Nina Hamnett Portrait of a lady

Watercolour18 x 9 cm.; 7 1/8 x 3 5/8 inchesProvenanceThe Leger Galleries Ltd, ‘An Exhibition of Watercolours by Helen Allingham, R.W.S. 1848-1926’, November – December 1972, no. 153, where purchased by Sir Owen Aisher (1900-1993); The Marley Tile Co. Ltd; The Muro Collection, until 2021Sir Owen Aisher was a prominent collector of the work of Helen Allingham who owned a large number of her works. He was the chairman of the Marley Tile company, which specialised in roofing tiles, and he collected works which depicted the building materials it made. This became known as the Marley collection and was sold at Christie’s in 1991. This work was part of his personal collection.

Oil on paper26 x 31 cm.; 10 ¼ x 12 ¼ inchesProvenanceThe Artist’s EstateThis is an early work by the artist.Evelyn Dunbar was a devout and committed Christian Scientist throughout her life. Much of her work reflects her beliefs, mostly indirectly but sometimes directly. Christopher Campbell-Howes, the artist’s nephew, has suggested that this work may be an interpretation of the hymn ‘Shall We Gather by the River,’ with words adapted from the original Baptist version of Revelation 22. It begs comparison with Stanley Spencer, whose art was a significant influence on her work.The absence of men in the composition is deliberate, while the inclusion of young children and babies with the young women who make up the circle gathered around an ambiguous stone, in the centre, perhaps adds an air of mystery and female potency to the work.Evelyn Mary Dunbar was the fifth child of William Dunbar, a tailor and purveyor of household linens, and Florence (née Murgatroyd), an amateur artist known for floral still lifes. Dunbar's childhood and adolescence were spent in Rochester, where she developed strong skills in draughtsmanship and composition, as well as a sophisticated sense of colour. Dunbar was encouraged by her mother and her aunt, and she was awarded an exhibition to the Royal College of Art in 1929, where she was greatly influenced by William Rothenstein, Allan Gwynne-Jones, Alan Sorrell, Percy Horton and Charles Mahoney. In her fourth and postgraduate year she was invited by Mahoney, her mural tutor, to join a team to decorate the hall at Brockley Grammar School for Boys (now Prendergast Hilly Fields School) with an extensive series of murals, mostly based on Aesop's fables. Started in 1933, they were inaugurated to acclaim in 1936.In December 1939 Sir William Rothenstein suggested she should apply for employment as a war artist. She was given the remit of recording the Home Front of women's war time activities. Dunbar was the only female artist to be given a series of rolling employment contracts throughout the war, and by 1945 had completed 44 works.In 1942 Dunbar married Roger Folley, a horticultural economist then serving in the RAF. While Folley worked at Oxford University, Dunbar taught at the Ruskin School of Art. She painted biblical and literary allegorical paintings at this period. In 1950 Folley was appointed to a senior post at Wye College, in Kent where the couple moved. Landscape and portraiture began to occupy her, and her only solo exhibition, held in Wye in 1953, reflected her wider subject matter (See Christopher Campbell-Howes, Evelyn Dunbar: A Life in Painting, 2016).A retrospective of Dunbar’s work entitled Lost Works was held at Pallant House, Chichester, in 2015.

