William Payne A ruined castle on a hill in a river landscape

Watercolour over pencil 20.5 x 38 cm.; 8 1/8 x 15 inches Provenance Walter Coleridge Richmond (1852-1931), the son of the artist, by descent; With Radnorshire Fine Art Richmond continued to draw and paint landscapes throughout his successful career as a portraitist. These works remained private and stayed mainly in his family. This beautiful sketch has a directness which reflects his enjoyment of the opportunity for contemplation when drawing from nature.

Peter Paillou (c. 1720-1790) A pair of snipe and a kingfisher in a landscape Watercolour over pencil on wove paper 35.2 x 44 cm.; 13 ¾ x 17 ¼ inches Provenance Sotheby’s London, 9 November 1995, lot 19; where bought by James Hall, his collection, no. 70 until 2022 The artist’s life is not well documented, but he is believed to have come to Britain from France in the first half of 18th century. London based, he worked for the famous Welsh naturalist and antiquarian Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), drawing birds. His son, Peter Paillou Jr. was a miniature and portrait painter.

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.

Watercolour and bodycolour, signed and inscribed verso: Castle of Kilchurn on Lough Awe/Western Highlands of Scotland/T. Walmsley and inscribed in another contemporary hand: J. Kemble, unframed 37.1 x 50.4 cm; 141⁄2 x 19 3⁄4 inches Provenance The Leger Galleries Ltd., London, 1965; Private collection, U.K. until 2020 Walmsley was born in Dublin into a military background. After a quarrel with his family, he moved to London and worked as a scene painter at the Royal Opera House. In 1788, he returned to Ireland for two years to work at the Crow Street Theatre. The inscription ‘J. Kemble’ may be a reference to the actor John Philip Kemble (1757-1832). Walmsley regularly exhibited landscapes at the R.A., including many of Wales, Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Wight. Much of his work was aquatinted and published. At the end of his life he retired to Bath. Examples of his drawings may be found in the British Museum, the V&A, the Ashmolean in Oxford and many other institutions.

Extensively inscribed and dated in pencil and in pen and brown ink: Quarries of Assouan AM 11.30- 1 PM January 27.1867 all one color [sic] pinky drab oker [sic], numbered (242) and with further colour notes, pen and brown ink and watercolour over pencil heightened with white 29 x 53 cm.; 11 3/8 x 20 ¾ inches Provenance Mrs R.K. Judges; The Fine Art Society, January 1993, where bought by Martin Davies (1924-2023) This beautifully drawn watercolour dates from Lear’s second trip up the Nile and his third visit to Egypt in the winter of 1866-1867, when he travelled with his Canadian cousin, Archie Jones. The men met in Luxor and visited Esneh, Edfu and Denderah, and had reached Philae by the end of January. Lear found his cousin irritating due to his habit of whistling and his lack of enthusiasm for the temples. It was nevertheless a productive trip for the artist, who made many drawings. He was particularly interested in the country between the First and Second Cataracts which was new to him. Another drawing from this trip dating from 30 January of the first Cataract is numbered 267 (formerly in the collection of Dayton International), indicating that he produced twenty-five drawings in 3 days. He wrote to Lady Waldegrave on 9th March 1867 that the Nubian desert was, ‘a sad, stern, uncompromising landscape, dark ashy purple lines of hills, piles of granite rocks, fringes of palm, and ever and anon astonishing ruins of oldest temples’ (Vivien Noakes, Edward Lear: Selected Letters, London, 1988, pp. 208-209). This detailed view accurately depicts the ancient granite quarries at Aswan mined by the ancient Egyptians. A line of unfinished carved granite can be seen lying in the sand in the background. When the construction of the Aswan Dam began in 1960, it became apparent that the ancient temples and surrounding area would be submerged and destroyed by the rising waters of the newly created Lake Nasser. UNESCO led an international fund-raising campaign to relocate them to higher ground by 1968. Martin Davies (1924-2023) was the President of the Egypt Society of Bristol, who visited and photographed the second cataract twice in 1960s before the Aswan Dam was moved. He amassed an interesting collection of views of Egypt.

