William Henry Hunt OWS Primroses

Signed l.r.: W. HUNT, pencil, tiny sketches of figures and a list verso, on wove paper12 x 8.4 cm.; 7 ¼ x 4 ¾ inchesProvenance: Cyril and Shirley Fry until 2021Literature: J. Witt, 'William Henry Hunt (1790-1864)', 1982, no. 370Exhibited: 'Hunt Exhibition Fry Collection', 1967, no. 17 (1)This drawing dates from circa 1820. Hunt drew the same girl on another occasion in a similar pose (Rossetti Collection, J. Witt, ibid. no. 492).

Pencil on laid paper, partially watermarked and countermarked 181914.5 x 10.9 cm.; 5 ¾ x 4 ¼ inchesProvenance: Cyril and Shirley Fry until 2021Literature: J. Witt, 'William Henry Hunt (1790-1864)', 1982, no. 369Exhibited: 'Hunt Exhibition Fry Collection', 1967, no. 17 (2)This work dates from c. 1820.

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x 26.7 cm.; 14 ¼ x 10 ½ inchesProvenanceAgnew’s, Liverpool, no. 253;Malllams, Oxford, 19 March 2026, lot 443This unpublished watercolour is a notable addition to the group of black subjects drawn by W.H. Hunt held in public collections in the UK and USA.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.

Signed l.r.: W. HUNT, watercolour over pencil with scratching out34 x 24.5 cm.; 13 3/8 x 9 5/8 inchesProvenanceJ.P. Heseltine (1843-1929);Christopher W. Witt, Buckinghamshire;The Bourne Gallery, Surrey;David Pike (1936-2024)LiteratureJ.P. Heseltine, John Varley and his Pupils, W. Mulready, J. Linnell and W. Hunt. Original Drawings in the Collection of J.P.H. 1918, ill. p. 13;John Witt, William Henry Hunt (1790-1864) Life and Works, with a catalogue, no. 539, ill. pl. 66This shows Sarah Hunt, the artist’s wife, aged about twenty-one reading a letter. The couple were married in 1830 and Hunt used his wife as a model in 1830s, when this work was drawn. It may be compared with a similar example in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum entitled ‘Love Missive' (J. Witt, no. 529). The same chest and chair can be seen in both works.John Postle Heseltine (1843-1929) was a stockbroker and senior partner in the family firm, Heseltine, Powell & Co. He was a draughtsman and etcher, a collector oil paintings, drawings and watercolours of the English and Continental schools and a Trustee of the National Gallery who advised on purchases.

Signed, inscribed and dated l.r.: Hindoo Temple near Dehra/Himmalayas in the background-/Oct. 1869./C.F.G.C., watercolour over pencil with touches of white.Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand, is in the foothills of the Himalayas. On the banks of a river is a Hindu temple in front of which figures ride elephants through the shallow waters. On the riverbank, a woman performs the aarti, releasing a diya to float upon the waters as an offering.For further work by this artist please see the catalogue link and enquire about availability

Signed l.c.: R. Cooper, pen and brown ink and wash over pencil on laid paper partially watermarked with the Strasburg Lily20 x 29.4 cm.; 7 7/8 x 11 5/8 inchesFramed size 31 x 41 cm.; 12 1/4 x 16 1/8 inchesProvenanceIolo Williams collectionThe artist was born in Edinburgh and trained with his father, the engraver Richard Cooper Snr (1701-1764). He moved to London in 1761, but by 1767 was on the Continent and in Italy by 1771, where he stayed until late 1775.Cooper spent most of his time in Rome and Naples and befriended Jacob More, with whom he travelled, and was later appointed as one of More’s executors.On his return to England Cooper taught drawing at Eton College and later he also taught Princess Charlotte. He produced a series of landscape prints based on his Italian work.

Watercolour, with a pencil sketch of a house in a landscape verso, on laid paper11.2 x 13 cmProvenance: William Arnold Sandby; John Manning, London; Private collection, UK until 2017William Arnold Sandby (c. 1828-1904) was the great-grandson of Thomas Sandby, author of the first book about the artists, Thomas and Paul Sandby-Royal Academicians, 1892, and the historian of the Royal Academy (two volumes of its history published in 1862). He had a large collection of the work of his forebears, helped organise their first exhibition at Nottingham Castle Museum in 1884 and bequeathed many of their works to museum collections.