Signed twice l.r.: Mary and M.Perrin, watercolour over traces of pencil with bodycolour and gum arabic, inscribed verso: The Flamingo Fan/by/Miss Mary Perrin,/Fortfield House/Terenure/Co Dublin/From Professor McHardy F.R.C.S./March 1911/Exhibition picture Royal Academy, further inscribed on fragments of original label attached to backboard: Miss Mary P….n/Fortfield House/Terenure Co. Dublin/No:2/The Flamingo Fan/…Dubli/…House/…/ure/DublinCircular, 21 cm diam.; 8 ¼ inches, on artist’s board measuring 22.5 x 22 cm.; 8 ¾ x 8 5/8 inchesFrame size 35.5 x 35.5 cm.; 14 x 14 inchesExhibitedRoyal Academy, London, 1905, no. 929Mary Perrin specialised in intense watercolour portraits of female subjects, often drawing them with elaborate hats or coiffures. She also painted landscapes.Her work is recorded frequently in Irish exhibitions. Perrin exhibited at the Water Colour Society of Ireland (WCSI) which was founded in 1870 as the Amateur Drawing Society by an informal group of six well-connected women from Co. Waterford, Baroness Pauline Prochazca, Miss Harriet Keane, Miss Frances Keane, Miss Henrietta Phipps, Miss Fanny Currey and Miss Fanny Musgrave. Eight years after its founding, the organisation briefly became the "Irish Fine Art Society" before settling to its current name in 1888. It held (and still holds) an Annual Exhibition of the work of its members.Perrin started to exhibit at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour in London in 1896 at their galleries at 195 Piccadilly. Perrin also showed regularly at the Royal Academy, the Society of Women Artists and the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.Perrin’s work was frequently praised by contemporary critics who remarked on the ‘richness and power’ of her watercolour (Freeman’s Journal, 8 March 1886, in a review of The Irish Fine Art Society exhibition) and she won many prizes at various Irish societies.The backboard labels on this work records her Irish address Fortfield House, Terenure, Co. Dublin. Another work by her has a partial address in London, …s (Hans?) Crescent, London SW., suggesting that she moved between the two cities.Perrin took an active part in the social life of Dublin and is often mentioned in contemporary newspapers as attending charitable and major social events such as the Viceregal Drawing Room in Belfast and costume balls.The artist’s family home, Fortfield House in Dublin, was bought by the Rt. Hon. John Hatchell (1788-1870) in 1858. He was an Irish lawyer and politician and his daughter Penelope married John Perrin. The house remained in the Perrin-Hatchell family until the death of Mary Perrin in 1929. In her will she left her estate to George Hatchell of Tanganyika. The house was demolished in 1834.This work may have belonged to Professor Malcolm McHardy, FRCSE (d.1912) who was Professor of Ophthalmology at King’s College and Ophthalmic Surgeon to King’s College Hospital. He published extensively on ophthalmic surgery.

Pastel over traces of pencil, signed in pen and ink on backboard: Anna Tonelli/fece in Londra/1794, inscribed on labels attached to backboard with details of sitters and its provenanceOval, in the original frame25 x 30 cm; 9 ¾ x 11 5/8 inchesProvenanceRichard Curzon-Howe, 1st Earl Howe (1796-1870)Lady de la Zouche, Hagley Hall, Rugeley, Staffordshire (according to a label on reverse of frame);Edward Curzon, 6th Earl Howe of Gopsall Park and Penn House (1906-1984), Buckinghamshire;Thence by family descent until 2023LiteratureN. Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, online, J.722.1373The charmingly drawn sitters are the young children of the Hon. Penn Assheton Curzon (1757-1797) and Lady Sophia Charlotte Howe, Baroness Howe of Langar (1762-1835). George Augustus William Curzon (1788-1805) died aged 16 and is buried in Penn, Buckinghamshire where he shares a memorial in the church of the Holy Trinity, Penn, with his parents. His younger sister Marianne (1790-1820) was also buried at Penn.This branch of the Curzon family had houses at Penn House, near Amersham in Buckinghamshire, and Hagley Hall at Rugeley in Staffordshire, near Cannock Chase.

