, making extensive records of his tour, which he exhibited in Christchurch and Dunedin and in Melbourne at the Intercolonial Exhibition of 1866–67, as well as at the Paris Salon in 1868.When Queen Victoria’s second son, the Duke of Edinburgh, arrived in Melbourne in 1867 as part of his world tour, Chevalier accompanied the royal party as correspondent for The Illustrated Australian News. Later, he was invited to join the Duke’s entourage for the voyage back to England. His sketches and watercolours documenting the journey were exhibited at the Crystal Palace and at the South Kensington Museum in 1872.After settling in London in 1870, Chevalier received numerous commissions from the royal family. He also travelled routinely to Switzerland to paint. His influence on the development of the fine arts in Australia remained strong.Towards the end of his life Chevalier spent his winters in Madeira, where his final watercolours were made. This view shows Loo Rock in Funchal Bay and gives an evocative sense of the terraces of the city in the late 1880s.

Signed l.r.: WARWICK/REYNOLDS, black conté crayon with a black line borderImage 39 x 27.2 cm.; 15 3/8 x 10 5/8 inches, whole sheet 40.8 x 28.9 cm.; 16 1/8 x 11 3/8 inchesFramed size 71 x 61.5 cm.; 28 x 24 ¼ inchesProvenanceThe Fine Art Society, London;Andrew Mackintosh-Patrick until 2023Engraved‘The Art of the Illustrator and his Work Warwick Reynolds’, published by Percy Bradshaw, The Press Art School, Forest Hill, London, 1918A copy of this publication accompanies the drawingThis striking drawing of a black family dates from 1918 and their smart appearance gives the work its title. The baby is elaborately swaddled and wears a complicated bonnet with a large bow. Its mother is stylishly dressed in a checked dress, wears lace at her throat, sports a fashionable dark hat with a feather and has expensive looking earrings and a broach at her neck. She holds an open parasol. The man who is the central figure in the composition swings on his chair and wears a smart striped suit, a patterned waistcoat with a watchchain and a fashionable Newsboy flat hat with a button, often worn for golfing, a cigarette holder balanced between his lips.‘His drawings have always seemed to me to combine an intense sensitiveness for the subject he is illustrating, with intuitive appreciation of type and nationality, an ever-present decorative quality, and virile decision of draughtsmanship; and he portrays struggle, action and character with peculiar relish. …The outstanding qualities of his more careful work are the texture and tone he achieves with his Conté’, Percy Bradshaw, op. cit. p, 6.In 1918 Percy Bradshaw contacted Warwick Reynolds and nineteen other leading illustrators of the day and commissioned a special illustration from each of them. Each artist was given a free hand over the choice of subject, the only stipulation being that the painting or drawing should be representative of his or her technique and that each stage in its composition should be shown. Bradshaw then reproduced in six plates each step in the artistic process and published the 6 lithographs in a portfolio with an introduction and description of the process within a card folder. The accompanying text explores Reynolds’ background, explains his significance, analyses his technique and contains a six-stage description of the development of this work, from inception to completion. The publication of these portfolios was designed to illuminate the secrets and techniques of some of the worlds' greatest illustrators.The first stage illustrated in Reynolds’ portfolio is of the blocking in of the entire composition and the drawing of the head of shoulders of the seated man. In stage 2 he finishes the man. In stage 3 he completes the waistcoat, adds further work to the chair and sunshade and starts on the figure of the woman. The 4th stage shows many additions, to the man’s boots, the woman’s outline and Bradshaw comments on the tonal variation which he describes as a special characteristic of the artist’s illustrations. The 5th and 6th stages see the completion of the drawing with a further varying of the textures and the addition of the final details of the composition. Other artists included in this series were Lawson Wood, F.H. Townsend, Fortunino Matania, Harry Rountree, Claude A Shepperson, Bert Thomas, William Heath Robinson, Frank Reynolds, Cyrus Cuneo, William Russell Flint, Charles Brock, Spenser Pryse, Edmund Sullivan, Balliol Salmon, H.M. Bateman, Louise Wright, W Hatherell, Dudley Hardy and Bernard Partridge.The artist was born in Islington, London. His father, Warwick Reynolds senior was a cartoonist and watercolourist. He was educated at Stroud Green, and studied art at the Grosvenor Studio, St. John's Wood Art School and the Académie Julien in Paris. Reynolds started a career as a magazine illustrator in 1895, which included working on ‘Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday’, The Gem, and other magazines including The Strand, Pearsons’s, The Quiver and The Idler. He was particularly interested in drawing and painting animals and drew the animals at London Zoo in black and white from 1895-1901. He illustrated numerous books on wildlife subjects including Habits and Characters of British Wild Animals (1920), Romance of the Wild (1922) and Dwellers in the Jungle (1925). He also worked in oils, pastels and watercolours and painted portraits and animal subjects.He married Mary Kincaid, the daughter of a master printer, in 1906, and they lived in Glasgow where Reynolds worked as a staff artist on The Daily Record. He died in Glasgow at the age of 46.Reynolds exhibited extensively in Glasgow, Liverpool, London and Edinburgh and the year after he died memorial exhibitions were mounted at the Sporting Gallery in London and Wellington Art Galleries, Glasgow. Examples of his work can be found In Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow and Aberdeen Art Gallery.