KT475Dated l.r.: Aug 11, watercolour over pencil with a touch of white on grey paper17.1 x 26.1 cm.; 6 ¾ x 10 ¼ inchesProvenanceBernard Squire, Portman Square, London;Arnold Fellows, collection no. 23;Bequeathed to Queen Mary’s Grammar School, Walsall until sold by a charitable trust, 2023Lewis visited Arran in 1830. A similar drawing of identical size dated two days later is in the collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art, The Witt Collection ( D.1952.RW.3018).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 Queen Mary’s Grammar School.He was the author of The wayfarer's companion : England's history in her buildings and countryside, published by Oxford University Press, 1937.

KT663Thérèse Lessore (1884 – 1945)In a Belgian TrainSigned and dated l.r.: Lessore/1921, watercolour over pencil, with a pencil outline, inscribed in pencil with title beneath mount l.r.: in a Belgian trainImage 23 x 26.5 cm.; 9 x 10 3/8 inches, full sheet 28 x 32 cm.; 11 x 12 5/8 inchesProvenanceBonhams, London, 17 November 1988, lot 27;Sandra Lumis Fine Art, London;Bernard Kelly, bought from the above, his sale at Lyon and Turnbull, London, 15 January 2025, lot 225The artist came from an artistic family and was the daughter of the painter Jules Lessore (1849-1892) and sister of the sculptor Frederick Lessore (1879-1951). Born in Brighton, she attended the South-Western Polytechnic Art School and the Slade School of Fine Art from 1904–9, where she won the Melville Nettleship Prize for Figure Composition. She exhibited regularly at the New English Art Club and the Goupil Gallery, and had her first solo exhibition at Eldar Gallery, with a catalogue preface written by Walter Sickert. She was a founder member of The London Group, the artist-run organisation of radical painters which grew out of The Camden Town Group, where she was to exhibit regularly. Lessore was amongst the most talented female artists of The London Group.She married firstly the artist Bernard Adeney and in then 1926 she married Walter Sickert, as his third wife. He described her as “a Persian miniature”. The two artists shared a love of the music-hall and the circus which feature in both their work. Her contributions to exhibitions at The London Group were fewer after her marriage to Sickert who was 24 years her senior and for whom she cared and acted as his artist’s assistant.This acutely observed watercolour of two fellow passengers observed by the artist in Belgium a few years after the end of WWI verges on caricature.

William Wallace Collett-Mason (1895-1957)A young Indian man in military uniform and a turban holding a bayonetPencil, black chalk and watercolour57 x 36 cm.; 22 ½ x 14 ¼ inchesThis work was most probably drawn in the Jhelum area of the Punjab, now in Pakistan, near the border with Kashmir. From May 1921, Jhelum hosted the 10th Battalion of the newly reorganised 1st Punjab Regiment. The subject may be a soldier or a member of the Balochistan police force. His turban is in the style of the "Kulla Wali Pagh" which includes a "Cone Cap", which was worn by Punjabi Muslims. Head and shoulders portrait in profile of Supharas Khan from Jhelum with a comb in his hairPencil and black chalk, with a sketch of his torso verso56.5 x 35.5 cm.; 22 ¼ x 14 inches The sitter Supharas Khan came from the Jhelum area of the Punjab, now in Pakistan, near the border with Kashmir.Head and shoulders portrait of Supharas Khan, wearing a shirt and with a comb in his hairInscribed l.l.: Subharas Khan. 26/Punjab. From jelhum, pencil, with a sketch l.l.56.5 x 35.5 cm.; 22 ¼ x 14 inches The sitter is drawn from the front. The Jhelum area of the Punjab is now in Pakistan, near the border with Kashmir. From May 1921, Jhelum hosted the 10th Battalion of the newly reorganised 1st Punjab Regiment.Head and shoulders portrait of Supharas Khan, wearing a shirt with a comb in his hairInscribed l.l: S, pencil56.5 x 35.5 cm.; 22 ¼ x 14 inches Portrait of a young Indian man wearing a turbanSigned l.r.: COLLET-MASON -, pencil 56.5 x 35.5 cm.; 22 ¼ x 14 inches ProvenanceBy descent in the family of the artist until 2025