Daniel Maclise , R.A. (1806-1870) A seated girl reading in a doorway Pencil 13.5 x 8 cm.; 5 ¼ x 3 1/8 inches Provenance Covent Garden Gallery Ltd. Daniel Maclise was born in Cork to a family of Scottish descent. After a brief period working in a bank, Maclise’s passion for drawing led him to pursue a career in art which he studied at the Cork Society of Arts. He moved to London in 1826 to attend the Royal Academy where he excelled as a student, particularly in life drawing and history painting. He began exhibiting in the RA in 1829, was made an associate in 1830, and an academician in 1840.

Oil on paper laid down on board, inscribed on reverse of board: George Mason ARA and stamped with a Christie’s stencil 21 x 21 cm.; 8 ¼ x 8 ¼ inches Provenance The artist’s studio sale, Christie’s, 15 February 1873, lot 91, where bought by George Dunlop Leslie, RA (1835-1921); his daughter Lydia Leslie, By descent to T. L. Twidell Exhibited Stoke-on-Trent Museum & Art Gallery, George Heming Mason, 1982, cat. no 20 (ill) (lent by T.W. Twidell). Exhibited George 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.

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.

Signed with initials and dated l.r.: J.B. April 7 18.., pen and grey ink and grey wash 16.2 x 21.2 cm.; 6 3/8 x 8 3/8 inches Literature Dr A. Sneddon, ‘Representing Magic in Modern Ireland, Belief, History and Culture,’, CUP, 2022, ill. fig. 1 In Britain and Ireland amongst ordinary people popular belief in witches remained strong up until the twentieth century. This drawing appears to depict a consultation with a cunning person or white witch. A stock part of 18th and 19th century country life, these commercial, multifarious magical practitioners provided local communities with a range of services for a small fee, such as un-witching, fortune-telling, and divination. They could gain quite serious reputations and some prospered. The position gave them status in their local communities. The 'witch' seems to have a good-natured face and her bonnet is not peaked, and a cat is perched benignly on it. The old woman is seated, a horse skull above her chair and consulting a magical book or grimoire: the ownership of such expensive objects often added to the allure and kudos of cunning-folk. The family are approaching her in a deferential way (the man holds his hat, his wife looks expectant) to ask her help. The girl looks frightened, is she seeing the real witch, the cause of their maladies? After all, cunning-folk were often brought in to counter black or harmful magic. Boyne left Co. Down for London at the age of nine with his father and was apprenticed to the engraver William Byrne. He joined a company of strolling players until 1781 and thereafter established a drawing school. Boyne’s caricatures which provide an amusing insight into British contemporary life can be found in many public collections including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Fitzwilliam Museum and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. With thanks for Dr Andrew Sneddon for his comments on this drawing.

KT636 Watercolour over traces of pencil with touches of gum arabic and scratching out 21 x 29 cm.; 8 ¼ x 11 3/8 inches Provenance Agnew’s, (1891); Private collection, Herefordshire until 2024 Samuel Jackson has been described as ‘the Father of the School’ of Bristol artists. His contemporary Francis Danby (1793-1861) wrote that ‘I know Jackson is a man of genius by being with him in Leigh Woods’ (see F. Greenacre and S. Stodard, ‘The Bristol Landscape-the Watercolours of Samuel Jackson’, 1986, p. 85). In 1820s Bristol was booming, the end of the Napoleonic Wars contributing to its prosperity as a trading city, the port of Bristol second only to London. This was the moment the ‘Bristol School of Artists’ flourished; Jackson and Francis Danby were its best-known members. Their original contribution to art in Britain was founded in their plein air practise in the countryside around the city, Leigh Woods, the Nightingale Valley and the Avon Gorge. Jackson was born in Bristol, the son of a partner in a firm of dry-salters with a Dutch grandmother, who dealt in the chemical products used in colour dyes and artists materials. It may be that in this business was the origin of the wide variety of pigments used in much of Jackson’s early work. Like many other Bristol artists Jackson travelled extensively and made frequent trips to Wales from 1825 through the 1830s and 1840s. In 1827 he visited Trinidad, St Vincent and Tobago in the West Indies. Scotland, the Lake District and Switzerland provided further subjects for his exhibited works. He lived in Bristol for his whole life becoming the elder statesman of the arts in the city. Jackson’s work is well represented at the British Museum, Bristol City Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art amongst other institutions.