KT381Signed with monogram l.r., inscribed with title l.l., watercolour with bodycolour and16 x 25 cm; 6 ¼ x 9 ¾ inchesFramed size 35.5 x 42 cm.; 14 x 16 ½ inchesSOLDProvenanceMartin Hardie (1875-1952);Christopher and Rosemary Warren, Bristol until 2020Johnson was born in Birmingham where he studied under Samuel Restell Lines. He was then a pupil of William James Müller in London, accompanying him on Sir Charles Fellowes’ expedition to Lycia in 1843.On Johnson’s return to London he became a founder member of the Clipstone Street Academy, along with Müller, participating in its life drawing and painting sessions with a variety of models from the streets. Johnson made sketching trips with David Cox to North Wales from 1844.The artist was elected an associate member of the R.I. in 1868 and a full member two years later. His work can be found in many museum collections, including the British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum.Martin Hardie (1875-1952) was the author of the three-volume bible of British watercolourists Water-Colour Painting in Britain and a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum. He was also an authority on print making on which he published extensively as well as a practising artist in both watercolour and etching.

Black chalk with stump over pencil on laid paper27.8 x 38.9 cm; 11 x 15¼ inchesProvenance: Arthur Kay (1861–1939), Edinburgh; Edith Oliver (1894–1972); By descent until sold at Christie’s, London, 11 November 1997, lot 7; David Stokes, London; Private collection, UK, until 2018.Literature: Hugh Belsey, 'A Second Supplement to John Hayes’s ‘The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough’, no. 1086, Master Drawings, Vol. 46, No. 4, ‘Drawings by Gainsborough’ (Winter, 2008), pp. 427–541.This drawing probably dates from the mid 1780s. The comparatively free handling of the forms is similar to a group of other drawings of this date (see Belsey, op. cit., nos. 1074 and 1077–92). Arthur Kay, the first recorded owner of this work, owned a group of drawings by Gainsborough, some of which were sold at Christie’s on 23 May 1930, although it has not been possible to precisely identify the present drawing as one of these.

Signed and dated l.r.: Edward Bawden/1948, pen and grey ink and watercolour46 x 59 cm.; 18 x 23 inchesProvenanceMiss N.B. Allen, purchased in 1949 from the Leicester Galleries, London;Spink, K3 10536;Private collection, U.K. until 2022ExhibitedLeicester Galleries, London: ‘Works by Edward Bawden CBE, ARA’, February 1949, no. 1Bawden lived in Great Bardfield in Essex from the 1930s to 1970 and was a central figure of the Great Bardfield Artists.

SOLDSigned l.r.: A.T./oct.8.1918, watercolour over traces of pencil with touches of bodycolour on green paper28 x 35.3 cm.; 11 x 13 7/8 inchesProvenanceThe Moorland Gallery, Cork Street

John Nixon (c. 1760-1818)A Cit's Country Box, as described in the 135th number of the ConnoisseurSigned and dated l.r.: JNixon/1804, watercolour over pencil on wove paper48.2 x 64.5 cm.; 19 x 25 3/8 inches ProvenancePrivate Collection, UK until 2025ExhibitedLondon, Royal Academy, 1805, no. 595, entitled The Cit's country box, as described in the 135th number of the Connoisseur. The eponymous poem by Robert Lloyd which inspired this work was first published in the London weekly newspaper The Connoisseur in the 135th edition. The 1757 poem mocks the fashion for building country houses a few miles from London:'The wealthy cit, grown old in trade/now wishes for the rural shade/and buckles to his one-horse chair/Old Dobbin, or the founder'd mare;/while wedg'd in closely by his side/sits madam, his unweildly bride'…..‘The trav'ler with amazement sees/A temple, Gothic, or Chinese,/With many a bell, and tawdry rag on,/And crested with a sprawling dragon;/A wooden arch is bent astride/A ditch of water, four foot wide,/With angles, curves, and zigzag lines,/From Halfpenny's exact designs./ In front, a level lawn is seen,/Without a shrub upon the green,/ Where Taste would want its first great law,/But for the skulking, sly haha,/By whose miraculous assistance,/You gain a prospect two fields distance.’https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/works/o5089-w0090.shtmlNixon evidently had Strawberry Hill in his sights in the present large-scale watercolour of a house by the Thames with Gothic decorations around the roof, a round tower and the prominent urn which is a memorial to a cat (Grim in this case) on the lawn. Horace Walpole’s affection for cats was well known and immortalised by his friend the poet Thomas Gray in Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat (memorialising the unfortunate Selima who drowned in a Chinese goldfish bowl). Nixon has included a self-portrait in this work and can be identified as the figure with a prominent nose talking to a lady in the centre of this watercolour wearing a characteristic blue coat. A smaller sketch of the subject by Nixon was sold at Christie's, London on 6 November 1973, lot 15. Dr Johnson defines a ‘cit’ in his 1771 Dictionary of the English Language as 'a pert low townsman'. The aspirational citizen of Nixon's caricature is drawn with his family and friends in a garden on the banks of the Thames with a distant view of the City of London. His 'country box' has been designed with Gothic decorations, a tower and classical columns. A large sign hanging in the tree warns of 'REAL MAN TRAPS in these GARDENS' and a man trap is strung up in the branches. However, the chaos, oversize statues and lack of finesse make it clear that we are witnessing the life of an aspirational nouveau riche.Nixon's caricatures are generally small in scale. The present work is one of a handful of important and exceptionally large sheets that he produced, all of which are of almost identical dimensions.

