Henry Stacy Marks, R.A. A kookaburra

Henry Pilleau (1813-1899)The Dead SeaSigned with monogram l.l., watercolour 21 x 38 cm.; 8 ¼ x 15 inchesProvenancePresented to Queen Victoria in 1887 for her Golden Jubilee by the Royal Society of Water-Colour PaintersPilleau served with 16th Lancers. He is best known for his colourful watercolours and prints of Egypt. He visited Egypt in 1840s with Lieutenant -Colonel Sir George Everest (1790-1866), Surveyor-General of India, presumably on the men’s way to India. Pilleau’s ‘Sketches in Egypt’ comprising 12 lithographs was published in London in 1845 by Dickinson and dedicated to Everest. It comprises text and colourful plates of famous views and sites. Everest, a Welsh surveyor and geographer, after whom Mount Everest was named, served as the Surveyor General of India (1830–1843) and worked on the Great Trigonometric Survey of India.This watercolour left the Royal collection in the early twentieth century together with a substantial number of other works on paper, and there is no documentation for this with the Royal Collection. The other works whose details are recorded on the sheet of Windsor notepaper attached to the backboard were also dispersed at this time ( from the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art gift, Llyn Crafnant by D.W. Barker (the rendering of his name as ‘Banken’ suggests that someone was inaccurately copying from another source); Time-Honoured Lancaster by R. Aspinwall; and A Breezy Day by R. Short).

Cecil Arthur Hunt, RWS (1873-1965)Mount Etna, SicilySigned in pencil l.l.: C.A. Hunt, watercolour, inscribed on label attached to backboard: From Cecil & Phyllis Hunt/Christmas 1954/Etna9 x 13,5 cm.; 3 ½ x 5 5/8 inchesFrame size 15 x 29 cm.; 6 x 11 3/8 inchesProvenanceAgnew’s;Private collection UKHunt and his wife, Phyllis made many trips to Sicily, an island which inspired the artist. They always stayed at the Casa Cuseni, the villa in Taormina belonging to his friend and art critic, R. H. Kitson, the painter and critic, who he first met at Cambridge. Casa Cuseni is now a museum and is, perhaps, best known for its dining room designed by Sir Frank Brangwyn (1867 – 1956).

Watercolour over traces of pencil on Creswick paper31 x 48.3 cm.; 12 ¼ x 19 inchesProvenanceChristie’s, London, the Artist’s sale, 27 May 1850, lot 378;Christie's London, April 25, 1995, 116;Bill Thomson, Albany Gallery until 2021De Wint first visited Shropshire in 1829-1830 and exhibited a number of Shropshire views throughout his career. He had two major patrons there, Lord Clive at Oakley Park near Ludlow, not far from the Clee Hills, and Edward Cheney of Badger Hall.

William Henry Hunt, OWS (1790-1864)Lighting the BrazierSigned l.l.: W HUNT., watercolour over traces of pencil with scratching out, title inscribed on original frame36.2 x 26.7 cm.; 14 ¼ x 10 ½ inchesProvenanceAgnew’s, Liverpool, no. 253;Malllams, Oxford, 19 March 2026, lot 443This unpublished watercolour is a notable addition to the group of black subjects drawn by W.H. Hunt held in public collections in the UK and USA. It fits into a group on which Hunt was working in 1830s depicting black children warming themselves by fires. For domestic servants lighting fires was a daily job.In the 1830s Hunt exhibited twenty humorous images of children which were later lithographed as Hunt’s Comic Sketches published in 1844, including two of black children, including Master James Crow -Out of His Element and Miss Jim Ima Crow seated by fires. The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, has the original watercolour of Jim Crow which appears to show the same black boy as in the present work (see J. Witt, William Henry Hunt (1790-1846), 1982, no.477, see lithograph). Both boys are shown seated in front of a brazier, a suggestion that they feel the cold alluded to in the title of the lithograph, seated on a barrel or basket of the same height. The present watercolour (executed circa 1830-40) also has similarities with a watercolour of the same black model holding a slate at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London also entitled ‘A Brown Study’ (FA526). Both drawings share the same neutral background and have an added strip at the top. Another version of this work, without an added strip, is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art (B1975.4.583).Hunt made several other studies of black sitters, including a drawing of a young girl in pencil on buff paper in the Courtauld Institute, London and a boy posing as a boxer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2020.120). Jan Marsh has suggested that because of Hunt’s choice of theme his sitters are most likely to have been youths aged around 10 – 14 years old who were not at school or apprenticed but earning small amounts in the street running errands, carrying parcels and doing other small jobs, and were therefore visible and available to artists notably in London, Bristol and Liverpool (private email March 2026). Hunt preferred to use the same sitters as models. Hunt was born with a deformation of his legs which restricted his movement and seems to have had a form of dwarfism. According to his early biographer, F. G. Stephens, Hunt was: ‘was a little less than… five foot. He was broad as well as round shouldered and his head was large beyond proportion to the rest of his figure which the torso was that of a larger man. His large and long frock coats and loose trousers although favourable to him on other accounts, did not add to his outward graces.’ . Stephens adds that Hunt’s personal disabilities: ‘frequently made him reserved and not very easily accessible to strangers.’ While Hunt’s interactions with black sitters were inevitably informed by the prejudices of his age it is quite possible that his own disability drew him to marginalised members of his society. He is known to have befriended black acrobats and musicians.British artists showed increasing interest in Black subjects during the 1830s. Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire over the years 1833 -1838 and the abolition movement was hotly debated in Parliament and beyond.

