Italy

KT397 Watercolour 17.6 x 25.8 cm.; 6 7/8 x 10¼ inches Framed size 34.5 x 44.5 cm.; 13 5/8 x 17 ½ inches Provenance Sotheby’s, London, 18 November 1971, lot 64; Charles J. Branchini until 2020 The second son of Hercules Sharpe, the artist was educated at Harrow. After leaving Cambridge where he read Maths he decided to become an artist and studied in Rome for three years. On the death of his elder brother he inherited the Brabazon estates (and name) in Ireland. He spent his summers in England and his winters travelling in Europe and, from the 1860s, further afield. In 1891 Sargent persuaded him to have an exhibition at the Goupil Gallery and, as a result, in his old age he was at the forefront of the modern movement. Brabazon was most influenced by Turner, Cox, Müller and de Wint and his work owes much to Turner's late work. This watercolour is reminiscent of the style of Sargent.

Signed with initials l.r.: HBB, watercolour and bodycolour over pencil, inscribed verso: Siracuse and stamped with collector’s mark Provenance Gilbert Davis (L. 757a.); Edward Seago, his estate sale at Christie’s, London 1 March 1977, lot 94; Where bought by B.M. Williams; Christie’s, London, 21 November 2007, lot 145, where acquired by the previous owner until 2025 Gilbert Davis (1899–1983) built up a large collection of watercolours in the middle of the twentieth century. He sold the bulk of his collection in 1959 to the Huntingdon Library and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. Edward Seago RBA, RWS (1910-1974) was one of the most popular British artists of 20th century, who painted in oils and watercolours.

Signed l.c.: R. Cooper, pen and brown ink and wash over pencil on laid paper partially watermarked with the Strasburg Lily 20 x 29.4 cm.; 7 7/8 x 11 5/8 inches Framed size 31 x 41 cm.; 12 1/4 x 16 1/8 inches Provenance Iolo Williams collection The 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.

Signed, inscribed and dated l.r.: Carl Haag London 14 Sept 1849, oil on paper 35 x 25.3 cm.; 13 ½ x 10 inches, framed size 50 x 40 cm.; 19 3/4 x 15 3/4 inches Provenance Peter Ward-Jackson (1916-2015) Literature W. Karbach and C. Allison, Carl Haag Victorian Court Painter and Travelling Adventurer between Orient and Occident, 2019, no. 85 Having studied in Munich (where he worked as a miniaturist and book illustrator), Paris and Brussels the artist arrived in England in the spring of 1847. After spending that winter in Rome, he returned to London to study watercolour painting at the Royal Academy Schools. He almost lost a hand in an accidental explosion in December 1848. Haag’s first exhibited work at the Royal Academy in 1849 was entitled The Return from the Vineyards and the present work may have been made as a preparatory study. He became a member of the Old Water Colour Society in 1853. Haag travelled widely all over Europe and the Near East. He was popular with Royal and aristocratic patrons and spent the autumn of 1853 at Balmoral and the winter at Windsor. Peter Ward-Jackson was a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum and a leading authority on furniture, prints and drawings, particularly ornament designs. His publications became standard works in these fields such as his catalogue of the V&A’s Italian Drawings (in two volumes, 1979-80).

Cecil Arthur Hunt, RWS (1873-1965) Mount Etna, Sicily Signed in pencil l.l.: C.A. Hunt, watercolour, inscribed on label attached to backboard: From Cecil & Phyllis Hunt/Christmas 1954/Etna 9 x 13,5 cm.; 3 ½ x 5 5/8 inches Frame size 15 x 29 cm.; 6 x 11 3/8 inches Provenance Agnew’s; Private collection UK Hunt 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).