Watercolour over faint traces of pencil with scratching out26.6 x 54.4 cm sight sizeProvenanceWith Thomas Agnew & Sons. Ltd, London, no. 14733, cat. no 45;Sir Robert and Lady Mayer, by descent to the present ownerExhibitedAgnew’s Galleries, London, 1966, Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Peter de Wint, in aid of Lincoln Cathedral Fabric Maintenance Fund, no. 74Peter De Wint was the son of a physician who, though born in New York of Dutch immigrant parents, was trained in Holland and London. The artist’s marriage to Harriet Hilton, sister of fellow painter William Hilton, introduced him to their native Lincolnshire where they spent many of their summers and which was to provide him with a lifetime of inspiration. In Harriet de Wint’s Memoir she wrote, ‘at Lincoln and the neighbourhood where he ever found new beauties and new subjects...the long, extensive distances with their ever varying effects. .afforded him unceasing delight’ (H. De Wint, A Short Memoir of the Life of Peter De Wint and William Hilton, R.A.’, privately printed, pp. 84).This lovely De Wint is a masterly example of his skilled use of the wet brush, creating layers of colour to build up the Lincolnshire landscape. It has not been possible to identify Yardley Mill; it may be that the mill was named after its owner.This drawing has been in the same family since it was bought by the present owner’s grandmother from Agnew’s in the 1940s.

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.

SOLDTwo, pencil, inscribed on old mount: Arabian & young rhinocerosOne 8 x 24.3 cm; 7 x 9 1/2 inches, the other 12 x 18.7 cm; 4 3/4 x 7 3/8 inchesThe artist studied in Paris and made many drawings of animals throughout his career. He visited Australia in 1850, New Zealand in 1856 and returned to England in 1862. He was a Fellow of the Zoological Society.

Signed l.r., watercolour28 x 12 cm

SOLDTwo, one signed and dated l.r.: Whichelo 1826 and signed, inscribed and dated verso:A Frigate going from St Helens to Spithead./J. Whichelo 1826., pen and grey ink and grey wash on grey paper, the second with touches of whiteOne with cut corners 10.8 x 13 cm, the other 9 x 2.9 cmAccompanied by copies of the drawings by Augusta Raymond-Barker. Augusta Raymond-Barker’s copies are very spirited renderings of the originals. Whichelo was marine and landscape painter to the Prince Regent by 1812.Provenance: Augusta Raymond-Barker, Fairford Park, Gloucestershire; thence by family descent until 2016

Watercolour with touches of bodycolour6.5 x 8 cmLady Emily Dundas, née Reynolds-Moreton, was the fourth daughter of Thomas, 1st Earl of Ducie and sister of Augusta Raymond-Barker’s stepmother Lady Catherine Reynolds-Moreton, who married John Raymond-Barker in 1841 as his second wife. In 1847 she married Admiral Sir James Whitley Deans Dundas, G CB (1785–1862) as his second wife. He became the First Naval Lord in the first Russell ministry in July 1847 and they lived at Admiralty House. Thackeray records that during the 1850 season Lady Emily Dundas gave a party at which anyone who was anyone would wish to be seen (Jerry White, London in the Nineteenth Century – ‘A Human Awful Wonder of God’, 2007).Provenance: Augusta Raymond-Barker, Fairford Park, Gloucestershire; thence by family descent until 2016

Pen and brown and grey ink and watercolour over pencil29 x 24 cm.; 11 3/8 x 9 ½ inchesProvenanceSotheby’s, New York, 30 October 1985, lot 30;Andrew Clayton-Payne Ltd;Private collection U.K. until 2025ExhibitedAndrew Clayton-Payne Ltd, An Exhibition of Watercolours by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), 19 November – 2 December 1998, no. 9EngravedDoctor Gallipot placing his Fortune at the feet of his Mistress thro' Physic to the DogsEtching and aquatint on copperplate; drawn and engraved by Thomas Rowlandson and published in London in 1808.A French doctor on bended knee makes a declaration of love to his young and attractive, female patient. The venerable doctor is declaring his love for the lady whilst gesturing towards a bottle (which in the print of the subject contains "Elixir of Life Drops"). A strategically placed syringe suggests how he might be planning to administer the dosage to obtain eternal youth. A painting on the wall behind the couple shows Cupid in a similar pose in front of a naked Venus. A maid stands behind a partially opened door surveying the scene (to be replaced by a footman in the engraving).Rowlandson pokes fun at both the French and licentious quack doctors as well having a customary dig at the attentions of older men towards younger women.There is more than a usual amount of pencil underdrawing in this watercolour which suggests that Rowlandson changed his mind as he worked, at his usual speed.A pen and wash drawing in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge entitled "Doctor Cathartic declaring his passion to Miss Costive" (1798) provides a grotesque variation on this theme, with both suitor and woman older and uglier.Another version of this watercolour in the collection of Yale University Medical Library shows a similar scene in front of a keyboard instrument.Thomas Rowlandson, Doctor Gallipot. Yale Medical Library. Historical Library, Yale University. New Haven, CT.

Signed l.l.: DETMOLD, watercolour over pencil with a brown line border31.3 x 20.3 cmProvenanceAlan Fortunoff, by descent until 2017Detmold worked as a painter, illustrator and printmaker specialising in meticulous, intense images. He and his twin brother Charles were taken by their great-uncle to London zoo and the Natural History Museum to draw from an early age. Their uncle Henry Detmold, an artist, further encouraged their development and they absorbed the influence of Japanese printmakers, fashionable in the late 19th century.E.J. Detmold’s work is to be found in many museum collections including that of the British Museum, the V&A and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.Alan Fortunoff (1933-2000) was an American department store magnate who transformed the Fortunoff Department Store. He formed a fine collection British nineteenth and twentieth century art.

