Arthur Severn Sunset over a wooded landscape, probably at Coniston Water

Watercolour and bodycolour over traces of pencil on blue paper, inscribed in pencil on old mount (and partially strengthened in pencil) Dent du midi- from valley of the Rhone- early morning 17.4 x 25.1 cm The Dent du Midi is a mountain with seven summits in the Chablais Alps in the Swiss canton of Valais, reaching a height of 3257 metres (10,686 feet). Dominating the Vald’Illiez and the Rhône Valley, to the south it faces the Lac de Salanfe, an artificial reservoir. Geologically it makes up a part of the massif Haut Giffre. In this watercolour the Haut Cime, the highest summit, dominates the composition. In 1871 Severn married Joan Agnew, a cousin of the Ruskins, who had acted as companion to John Ruskin’s mother, who died in that year. When Ruskin then moved from Denmark Hill in South London to Brantwood in the Lake District, the Severns accompanied him and remained part of the household until his death. In April 1872 the Severns were invited by Ruskin on a continental tour; Albert Goodwin was also one of the party. Goodwin and Severn sketched together at Mont Blanc, at Chambéry and at Geneva, from where they continued to Italy. The present drawing probably derives from this trip. Literature: James S. Dearden, ed., The Professor: Arthur Severn’s Memoir of John Ruskin, London: Allen & Unwin, 1967 I am grateful to Stephen Wildman and Christopher Newall for their comments on this drawing.

John Stanton Ward, CBE, R.A. (1917 – 2006) Still life with a vase of wildflowers Signed in pencil l.r.: John Ward, watercolour over pencil 18.7 x 56 cm.; 7 ¼ x 22 inches Provenance Private collection, U.K., until 2026

Chinese School early 19th Century A fish with a pointy nose Watercolour with silver on pith paper, unframed 21 x 31 cm.; 8 ¼ x 12 ¼ inches Mount size 35 x 48 cm.; 13 3/4 x 18 3/4 inches Provenance Sir John Witt (1907-1982), by descent until 2022

Samuel Palmer, RWS (1805-1881) La Vocotella near Corpo di Cava, Italy Pencil and watercolour heightened with bodycolour with scratching out 26.7 x 37.8 cm.; 10 ½ x 14 7/8 inches Provenance With Agnew’s, London 2002, no. 53 Anonymous sale Sotheby’s, London, 23 November 2006, lot 145; W/S Fine Art, ‘Andrew Wyld: Connoisseur Dealer’, Christie’s, London, 10 July 2012, lot 147; Timothy Clowes, his sale at Sotheby’s, London, 23 September 2021, lot 148; Where bought by a private collector until 2026 Samuel and Hannah Palmer stayed at a small inn at Corpo di Cava on their Italian honeymoon in the summer of 1838. The inn overlooked a Benedictine monastery and a ravine. During this very happy period of his life, Palmer produced some of his finest watercolours, which combined the mysticism of his Shoreham work with more Italianate composition and structure. He told his friend George Richmond that it was here that he felt he was ‘no longer a mere maker of sketches, but an artist’ (E. Malins Samuel Palmer’s Italian Honeymoon, 1968, p. 73). This watercolour is constructed on classical lines with the receding serpentine path with a figure and is infused with the golden glow of Italian sunlight. A similar watercolour of the same place from a different viewpoint is in the collection of the Graves Art Gallery Sheffield (see R. Lister Catalogue Raisonné of the works of Samuel Palmer, 1988, no. 311, pp. 126-7, ill.). In a letter to her parents, written during August 1838, Hannah Palmer mentioned two views of Corpo di Cava by her husband. Presumably one is the Graves Art Gallery drawing and the present work may be the second which Raymond Lister records as untraced (R. Lister, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Samuel Palmer, Cambridge 1988, see no. 310).