Oil on paper laid down on board, inscribed on reverse of board: George Mason ARA and stamped with a Christie’s stencil21 x 21 cm.; 8 ¼ x 8 ¼ inchesProvenanceThe artist’s studio sale, Christie’s, 15 February 1873, lot 91, where bought byGeorge Dunlop Leslie, RA (1835-1921); his daughter Lydia Leslie, By descent to T. L. Twidell ExhibitedStoke-on-Trent Museum & Art Gallery, George Heming Mason, 1982, cat. no 20 (ill) (lent by T.W. Twidell). ExhibitedGeorge Heming Mason, City Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, 1 May – 12 June 1982; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 26 June – 31 July, The Fine Art Society, London 9 August – 4 September, cat. 20 (ill.)The sympathetic white horse is yoked in the Italian manner in this lively oil sketch and can be presumed to have been executed in Italy.

Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, P.R.A. (British 1879-1972)The Great Wall of ChinaOil on boardExhibitedMartyn Gregory Gallery, ‘Modern British Painters’, October 1988, Catalogue no. 52, no. 34This is a study for a painting of the same size of the Great Wall of China exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy, 1938, no.45 and the Royal Academy, London, Exhibition of Works by Sir Gerald Kelly, 1957, no.231.Born in London of Irish descent, Kelly was educated at Cambridge University, later living and studying art in Paris where he met Degas, Monet, Renoir and Sickert. Whistler was also an early influence as were Cézanne and Gaugin. Kelly was an enthusiastic traveller, visiting amongst other countries China, Spain, America, South Africa and Burma, where he painted some of his most characteristic and charming figure studies. He became a successful society portraitist whose sitters included Somerset Maugham, whom he painted several times, and he undertook numerous state portraits. Kelly is represented in many public collections, including the Tate, which holds seven works. He had retrospective exhibitions at the Leicester Galleries in 1950 and in 1957 at the RA. He was elected RA in 1930, was the Academy's Keeper from 1943-45 and President, defeating Augustus John in the election, from 1949-54. Kelly held a number of official positions, such as membership of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, 1938-43, and was knighted in 1945. Between 1909 and 1970 Kelly exhibited over 300 works at the RA. During his lifetime his work became well known through popular prints.

Signed and dated l.r.: W. Callow.1833, watercolour over traces of pencil with scratching outProvenancePrivate collection U.K. until 2026This fine example of Callow’s work dates from the time he was sharing a studio in Paris with Thomas Shotter Boys at 19 Rue de Bouloi near the Louvre. He visited England during the summer and presumably travelled through Dover.

Charles Gore (1729-1807)A view of the East front of Arundel Castle, West Sussex, seen from the Bowling GreenInscribed l. r.: Arundel Castle taken from the Platform or/Bowling Green by Charles Gore Esq 1781 and indistinctly inscribed in pencil u. r.: Arundel Castle Sufsex/1781Watercolour over touches of pencil on laid paper, with a Whatman watermark19.6 by 49 cm., 7 ¾ by 19 ¼ inchesProvenanceIolo Williams (1890-1962); And by descent until sold Sotheby's, London, 13 July 1989, lot 5; Private collection;With Guy Peppiatt Fine ArtThe bowling green is the name for the square earthworks located, with the fishponds, on the east side of the castle. They were probably made originally to improve the castle’s defences during the Civil War. Used as a bowling green in eighteenth century, as shown in the drawing by Charles Gore, today a rose garden can be found here. The Hon. Charles Gore was the son of a Lincolnshire landowner and educated at Westminster. He married a wealthy heiress of a shipbuilding company and learnt to draw and design ships. Gore travelled extensively in Europe, sketching with the German artist Jacob Philipp Hackert (1737-1807). Gore copied marine oils, completed the unfinished drawings of other artists, and also developed his own style having acquired an expert knowledge of the sea. His interest in classical antiquities led Charles Gore to join Hackert and Richard Payne Knight on their expedition to Sicily from April to June 1777.In 1779 Gore returned to England and became a member of the Dilettanti Society in 1781. He painted a series of panoramic views of Sussex including the current drawing. The family returned to the Continent in 1782 and he settled in Weimar in 1791 with his daughter Eliza. Examples of Gore's work can be found in the British Museum, the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich and the Goethe-Nationalmuseum, Weimar.