Stamped with studio stamp l.r. and inscribed: Venice, watercolour 15 x 23.5 cm.; 5 7/8 x 5 ½ inches, framed size 32 x 39 cm.; 12 1/2 x 15 1/4 inches From an album of watercolours by the artist. Johnson was born in Birmingham where he studied under Samuel Restell Lines. He was then a pupil of William James Müller in London from circa 1842/3-1845, accompanying him to Lycia at the time of Sir Charles Fellowes’ expedition in 1843. The artists travelled for around eight months, spending time in Xanthus, Pinara and Tlos before going to to Rhodes and Smyrna and presumably visited Venice at this time. Johnson, like Müller, continued to work on subjects from this trip after his return to England. On Johnson’s return to London, he became a founder member of the Clipstone Street Academy, along with Müller, participating in its life drawing and painting sessions with a variety of models from the streets. Johnson made sketching trips with David Cox to North Wales from 1844. The artist was elected an associate member of the R.I. in 1868 and a full member two years later. His work can be found in many museum collections, including the British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Inscribed and dated l.l.: Monte Generoso/1879, and further inscribed with colour notes, pen and brown ink over pencil 25 x 51.5 cm; 9 7/8 x 20 1/4 inches £8500 Lear returned to Varese and Monte Generoso, on the border between Italy and Switzerland between lakes Lugano and Como, from June 29 to September 22 1879. He stayed at Mendrisio, across the Swiss border in Ticino. He enjoyed sketching the views south across the plains, as in the present watercolour and the mountains stretching up to the Alps. Marianne North the botanical artist came to Como towards the end of his stay and they made a trip to Monte Civita near Monza together. This drawing is taken from a similar vantage point to that of an oil of the same subject dated 1880 in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum (WA196.39). An unpublished poem “The Lays of the Octopods’ about the perils of mass tourism at Monte Generoso has recently come to light in the British Library.

Signed and dated l.r.: Edward Lear. Del 1842, inscribed l.l.: Villa Adriana., pencil heightened with white 24 x 36.7 cm.; 9 3/8 x 14 3/8 inches Provenance Phillip’s, London, 11 November 1997, lot 45; Private collection U.K. until 2023 £8500 Lear set out for Italy in the summer of 1837. For most of the next ten years the artist wintered in Rome and toured other parts of Italy during the summer. This crisply drawn view with white highlights of the Villa Adriana is a fine example of the artist’s pencil drawing, which he favoured early in his Italian soujourn and shows the influence of James Duffield Harding. A related drawing of the Villa Adriana in upright format is in the collection of the British Museum (P_1892-1119-15). The same figures can be seen in the foreground and the compositional emphasis is on the trees on the right of the composition. Situated on a low plain on the slopes of the Tiburtine Hills, Hadrian’s Villa was the largest villa of the Roman Empire, built over an area of more than one hundred hectares.

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.

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.l.: Ponte Nomentano. June 21st. Rome, watercolour over pencil, stamped with Michael Ingram’s collector’s mark on old mount 12.5 x 17.5 cm.; 4 7/8 x 6 7/8 inches, framed size 27 x 32 cm.; 10 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches Provenance Bought in Bath by Michael Ingram, his sale at Sotheby’s 8 December 2005, lot 236, where bought for a princely collection in the Middle East until December 2024 Roberts visited Rome and Naples in 1853. He greatly enjoyed Rome and produced many drawings and oil paintings as a result of his stay. The bridge was erected at the point where the via Nomentana crossed the Aniene river, a tributary of the Tiber, at the foot of Monte Sacro. Roberts drew the large travertine arch and the medieval crenelated fortification. Restored several times over the centuries, it was much painted by visiting artists. Michael Ingram inherited his passion for collecting drawings from his uncle Sir Bruce Ingram, OBE, MC (1877-1963, L. 1405a) and modelled his collector’s mark on that of his uncle.

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.

KT519 Signed with monogram and dated 1929 l.r., watercolour 15 x 24.2 cm.; 5 7/8 x 9 ½ inches Provenance The family of the artist, by descent until 2022 Southall was born in Nottingham of Quaker parents, and was taken by his mother to Birmingham when his father died in 1862. In 1874 he entered the Friends’ School, Bootham, where he was taught painting by Edwin Moore (brother of Albert and Henry). Four years later he joined the Birmingham firm of architects, Martin and Chamberlain, but in 1882 he left to focus on painting and joined the Birmingham School of Art settling in Edgbaston, where he lived for the rest of his life. Southall and his wife Anna paid frequent visits to Italy and France.

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 1796 26.1 x 22.6 cm.; 10 ¼ x 8 7/8 inches Provenance Mellors & Kirk, Nottingham, 9-10 June 2011, lot 713 (as of Tonelli by Hugh Douglas Hamilton); Private collection, U.K. until 2022 Literature N. Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, online edition, no. J.722.167 Anna 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.