Watercolour over pencil with touches of gum arabic16.7 x 11.1 cm.;6 5/8 x 4 3/8 inchesProvenanceRev. James Bulwer (1794-1879), by descent;The Palser Gallery, St James’s, London;Unidentified auction, 24 March 1981, lot 53;Christopher and Rosemary Warren until 2020ExhibitedThe Palser Gallery, 27 King Street, St James’s, no. 51St Stephen’s church can be seen clearly from Marsh Street in the centre of Bristol.The Rev. James Bulwer (1794-1879) was a pupil of John Sell Cotman and the owner of a fine collection of British watercolours.

With signature l.r.: T. Rowlandson, pen and grey ink and watercolour15.5 x 22 cm; 6 1/8 x 8 5/8 inchesThis drawing probably dates from the 1790s when Rowlandson drew many views of towns all over Britain. The view is currently unidentified.

Inscribed with title u.c.: TEMPLE OF APOLLO DIDYMAEUS. HIERONDASPen and brown ink over traces of graphite, on two sheets, joined43 x 114 cmThe Temple of Apollo at Didyma (now Didim in Turkey), on the coast of Ionia, housed the most renowned oracle in the ancient world after Delphi and was the largest and most significant sanctuary on the territory of the city of Miletus. Destroyed by the Persians in 494 BC, the oracle was re-consecrated by Alexander the Great around 334 BC. A new peripteral temple, surrounded by a double file of Ionic columns, was started, although never finished.The village of Hieronda, also known as Ura, was built on the site and was referred to and stayed at by Richard Chandler, who led an expedition for the Society of the Dilettanti in1764–6. Extensive excavations on the site, led initially by the British and French and now by the Germans, have revealed most of the temple and much of the sacred way.The two standing columns in Page’s drawing, which was made with the aid of a camera obscura, can still be seen at the site today.

KT531Signed l.r.: J.M. INCE 1839, signed and inscribed verso in pen and brown ink: View in Radnorshire/J. Ince, watercolour over traces of pencil with scratching out and stopping out28 x 43.8 cm.; 11 x 17 inchesThis beautiful watercolour shows the influence of David Cox very clearly.Ince studied with David Cox in Hereford before moving to London in 1826 when he started to exhibit at the Royal Academy. He moved first to Cambridge and then in the 1830s back to Presteigne in Radnorshire, where he was based for the rest of his life.

KT399Pencil, with sketches verso of a wolf and a woman’s body with the head of a pig11.2 x 18 cm; 4 3/8 x 7 inchesFramed size 22 x 27 cm; 8 5/8 x 10 5/8 inchesProvenance: Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd, no. 24553 (called an Eastern Sheep)The subject of the sketch verso is as yet unidentified.

Signed l.l.: M E Cotman/April 23 1827, inscribed l.r.: Raby Park Durham/E of Darlingtons, pencil34.5 x 24 cm.; 13 ½ x 9 3/8 inchesProvenanceDr Henry Lowe and Judy Lowe (née) Cotman until 2023

Inscribed l.r.: Buah Nam nam./Cynometra cauliflora. and with further botanical notes in Latin, Jawi and Greek, watercolour and bodycolour over traces of pencil with gum arabic, on laid paper watermarked: RUSE & TURNERS/1825 and with the Strasburg Lily37.5 x 48.5 cm; 14 3/4 x 19 1/4 inchesBuah Nam is a member of the family Fabaceae (legumes) native to Malaysia, a small, cauliflorous tree with a thick, heavily branched stem, and rather small flowers, about 1.2 cm across, that appear on the stem in clusters. The pod is edible with aromatic, juicy yellow pulp and large seeds.ProvenanceSharon and Anne Hamlyn until 2019These fine examples of watercolours by Chinese Artists of the Straits School are in the style of the Chinese artists who worked for Sir Stamford Raffles in Singapore and Major-General William Farquhar (c.1771-1839) who was Resident of Malacca from 1808-1818. The frequent movements of trade and personnel between India and China, via ports on the Malay peninsula including Malacca and Prince of Wales Island, meant that collectors frequently had both Indian and Chinese drawings in their collections. Henry Noltie has suggested that this school is named ‘Straits School’ (see Forgotten Masters Indian Painting for the East India Company, ed. W. Dalrymple, 2019, pp. 78-82).British patrons commissioned local Chinese artists to draw the flora and fauna of Malacca and the extensive botanical annotations in Jawi, the Malay script derived from Arabic, Romanised Malay, Latin and Greek and with reference to the Linnaean system of classification, created by Carl Linnaeus (1707-78) are typical of this material.The accumulation of natural history drawings by officials of the British East India Company gave rise to the term ‘Company School’, now out of favour, which has been used to describe the work of Indian or Chinese artists for British patrons. The distinctive style is a result of a fusion of two artistic traditions, the European with its desire for realism and the Asian taste for a more stylised approach.The eighteenth and early nineteenth century saw an enormous rise of interest in Europe in the study of natural history by both scientists and amateurs. A knowledge of the subject was considered to be an important part of a liberal education and many people studied ‘natural philosophy’ and the various branches of natural history. Accurate drawings were vital tools in classification as well as a reminder of the excited reaction to new discoveries.

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.

