George Garrard, ARA

KT453A

George Garrard, ARA (1760-1826)

Hyde Park from the artist’s painting room window at Knightsbridge, 1793

Inscribed verso: Hidepark from Knightsbridge/D Room 1793, inscribed on a label: Hyde Park from the Artists painting room window at Knightsbridge 1793., oil on laid paper

16.2 x 20 cm.; 6 3/8 x 7 7/8 inches

Provenance

Mr Nicholson, Oxford, until 1942, when acquired by

Edward Croft-Murray, CBE, (1907-1980);

Jill Croft-Murray until 2020;

Woolley and Wallis, The Edward Croft-Murray Collection, 11 August 2021, lot 421

Exhibited

Arts Council of Great Britain, ‘Paintings from Nature; The Tradition of Open air Oil Sketching’, 1980, cat. no. 40

This delightful oil sketch originally came from an album of oil sketches from nature, assembled by the artist for his own pleasure, inscribed ‘Studies from nature by G. Garrard’. Garrard’s painting room was in the hamlet of Knightsbridge, overlooking Hyde Park. Its spontaneity and the looseness of the brush strokes is suggestive of a plein air sketch, although we know that it was painted through the window of Garrard’s drawing room which was evidently very close to the park.

This sketch would have been produced as an aide memoire for the artist and is typical of the type of work which was produced in the late 18th century neither for exhibition nor sale but as a means of understanding nature. The rediscovery of the genre has been explored in the exhibition ‘Truth to Nature Open air Painting In Europe 1780-1870’, 2020.

Five further examples of his oil sketches in and around London are in the collection of Tate Gallery and another of Woburn Park in the Higgins Museum, Bedford, donated by Edward Croft-Murray, the previous owner of the present work.

Garrard came from a family of artists who were descended from Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (c.1561-1636). He was a pupil of Sawrey Gilpin (1733-1807) whose daughter Matilda he married. He studied at the R.A. Schools from 1778 and was a frequent exhibitor there from 1783-1826, becoming an ARA in 1800. Garrard specialised in animal portraiture and sculpture, but also painted landscapes, portraits and urban views. From 1795 he worked increasingly as a sculptor.

He died in Brompton, then a village next to Knightsbridge. where many artists lived.