Inscribed and dated l.r.: Patti 4 July 1847, inscribed: sloping towards x which is a very deep stuffy vegetable dell and with colour notes, numbered 212, pen and brown ink with pencil 20.2 x 44.5 cm.; 8 1/8 x 17 ½ inches, framed size 37 x 60.5 cm.; 14 1/2 x 23 3/4 inches Provenance Mary Ann Streeter (1932-2023), Boston, by descent until 2025 £5500 Lear travelled to Sicily between May 3 and July 15, 1847, with John Joshua Proby, later the 2nd Earl of Carysfort. They were to make two other tours together that year, to Calabria and Naples. Patti is a village in North-Eastern Sicily in the province of Messina between Milazzo and Capo Calvà, which includes the ancient Graeco-Roman village of Tindari with its famous Sanctuary. After graduating from Radcliffe College (Harvard University) with a degree in Fine Arts, Mary Ann Streeter moved to London for a year and started buying Lear watercolours in the late 1950s. She built up a large collection of Lear’s work.

Signed l.l.: E. Lear, pencil with watercolour 23 x 17.7 cm.; 9 x 7 inches These charming, quirky drawings are characteristic early works by Lear, dating from the late 1820s or early 1830s when he was establishing himself as an ornithological artist. They relate to a group of drawings which Lear gave to Mrs Godfrey Wentworth, who supported his employment by the Zoological Society in 1831, and whom he credited with launching him as an artist. They are imaginary, fanciful subjects drawn with not a little humour, resembling the stylised watercolours of birds painted on late eighteenth century porcelain. Robert McCracken Peck has made the interesting suggestion that Lear and his sister Ann may have been thinking of approaching ceramics companies with them (see Robert McCracken Peck, The Natural History of Edward Lear, 2016, pp. 27-9). Two surviving family albums from the late 1820s, containing a mixture of similar natural history subjects by Edward Lear and his sisters Ann and Sarah, are in the collection of the Houghton Library, Harvard University (MS Typ 55.4 and 55.27). Sir Edward Strachey was a man of letters and friend of Lear’s, who wrote an introduction to Nonsense Songs in 1895. He lived at Sutton Court, Chew Magna in Somerset and was a neighbour of Lear’s close friend Chichester Fortescue, the Liberal politician whom Lear first met in Rome in 1845.

Oil on laid paper laid down on canvas 20.5 x 25.1 cm.; 8 1/8 x 9 7/8 inches Provenance Private collection, USA, until 2025 This charming plein air sketch was made not long after the completion of the restoration of the Arch of Titus in 1824. During the early nineteenth century the integrity of the structure was spoilt by the remains of medieval stone walls and accumulations of rubble at the sides. These were cleared in the early 1820s by Giuseppe Valadier (1762–1839) who restored the Arch to something approaching its original (and current) appearance. The artist differentiates between the original Pentelic marble and the white Travertine used for the newly carved sections of the monument. On the Via Sacra to the south-east of the Forum, the Arch of Titus was designed to glorify the memory of the emperor Titus and his official deification or consecratio. It was built shortly after the death of Titus in 81AD by his brother Domitian, who succeeded him as emperor.

Signed l.c.: E. Lear, pencil with watercolour, pen and black ink and touches of gold 17.7 x 23 cm.; 7 x 9 inches These charming, quirky drawings are characteristic early works by Lear, dating from the late 1820s or early 1830s when he was establishing himself as an ornithological artist. They relate to a group of drawings which Lear gave to Mrs Godfrey Wentworth, who supported his employment by the Zoological Society in 1831, and whom he credited with launching him as an artist. They are imaginary, fanciful subjects drawn with not a little humour, resembling the stylised watercolours of birds painted on late eighteenth century porcelain. Robert McCracken Peck has made the interesting suggestion that Lear and his sister Ann may have been thinking of approaching ceramics companies with them (see Robert McCracken Peck, The Natural History of Edward Lear, 2016, pp. 27-9). Two surviving family albums from the late 1820s, containing a mixture of similar natural history subjects by Edward Lear and his sisters Ann and Sarah, are in the collection of the Houghton Library, Harvard University (MS Typ 55.4 and 55.27). Sir Edward Strachey was a man of letters and friend of Lear’s, who wrote an introduction to Nonsense Songs in 1895. He lived at Sutton Court, Chew Magna in Somerset and was a neighbour of Lear’s close friend Chichester Fortescue, the Liberal politician whom Lear first met in Rome in 1845.