Inscribed l.l. on original mount: At Tenby, pen and brown ink, brush and brown and grey wash on laid paper, partially watermarked FABRIANO21 x 26.3 cm.; 8 ¼ x 10 ¼ inchesHeneage Finch, 4th Earl of Aylesford was a talented amateur artist who studied drawing with John Baptist Malchair while he was at Christ Church College, Oxford. His mature style shows show the influence of Rembrandt, whose etchings he collected.Aylesford made frequent tours to Wales, including a trip in 1803 when he may have made this view of Tenby. Another very similar but slightly smaller drawing of boats at the shore at Tenby by him is in the collection of Tate (T08126) and a further view of Tenby is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (2009.70.30).He was also a politician, patron of the arts (he was a trustee of the British Museum from 1787-1812), etcher and a talented amateur architect. His work can be found in many institutional collections.

SOLDSigned, inscribed and dated l.l.: P C Trench Ghazepoor July 1847, watercolour over traces of pencil22.2 x 28 cm.; 8 ¾ x 11 inchesUnframedPhilip Charles (later Chenevix) Trench was born in Dublin. He served as a civil servant in Bengal, retiring in 1871. He wrote A Sportsman in Ireland and illustrated the 1897 edition.Ghazipur, 135 miles west of Patna, was a centre of opium trade of the East India Company.Although only one dancer (at the back) seems to be wearing uniform, most of the young men are military officers from the town's cantonment, and the young women are likely t

Pen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil, inscribed verso: Talleyrand15 x 13.5 cm.; 5 7/8 x 5 1/4 inchesFrame size 31.5 x 26.5 cm; 12 ¼ x 10 3/8 inchesProvenanceCyril and Shirley Fry collectionThis sketch of the great statesman would appear to have been drawn between 1830 - 1834, during Talleyrand's time as French Ambassador to the Court of St James's.

Signed l.l.: HC Coleman, watercolour over traces of pencil with touches of bodycolour and gum arabic, in the original frame32.4 x 19.5 cm.; 17 3⁄4 x 12 3⁄4 inchesProvenanceJ.W. Vokins, 10 King Street, St James’s, London; Christie’s London, 26 June 1931, lot 5 (?); Private collection, U.K. until 2021This delightful still life is an accomplished early work which can be dated to before 1874, when the artist married and took the name of her husband Thomas Angell. It reflects the artist’s interest in pottery.Helen was the fifth daughter of twelve children of Henrietta Dendy and William Thomas Coleman, a physician and was schooled at home. Along with her sister, the pottery artist Rose Rebecca Coleman, she was taught painting and drawing by her older brother William Coleman who kept an art pottery studio in South Kensington and whom she helped make designs for Minton.Her early watercolours were first exhibited in the Dudley Gallery in London in 1864, thanks to the connections of her brother William.She married Thomas William Angell, a postmaster and an amateur artist, on 15 October 1874. The following year she joined the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours but resigned after she became an Associate of the Society of Painters in Water-Colour.Angell became Flower Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria from 1879 until her death, succeeding Valentine Bartholomew. She is said to have been anointed as his successor by William Henry Hunt, whose enthusiasm for still life subjects she shared.The artist’s work can be found in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Royal Albert Museum, Exeter and other public collections.

Signed and dated l.r.: Rowlandson 1795, pen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil 23.8 x 37.6 cm; 9⅜ x 14O inchesProvenance: Spink, London; Private collection, UK, until 2018.Rowlandson worked extensively in the West Country, where he made annual tours. He usually stayed with his friend and patron Matthew Michell, a banker, who had an estate at Hengar near Bodmin in Cornwall. Michell had collected several hundred drawings by the artist by the time of his death in 1807. A work entitled Oakhampton Town and Castle was included on the third day of the four-day sale of his drawings and prints at Sotheby’s, 29 June to 2 July 1818, lot 186. This vigorous, picturesque drawing shows Rowlandson’s facility with the pen to great effect. It seems likely that the figure in the castle ruins is a self-portrait; although it is not drawn with much facial detail, the hat, stance and general demeanour are reminiscent of Rowlandson, who often included himself in his drawings. Okehampton is on the road from Exeter to Hengar and was thus an easy place for the artist to visit en route to Michell’s estate. Okehampton Castle, overlooking the river Okement, was once the largest castle in Devon. The original Norman motte and bailey structure was converted into a grand home in the fourteenth century by Hugh Courteney, Earl of Devon. It fell into decline during the reign of Henry VIII, and by Rowlandson’s time it was a ruin.