Signed l.r.: Louisa Seyffarth, watercolour heightened with white and gum arabic and stopping out24.3 x 33.5 cm.; 9 ¾ x 13 ¼ inchesProvenanceThomas Baring (40 Charles Street, Berkely [sic] Square, London)ExhibitedThe Society of Painters in Water-Colours, 1841, no. 266 (12 guineas)Louisa Sharpe, the daughter of William Sharpe, an engraver, was the most talented of four sisters, Eliza, Charlotte and Mary Ann, all of whom became artists. Raised in Birmingham, the sisters were encouraged to travel to France and Germany to visit galleries and were taught engraving. In 1816 the family moved to London.Ellen Clayton, the Victorian chronicler of female artists, mentions the present work by name and records its date as 1841 (see E. Clayton, English Female Artists, 1876, Vol. 1 pp. 379-80.)The artist exhibited over thirty miniature portraits at the Royal Academy from 1817. Louisa developed her practise as a watercolourist and made highly finished costume subjects and domestic scenes such as the present work. Many of her drawings were engraved in popular annuals such as The Keepsake and the Forget-Me-Not Annual and Heath’s Book of Beauty. Her work was engraved by Charles Heath, John Henry Robinson and Francis Engleheart. In 1829 she was elected as a member of the Old Water-Colour Society, where she was to exhibit thirty-eight works.Roget notes that her choice of subjects show a ‘taste for dramatic point, and a search for anecdote of a telling kind as well as a picturesque capacity’, extremely long titles and not a little humour (J.L. Roget, History of the Old Water-Colour Society, vol. II, reprint 1972, pp. 42-3).In 1834 Louisa Sharpe married Professor Woldemar Seyffarth and moved to Dresden. The couple had two daughters, one of whom, Agnes, also became an artist. Her work continued to be exhibited in London until her death. Her husband was the King of Saxony’s Commissioner to the Great Exhibition in 1851.Ellen Clayton describes the Sharpe sisters as ‘among the most remarkable figure painters’ and notes that the Duke of York, George III’s second son, was their first patron. She states that they were ‘among the first to originate the modern bold style of water-colour drawing’ (ibid Vol. 1 pp. 379-80).Anna Bronwell Jameson (1794-1860) the British writer, art historian and feminist who visited Dresden in 1830s wrote of Sharpe’s work in the same breath as that of Elizabeth Sirani and Angelica Kauffman and remarked that it was supremely feminine (see Sketches of Art, Literature and Character, Harper and Brothers, 1834, p. 221).Thomas Baring (1799-1873), the first owner of this watercolour was the son of Sir Thomas Baring (1772-1848) and a partner in Baring’s bank from 1828 and until his death in 1873.

Pastel, inscribed on reverse of original backboard: Anna Tonelli/fece in Londra/1796, in the original frame bearing the inscription Anna Tonelli H.D.Hamilton 179626.1 x 22.6 cm.; 10 ¼ x 8 7/8 inchesProvenanceMellors & Kirk, Nottingham, 9-10 June 2011, lot 713 (as of Tonelli by Hugh Douglas Hamilton);Private collection, U.K. until 2022LiteratureN. Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, online edition, no. J.722.167Anna Tonelli, née Nistri, was probably trained in Florence, possibly by Giuseppe Piattoli (1743-1823) with whom she collaborated on a portrait of the family of Granduca Pietro Leopoldo, which was engraved in 1785. At some stage before 1785 she married the virtuoso violinist Luigi Tonelli. It seems highly likely that she came across the work of Hugh Douglas Hamilton in Rome.Tonelli met Lord Clive, ‘Clive of India’, while he was travelling in Italy, and he employed her to make pastels of members of his family. From 1794 she taught drawing to his children in London. She exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1794 and 1797, giving her address as 97 Norton Street. The artist travelled with the Clive family to India between 1798 and 1801, moving around southern India with Lady Clive and her daughters. During her time in the subcontinent, she seems to have worked in watercolour or miniature, rather than pastel, and charged twelve to thirty guineas for a miniature. She painted the Rajah of Tanjore and Tipu Sultan on this trip. She returned to Florence in 1801.Tonelli’s work has been confused with that of Hugh Douglas Hamilton, which may account for the inscription on the frame. She is known to have copied his work for Lord Clive, producing portraits in 1790s to add to a series begun by Hamilton. It seems unlikely that Hamilton has any connection with the present work, as he had returned to Ireland by this date.In 1806 the American agent in Paris, Filippo Mazzei, engaged her to bring up his daughter Elisabetta. He provided a description of the family to Thomas Jefferson (letter, 20th July 1806) with a view to their emigrating to the USA, praising the father, a violinist ‘the peer of any other’, the two children (born c.1789–90), and the mother who ‘sings and plays the piano like an expert; knows very well her own language, French, and English; draws and paints with excellent taste; is accomplished in embroidery and all needlework; and knows geography quite well.’ Jefferson’s response highlighted the expense of living in a major city, which may have deterred the family, as by 2 November 1807 they were in Pisa with Mazzei, while by 1809 they seem to have returned to Florence.I am grateful to Neil Jeffares for his biographical information about the artist.