Pencil and black and red chalk, in original frame 42 x 34.5 cm.; 16 ½ x 13 5/8 inches Provenance: With Dorothy Roberts, Lincoln, 1996; Acquired by the previous owner in May 1996 from Douglas Turner; Private collection U.K. until 2021 Literature: Kenneth Garlick, ‘A Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Pastels of Sir Thomas Lawrence’ in The Walpole Society; 1962–64, xxxix, 1964, p. 244 This unpublished drawing by Lawrence is an addition to a group of three known portraits of Munia. Lawrence became friendly with the Angerstein family in about 1790, when John Julius Angerstein (1735–1823) took charge of his financial affairs. Lawrence did paintings and drawings of most of the family, which included John Julius’ son, John Angerstein, M.P. (1772/3–1858), who married, in 1799, Amelia Lock, daughter of William Lock, who was also a friend and patron of Lawrence. Isabel Smith, or Munia, was nurse to the couple’s five children at Woodlands, the family residence which John Julius had built at Blackheath in 1770s. She was described as Russian in the papers of Miss May Rowley, a direct descendant of Elizabeth Julia Angerstein, daughter of John Julius. (Archive reference number NG14/230/1). This smaller version of this composition (measuring 35.5 x 30.25 cm; 14 x 11 15/16 inches) from May Rowley is now in the collection of Tate (T00768). The Tate drawing is inscribed on the back ‘This is a drawing of my Nurse Isabel Smith, called Munia, buried at Nh Willingham Lincolne. Wm Angerstein, drawn by Sr Thos Lawrence at Woodlands’. The Tate drawing originally belonged to Elizabeth, John Angerstein’s daughter, and was bequeathed to the nation in 1965 by May Rowley, who had inherited it from her grandfather Richard Freeman Rowley, Elizabeth’s husband. A second version, the same larger size as the present drawing, is in the possession of Viscount Daventry at Arbury, and was exhibited at Bristol City Art Gallery, ‘Exhibition of works by Sir Thomas Lawrence P.R.A.’, 1951, no. 48. Garlick records a further smaller version of this subject measuring 35.6 x 30.2 cm as being in the possession of Miss Keightley in 1925. She inherited the drawing from her father Archibald Keightley who was Lawrence’s executor. This drawing, in poor condition, is now in the Royal Academy (LAW/3/1). This work was illustrated in R.Brimley Johnson, Mrs Delaney, 1925, rep. facing p. 256 (incorrectly called Mrs Delaney). The financier and philanthropist John Julius Angerstein was born in St Petersburg in 1735 to a German family who had settled in Russia. He emigrated to England in about 1749 and built a fortune, partly from a career in the City of London, developing Lloyd’s insurance business. An active philanthropist, he was a patron of Lawrence’s and the artist advised him on his picture acquisitions together with Benjamin West. Angerstein started collecting around 1790. On Angerstein’s death the British Government purchased thirty-eight of his pictures and took over the lease of his Pall Mall town house. The public was able to view the collection here before the National Gallery, founded in 1824, was constructed in Trafalgar Square and it formed the nucleus of the gallery’s collection. Four paintings from the Pall Mall house were not purchased, a Reynolds portrait of Angerstein’s first wife and their first child, and three Fuseli paintings after Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’which were returned to Angerstein’s heirs, and which remained at Woodlands until 1870. For further information about Woodlands and the collection kept there see Susanna Avery-Quash, ‘The lover of the fine arts is well amused with the choice pictures that adorn the house’: John Julius Angerstein’s ‘other’ art collection at his suburban villa, Woodlands https://academic.oup.com/jhc/article/33/3/fhx055/4773890 (Journal of the History of Collections, Volume 33, Issue 3, November 2021, fhx055, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhx055 See also Anthony Twist, A Life of John Julius Angerstein, 1735–1823: Widening circles of finance, philanthropy, and the arts in eighteenth-century London (London, 2006).

Corner of the Band of the Tank, Tapawewa, Polanarua (Polonnaruwa), looking to the Matele hills Signed, inscribed and dated l.l.: Corner of the Band of the Tank (Tapawewa)/(Polanarua)/looking to the Matele hills./Kandy/Sept 19th 73./CFGC/117, watercolour and pencil 15.7 x 50.5 cm.; 6 ¼ x 19 ¾ inches Polonnaruwa is in North Central Sri Lanka.