Boats off CologneSigned and dated l.r.: .S Cotman 1832, numbered and inscribed verso: 14 Boats off Cologne, watercolour over pencil with scratching out23.2 x 32.6 cmProvenanceBaron François Adolphe Akermann, régent of the Banque de France and his wife Louise Marie née Boquet de Saint-Simon, the Chateau de Coulonges, Rahay, Sarthe, France, by descent until 2018The Great Saint Martin church, Cologne can be seen from the Rhine. In the late 18th century the northwestern tower was taken down and Cotman’s drawing shows the church with only two towers on the east side. After the twenty year occupation of the city from 1794 by the French, the archbishopric was ended in 1801 and the cloister at Saint Martin’s disbanded in 1802. The deserted abbey was lived in by French veterans and was later demolished.The two missing towers of the church were finally rebuilt in 1875.This drawing, which has not been on the market since the time of its creation, comes from a friendship album started by Baron Akermann (1809-1890) for his wife Louise Marie Bouqet de Saint-Simon after their marriage in 1836. There was a vogue for such albums in the nineteenth century and visitors would bring a drawing or watercolour as a symbol of friendship or to commemorate a visit. The magnificent leather bound album album contained an unmounted group of drawings and watercolours by artists such as Richard Parkes Bonington, Francia, William Wyld, Decamps, Vernet, Granville, Garneray, Coignet and others. The subjects ranged from marines to genre scenes, landscapes, still lives and interiors.Baron François Adolphe Ackerman (1809-1890) was born in Paris and followed his grandfather and father into the world of finance becoming receveur général des Finances for the department of the Dordogne in 1834 at the age of twenty five. He was an able financier and rebuilt the family estate at Coulonges, Rahay, Sarthe also becoming mayor of Rahay. He became deputy governor of the Banque de France in December 1870 and régent of the Banque de France on 27 January 1871, holding the office until his death. He was painted by Winterhalter. He and his wife had two daughters one of whom, Henrietta, married vicomte Henri de Bouillé.His grand father André Joseph Bernard Ackerman (1743-1824) was receveur general des finances of Namur and his father François Joseph Ackerman (1772-1833) held the same office for the department of Sambre-et-Meuse (1808-1814) and Ardennes (1815-1833).

Signed and dated l.r.: F. Blake 1849, inscribed on original mount in pencil: And on the darkest clouds of woe/he sets his covenanted bow/Patterdale, inscribed on original backboard in ink: Patterdale Churchyard by F. Blake and Blake 3665, watercolour over traces of pencil with scratching out, a Vokins framing stamp on the backboard, a label inscribed Drawing Room attached to the backboardProvenanceBy descent in the Blake family to Major-General Mark Bond, OBE (1922-2017), Moigne Combe, Dorset;By family descent at Moigne Combe until 2019Fanny (Frances) Blake was the sister of Frederick Rudolph Blake of Welwyn, Hertfordshire, the great-grandfather of H.M.G. Bond and E.M.G. Williams.She was an extremely talented pupil of Peter de Wint and is singled out for special mention in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ of 1851, in a review of an exhibition of the work of amateur watercolorists as an ‘accomplished artist, admirable for truth, completeness and delicacy’.This watercolour is a record of the previous church of St Patrick at Patterdale which dated from the 14th century and was extensively rebuilt around 1620, known to Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and Turner. A new church was built at Patterdale by Salvin in the early 1850s after a storm destroyed the building depicted here. The ancient yew tree in this work, thought to have dated back to the Norman Conquest, was destroyed in a storm in 1883.

Inscribed verso: View in Cumberland F de Wint, watercolour, on two sheets, joined15.2 x 64.7 cm; 6 x 25½ inchesProvenance: Lady Lyons, her sale at Christie’s, London, 24 October 1960, lot 42;With Spink & Son Ltd, London, K3 1910;H. A. Molins, his sale at Sotheby’s, London, 22 November 2007, lot 143;With WS Fine Art, London, 2008;The Flannery collection, UK, and by descent until 2018.Exhibited: WS Fine Art, summer 2008, no. 34.This atmospheric panorama with a remarkably extensive uninterrupted vista dates from the 1830s and is a companion to A View of the Cumberland Hills from Patterdale , in the collection of the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (D1924.63). Both watercolours are painted with wet, broad washes in the same palette on two sketchbook pages joined together, in the narrow panoramic format favoured by the artist, and are identical in size. They were presumably done on the spot. It seems highly probable that this watercolour is also of the fell region between Keswick and Penrith. De Wint is thought to have drawn these when visiting from the homes of his patrons the Howards of Leben or the Lonsdales of Lowther, with both of whom he stayed.The Gentleman’s Magazine obituary of the artist stated, His visits to the lakes of Westmerland [sic] and Cumberland produced many valuable sketches and drawings of picturesque scenery of a higher character; and his characteristic diligence in studying nature under all circumstances was never relaxed. 11. September 1849, p. 322, quoted in John Lord, ed., ‘Peter de Wint 1784–1849’, exhibition catalogue, Usher Art Gallery, Lincoln, 2007, p. 145.