Inscribed on original label now attached to backboard: General Distant View of the Carnarvonshire Mountains, seen from the road beyond Llangerniew,/going by the Vale of the Elwyn from St Asaph to Llanrwst-Principal in this Towering Group, are Moel Siabod, Snowdon, The Glyders/ and Trevaon Denbighshire, watercolour over pencil.13 x 20.8 cm.; 5 1/8 x 8 ¼ inchesProvenanceGeorge Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746-1816), no. 17, part of an album sold at Sotheby’s, 17 June 1936;With Leger Galleries, 1980; Christie’s, London, 20 November 1984, lot 113, where bought by a private collector, until 2024Smith seems to have been fascinated by the Welsh countryside and dated drawings, often inscribed ‘taken on the spot’, point to visits nearly every year from 1784-1798, after his return from Italy.The artist was born in Cumberland and patronised by 2nd Earl of Warwick who sponsored his travels to Italy in 1776 and whose name became the artist’s sobriquet. Smith spent five years in Rome and Naples, befriending William Pars and Thomas Jones, in whose Memoirs he is frequently referenced. He travelled home in 1781 through Switzerland with Francis Towne and was among the most admired watercolourists of his day.

Stamped with the artist’s stamp l.l., watercolour over pencil heighted with white on rough buff paper32.3 x 46.5 cm; 12 5/8 x 18 ¼ incheProvenance: Christie’s, London, the Artist’s Studio sale, March 13 -17, 1884 (13 gns);The Fine Art Society, London, April 1966;Hermione Hobhouse (1933-2014);By family descent until 2020Exhibited: Glasgow International Exhibition, 1888Literature: Delia Millar, 'The Victorian Watercolours in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen', 2 vols., London, 1995, no. 3422Osborne House on the Isle of Wight was a summer retreat built for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert between 1845 and 1851, designed by Albert himself in the style of an Italian palazzo. The stone lions shown here at the foot of the steps, copied from the antique, were acquired in January 1851, and were in place by 9 March 1851. The groups of children possibly include Princess Helena and Princess Louise, described by their mother as 'looking extremely pretty in little blue silk polkas, with white silk hats' (Queen Victoria’s Journal, 15 August 1851).There is another smaller version of this watercolour in the Royal Collection dated August 1851 (RCIN 919847). The present drawing would seem to be the preliminary drawing as passages are unfinished. The version in the Royal Collection has an additional figure group at the bottom of the stairs. Leitch also drew two further watercolours of Osborne under construction drawn circa 1847 (RCIN 91982 and 91983). William Leighton Leitch was one of Queen Victoria's favourite watercolour artists, and she commissioned many watercolours from him for her View Albums. Leitch also taught watercolour to the Queen and her children, all of whom copied his work. He stayed at Osborne from 31 July 1851 and for most of August that year. It has been suggested that this drawing may have been made as a drawing lesson for some members of the Royal Family.Hermione Hobhouse was an architectural historian and preservation campaigner. During her distinguished career, during which she acted as secretary of ‘The Victorian Society’ from 1976-1983, she wrote numerous books, including Prince Albert: His Life and Work, 1983.Stamped with the artist’s stamp l.l., watercolour over pencil heighted with white on rough buff paper32.3 x 46.5 cm; 12 5/8 x 18 ¼ incheProvenance: Christie’s, London, the Artist’s Studio sale, March 13 -17, 1884 (13 gns);The Fine Art Society, London, April 1966;Hermione Hobhouse (1933-2014);By family descent until 2020Exhibited: Glasgow International Exhibition, 1888Literature: Delia Millar, 'The Victorian Watercolours in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen', 2 vols., London, 1995, no. 3422