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).

Signed and dated l.r.: E. Sumner/1899, black chalk25 x 17.5 cm.; 9 7/8 x 6 7/8 inchesProvenancePrivate collection U.K. until 2023The artist of the work was known as Lily, the oldest daughter of the Rev. John Henry Robertson Sumner and his second wife Elizabeth Anne(née Gibson). The family lived at Kelbarrow near Grasmere in the Lake District.A collection of papers relating to the Sumner family are in the possession of the Cumbria Archive Centre. It includes numerous sketchbooksby several members of the Sumner family including several of the Lake District and also of European subjects.Her sister Maggie Sumner (1859–1919) was a correspondence pupil of John Ruskin and his letters contained detailed instructions aimed at improving her drawing. She was the only female artist to contribute to the first five issues of The Yellow Book, the fashionable magazine edited by Aubrey Beardsley. Her work was very detailed and meticulous in the Pre-Raphaelite tradition. One of her sketchbooks, depicting landscapes surrounded by floral borders, has an inscription gifting it to her sister Lily for Christmas 1875 and is now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago (Karen Taylor, British Women Artists 1780- 1890, 2020, no. 18).

Signed l.r. Marian/M. Chase 1874, watercolour over traces of pencil with touches of white and gum arabic, in a period sand frame20 x 29.2 cm.; 8 1/8 x 11 1⁄2 inchesChase specialised in depicting flowers, fruit and still lifes, her work characterised by delicacy and careful observation. Ellen Claxton, in her seminal work English Female Artists, London, 1876, Vol. 2, p. 184, described Chase as ‘having an intense love of the country and of wild flowers...her chief pictures have been the simple growing flowers of woods and lanes’.The artist was born in London, the daughter of John Chase, an artist, and his second wife, Georgiana. John Chase had been partly trained by John Constable and his first wife, Mary Ann Rix (d. 1840), had also been a watercolour artist. Chase was taught perspective and watercolour painting by her father and life drawing by Margaret Gillies (1803-1907), who was not only an artist but also a pioneer of women’s liberation, and amongst the earliest supporters of the suffrage movement.She exhibited from 1866 to 1905 at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute, the Dudley Gallery, the Grosvenor Gallery, the International Exhibition of 1871 and various provincial, colonial, and foreign exhibitions. On 22 March 1875, she was elected an associate of the Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and in 1879 she became a full member. In 1878 she contributed drawings and watercolours to the journal The Garden. In 1888 the Royal Horticultural Society awarded her a silver medal.Chase died in 1905 after a heart operation and is buried in St Pancras Cemetery.Examples of her work can be found in the Victoria & Albert Museum and in the collection of Aberdeen Art Gallery.

Signed with initials and inscribed verso: Library Fairford Park ArB, watercolour over pencil19.2 x 21.3 cmIn the collection of the Sir John Soane’s Museum are Soane’s working drawings showing alternatives for John Raymond-Barker for the library dating from 1789–90 (SM (3) 80/1/66 recto and verso (4) 81/2/98). They comprise three drawings on two sheets and a survey plan by John Sanders, a pupil from 1784 to 1789. Augusta Raymond-Barker, a keen watercolourist, married Colonel Sir Lumsley-Graham, Bt (1828–90). He fought in the Kaffir War of 1853 and the Crimean War.Provenance: Augusta Raymond-Barker, Fairford Park, Gloucestershire; thence by family descent until 2016