Signed twice l.r., oil on paper34 x 30.2 cm; 13 2/5 x 11 9/10 inchesFramed in a black polished frameA commission for the Dunlop Rubber Company Limited and used as a full-page advertisement in 1953 to commemorate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in numerous publications including ‘The Queen’ and ‘The Illustrated London News’. A copy of one of the advertisements accompanies the painting. The accompanying text reads as follows:‘God Save the Queen. Once again this is a year of splendour for the Abbey in Westminster, which was built for prayer and for the anointing of Kings and Queens. Once again the triumphant trumpets give silver tongue and the people cry out “God Save the Queen” and the soft English daylight gains glory from gold and silver and precious jewels. Here, in this sacred place, time adds rich colour to the tapestry of history, as a new Queen, Elizabeth II, is anointed, crowned and enthroned. When the Queen departs from the Abbey, and the great throng is dispersed and the air is still, the glory will still be there, enshrined in this holy place, guardian of our faith and of our royal Succession.’Kelly was a New Zealand born painter, stage designer, graphic designer, interior designer and illustrator who lived in the UK from 1935. During World War II he served in the Royal Air Force as a navigating officer. He began to paint seriously in his spare time, his work influenced by the Surrealists and with a Romantic feel while always meticulously executed. He abandons nature’s topography and reinvents landscapes in a dreamlike world and his interest in architecture is often apparent in his paintings.His first one-man show was at the Lefevre Gallery in 1943, and its success led to another exhibition the following year, when pictures by Lucien Freud and Julian Trevelyan were shown in next door rooms. That year he received a commission to illustrate the art historian and critic Herbert Read’s ‘The Green Child’. Read was an early admirer of Kelly’s work and introduced him to a number of significant clients. The artist exhibited at Arthur Tooth from 1965-1974 and thereafter at Partridge Fine Art.Kelly was commissioned to paint murals and interior decoration in many of England’s most important houses, his good looks and charm fuelling his social popularity. At Castle Howard he executed four murals for the Garden Hall in 1982 and the ‘Kelly car’, a fairground-style train to take visitors around the grounds. His work enjoyed global acclaim, notably in the United States and as far away as Nepal where he decorated a room in the Royal Palace, Kathmandu. He also worked on developing architectural ideas, notably at Henbury Hall where he gothicised ‘The Cave’ for Sebastian de Ferranti and Highgrove where he refaced the Victorian facades and designed new plastered and pedimented frontispieces, returning the house to a more Georgian appearance for the Prince of Wales. He also painted murals in a number of Union Castle and Cunard liners.His work is included in the collections of Tate, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, Southampton City Museum, Grosvenor Museum, Chester, Sheffield Museums and the National Trust. The R.W. Norton Art Foundation in Louisiana has a holding of his work and his archive is in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand.LiteraturePaintings by Felix Kelly. Introduction by Herbert Read, London, 1946Michel Remy, Surrealism in Britain, Aldershot, 1999Donald Bassett, Fix, The Life and Art of Felix Kelly, Darrow PressDonald Bassett, Felix Kelly, Herbert Read and Neo-Romanticism, British Art Journal - Vol. 8 No. 2, September 2007

Inscribed and dated l.l.: From Egutpoora/en route to Bombay/from Nagpore/Dec 2nd/69, watercolour over pencil.The artist stopped in Nagpore ‘the city of the Naga’, or serpent, on the railway to Bombay, In the Himalayas, p. 569.For further work by this artist please see the catalogue link and enquire about availability: https://media.karentaylorfineart.com/pdfs/Constance-Frederica-Gordon-Cumming-KTFA-2025.pdf

Signed l.l.: GLUCK, oil on canvas, in original Gluck frame27.8 x 23 cm.; 10 7/8 x 9 inchesFrame size 54 x 48.5 cm.; 21 ¼ x 19 ¼ inchesProvenanceFine Art Society, Diverse Paintings by Gluck, November 1932, no. 20;With Anthony Mould in 1982;Private collection, U.K.ExhibitedFine Art Society, Diverse Paintings by Gluck, November 1932, no. 20;Gluck Art and Identity, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, UK, 18 November 2017 to 11 March 2018LiteratureDiana Souhani, Gluck Her Biography, London 1988, p.73;Gluck Art and Identity, ed. Amy de la Haye and Martin Pel, (exhibition catalogue), Yale University Press, 2017, p. 107, ill.Full catalogue available.

SOLDSigned and dated in pen and brown ink: William Strutt/Aug.t.31st./89., pencil17.8 x 27 cm.; 7 x 10 5/8 inchesProvenanceThe Redfern Gallery Ltd. Summer Exhibition, 1955, no. 21; sold toJohn Bensusan-Butt, September 7, 1955;Private collection, U.K. until 2020Strutt, born in Devon, was from a family of artists. He studied in Paris and made many drawings of animals throughout his career during which he travelled extensively. He visited Australia in 1850, New Zealand in 1856 and returned to England in 1862.His work is highly prized in the Antipodes and his most famous painting Black Thursday, 6 February. 1851, painted later in 1864, which depicts animals and men fleeing from a bush fire, is one of the treasures of the State Library of Victoria. His work can be found in several other Australian and New Zealand museums and several monographs have been written about his time there.He was a Fellow of the Zoological Society and he drew animals throughout his career.

Bears signature, pen and brown ink and watercolour over traces of pencil on laid paper, stamped with collector’s mark30.4 x 23.3 cm; 12 x 9 1/8 inchesProvenanceHenry Scipio Reitlinger (1882-1950), Lugt 2274a; Redleaf Gallery, Tunbridge Wells; Bonham’s, 7 March 2006, lot 46This drawing shows Rowlandson’s more compassionate side and is a poignant portrayal of the treatment of fallen women in late 18th century England. The future looks bleak for the subject who was presumably rounded up for prostitution, as does that of her infant, left in the arms of another woman at the door of the institution into which she is being led by a beadle.Reitlinger was a mining engineer, who made a fortune as a director of the Naraguta Tin Mine and other mining companies in Nigeria. He served as a captain in WWI. In later life he turned collector and art historian and formed major collections of Old Master drawings, Oriental porcelain and Renaissance ceramics. After his death, the Henry Reitlinger Trust operated the Reitlinger Bequest Museum in Maidenhead between 1951 and 1987; it then closed and transferred works to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1991. Reitlinger's remaining personal collections were auctioned at Sotheby's after his death. Part 1 with drawings sold Sotheby's, 9.xii.1953, and was followed by six sales in 1954.His publications include 'Old Master drawings, a handbook for amateurs and collectors' (1922) and 'A Selection of Drawings by old masters in the [V&A] museum collections with a catalogue and notes' (1921).

Signed or inscribed l.r., pen and grey ink and wash over traces of pencil13 x 19.7 cmA drawing, Dr. Syntax alarmed by a whale, which shows Dr. Syntax losing his hat and wig to the wind, as in the present drawing, is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Paul Mellon Collection (see John Baskett and Dudley Snelgrove, The Drawings of Thomas Rowlandson in the Paul Mellon Collection, 1977, no. 321 ill.)

KT340Watercolour heightened with bodycolour and gum arabic14 x 17.5 cm; 5 ½ x 6 ¾ inchesProvenanceCovent Garden GalleryShiva Lal ran an art shop in Patna and his work is characterised by the elongated limbs seen in the bearers of the palanquin and the delicate watercolour horizon in this drawing. Means of conveyance were one of the subjects in which he specialised.Further examples of his work can be found in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

William Payne (British 1760-1833)Travellers on a road through a rocky landscape near the seaWatercolour over traces of pencil21 x 29.5 cm ProvenanceBlair Castle, Blair Atholl, ScotlandThese watercolours are in exceptional condition as they have never been kept in the light and are picturesque composition based on the Devon landscape which Payne painted habitually. They are late works, executed without Payne’s characteristic pen and grey ink outline seen in his earlier watercolours, and probably date from circa 1810-1820.The group was probably inherited by Lady Emily Frances Percy, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Northumberland who in 1810 married James, 1st Lord Glenlyon, and was the mother of George, 6th Duke of Atholl. The estate of Werrington, near Launceston was acquired by the 1st Duke of Northumberland and this may explain the family’s patronage of the artist.

Richard Cosway (1742-1821)A lady playing a keyboard wearing sixteenth century dress, 1785-1790Pen and brown ink on watermarked laid paper, on the original wash-line mount14 x 15.2 cm.; 5 ½ x 6 inchesFramed size 36.5 x 36.5 cm.; 14 3/8 x 14 3/8 inchesProvenanceTimothy Clowes until 2020LiteratureG. Barnett, Richard and Maria Cosway, London 1995, fig. 38This lively drawing dates from 1785-1790 when Cosway was experimenting with 16th and 17th century costumes and role-playing. The sitter is one of the artist’s models.

Watercolour over pencil with scratching out13.9 x 20 cmThe artist was the youngest son of Nathan Theodore Fielding. From c. 1827 to 1830 he lived in Paris, where he ran the family engraving business, at which William Callow worked. He collaborated with his brothers Thales and Theodore in England before returning to France, where he built up an extensive teaching practice, with pupils including members of the family of King Louis-Philippe.Provenance: Augusta Raymond-Barker, Fairford Park, Gloucestershire; thence by family descent until 2016

KT489Inscribed l.r.: T Rowlandson, pen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil, extensively inscribed verso: A woman being catched in her Bedchamber with her/Paramour by her husband who had but one Eye She/ran to him, crying aloud that she dream he saw with both’/and therefore, I must know,” added the artful Baggage “whether my Dream be fulfill’d -saying this she shut his good Eye/which gave her Gallant an opportunity of slipping away unper=/ceived by her husband25 x 21.4 cm.; 9 ¾ x 8 3/8 inchesProvenanceWilliam Drummond;Bourne Gallery, bought from the above at The Grosvenor House Antiques Fair c. 1998;Pat Barker, bought from the above, until 2021The inscription seems likely to have been sent to Rowlandson by someone as a proposal for a subject, as the handwriting does not seem to be that of the artist. There is no print of this subject.

Inscribed verso: Temple of Cybele. Sardis, watercolour over traces of graphite on paper watermarked JWHATMAN TURKEY MILL 182836 x 56.5 cmThis is a view of the temple from the east, with the Sardis acropolis in the background.Sardis was the capital of the Lydian Empire of the eighth century BC. It was a trading centre between the Greeks and the Persians, as the camel train in the drawing reflects, and became a Greek city state after 282 BC. The site is near the present-day village of Sart in the Manusa province of Turkey, about 45 miles east of Izmir. Cybele was the patron goddess of the city, and the temple is one of the earliest representations of the Ionic style.This watercolour is very faithful to the original topography of Sardis, without the dramatisation of the landscape usually found in eighteenth and nineteenth century views of the site. The contours and proportions of the city’s acropolis are perfectly observed, including a small salient on the left that is still called the ‘flying towers’, as are those of the range of Tmolos mountains to the right in the distance. Also drawn accurately is the small hill just behind the temple on which the archaeologist H. C. Butler built the excavation house in 1911, and which is still prominent today.By the time Page could have visited Sardis there were only three columns standing, as recorded by Cockerell who visited the site in 1812. Page may have copied the work of an earlier visitor in the eighteenth century, when Chandler records five standing columns. Cockerell records that the other two were blown up by a Greek who thought he might find gold in them.

KT 171SOLDWilliam Hoare of Bath (British 1707-1792)Black chalk on laid paper with an unidentified oval watermark14.8 x 19.8 cmProvenanceJohn SuttonHoare, a portraitist in oil and pastel settled in London in the 1720s and was apprenticed to the Flemish painter Giseppe Grisoni. In 1728 he returned to Italy and took Hoare with him. Hoare spent a decade in Italy, studying the Old Masters, meeting British ‘Grand Tourists’, many of whom became future patrons, and perfecting his technique in chalk and pastel.On his return to England he settled in fashionable Bath around 1738, where he remained until his death. He was a founder member of the Royal Academy. This portrait is a charming example of the intimate style Hoare adopted later in his career when painting his family and friends, with rapid, loose strokes which suggest form. It would have been intended as a private image of which very few were worked up into oil paintings.