Thomas Creswick, R.A. An angler by the rocks in a river landscape with trees

Signed with initials in pencil l.r.: HBB, watercolour24 x 17 cm.; 9 ½ x 6 ¾ inchesProvenancePietro Raffo, until 2022£2200This watercolour shows the influence of J.M.W. Turner, whose watercolour studies were copied by Brabazon.

Inscribed verso: Primrose Hill coloured on the spot by/Girtin, watercolour over pencil on oatmeal paper.19.7 x 48.7 cm.; 7 ¾ x 19 inchesProvenanceArthur Boney, his sale, Sotheby’s, 7 October 1947, lot 34, bought by P. & D. Colnaghi & Co. , London;Ray Livingston Murphy (1923-1953), New York, by 1950, his sale, Christie’s, 19 November 1985, lot 35; Robert Tear, OBE (1939-2011), his sale, Sotheby’s, 9 July 2014, lot 189;With Guy Peppiatt Fine Art;Private collection, U.K. until 2024LiteratureT. Girtin and D. Loshak, The Art of Thomas Girtin, 1954, no. 416, p. 191;G. Smith, Thomas Girtin (1775-1802): An Online CatalogueArchive and Introduction to the Artist, TG1761ExhibitedNew Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Prospects, 1950, no. 18., pl. 9b;Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, London, British Drawings and Watercolours, 2015, no. 17This panoramic landscape has been identified as showing Primrose Hill in north London, on the basis of an inscription on the back of the drawing, and Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak consequently dated it to 1800–1801. The area was then undeveloped. It did not become a place of leisure and recreation until well into the nineteenth century, since when the rapid expansion of the city northwards changed the appearance of the landscape so greatly that it may never be possible to confirm the identification of the view with certainty.The work may well have been coloured on the spot, as the inscription suggests, as it is worked in a limited palette without much foreground detail.

Inscribed (recto): T Von Holst, pencil and pen and brown ink, verso: pencil, on laid paper with a partial Strasburg Lily watermark, laid down on a brown sheet numbered 1027.2 x 21.4 cm; 10 3⁄4 x 8 1⁄2 inchesProvenanceJohn Welch Etherington Rolls (1807-1870);By family descent to Lady Shelley Rolls, her sale at Sotheby’s, London,12 June 1959;P. & D. Colnaghi;Private collection U.K. until 2019Von Holst’s drawing of the seated woman, recto, is after a figure in Raphael’s ‘Miraculous Draft of Fishes’; the drawing for the tapestry cartoon is in the Albertina, Vienna. A print was made after the drawing, which von Holst probably copied. The figure of the standing female on the recto is a characteristic Holst pose, derived from Vincenzo Danti’s bronze statue of Venus in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (see Max Browne, The Romantic Art of Theodor von Holst 1810-44, 1994, p.15).The drawing on the verso illustrates a scene inspired by a Gothic novel such as The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, published in 1794. One of the most popular novels of its day, its main character Emily St. Aubert, a virtuous and beautiful young woman, undertakes a series of dramatic adventures; she escapes from captivity at the hands of a cruel villain in a brooding castle to freedom.The brown card inlay on which the present drawing is contained is from the Rolls album, a large leather-bound album which forms the largest-known group of drawings by the artist. The family lived at The Hendre in Monmouthshire, where they also had at least five oils by von Holst. They were also involved with the theatre and opened their own in the grounds.The pencil inscription “T. Von Holst’ appears on almost all the drawings in the album and is effectively its collection mark.

Graphite, with a collector’s mark l.r.14 x 19.7 cm; 5 1/2 x 7 3/4 inchesProvenance: Xavier Haas, c.1937; Professor Anne Crookshank until 2017Infernal ghosts, and hellish furies, round/Environ’d thee; some howl’d; some yell’d, some shriek’d/Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou/Sat’st unappall’d in calm and sinless peace.John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book 4This small but highly detailed drawing was done in late 1794 or early 1795, when Romney began to work on the subject of ‘The Temptation of Christ’, producing intense pencil sketches for a project that he barely began to realise in oils. The poet William Hayley’s son Thomas claims credit for having suggested this theme to Romney, which was inspired by a passage in Milton’s Paradise Regained [Book 4, lines 422-5].Christ can be seen seated at the bottom right of this strong drawing, with the fiends of Satan whirling around his head. There are other studies of this subject in the collection of the Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven (see Alex Kidson, George Romney 1734-1802, London 2002, p. 228).John Romney claimed that his father’s projected canvas measured about 16 by 12 feet, which would have been by far the largest painting he ever conceived, and that it was ‘equal in original conception and wild fancy to any thing ever produced by any artist..had he finished [it] it would have ranked him with Michel Angelo’ (see Romney, Rev. John, Memoirs of the Life and Works of George Romney..’, London 1830, p. 245). The rolled canvas upon which there was a nearly finished head of Christ and the beginning of Satan’s head was sent to Christie’s in April 1807 for the studio sale, was never unrolled due to its size, and subsequently disappeared.Xavier Haas was a Parisian dealer of the Galerie Haas et Gross, who formed the greatest collection of Romney drawings after the break-up of the artist’s studio.Anne Crookshank (1927-2016) was Emeritus Professor of art history at Trinity College, Dublin and played a major role in the development of the study of Irish art.

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.

Dated l.l.: 1 PM. Jan 2 1867, numbered l.r.: 130 and inscribed with colour notes, pen and brown ink and watercolour heightened with bodycolour on buff paper8 x 24.5 cm.; 3 1/8 x 9 5/8 inchesProvenanceSpink (K3/4703)This 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.

Oil on paper laid down on canvas15.1 x 21.6 cm.; 6 x 8 ½ inchesFrame size 25.5 x 32 cm.; 10 x 12 ½ inchesEngravedBy the artist as a lithograph on chine collé, printed by Charles Motte, 1828, plate 8Newton Fielding produced a series of lithographs of mammals which were printed by Charles Motte in 1828.The artist was the youngest son of portrait painter Nathan Theodore Fielding. From 1827 to 1830 he lived in Paris, where he ran the family engraving business, at which William Callow worked. He was closely associated with the Anglo-French circle of artists centred around Bonington and Delacroix.He collaborated with his brothers Thales and Theodore in England before returning to France where he built up an extensive teaching practice, with pupils including members of the family of King Louis- Philippe. He published a number of teaching manuals and lived in France until his death.

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).

Pen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil with touches of white18.9 x 29 cmThere are three drawings (on two sheets) for the eating room at Fairford in the Sir John Soane’s Museum dating from 1789–90 (SM (5) 80/1/65 recto & verso (6) 81/2/99). They aim to remodel the room to make the wall panels more balanced, to use the same cornice as the main stair - case and to remodel the existing chimneypiece.Provenance: Augusta Raymond-Barker, Fairford Park, Gloucestershire; thence by family descent until 2016

Samuel Palmer, RWS (1805-1881)La Vocotella near Corpo di Cava, ItalyPencil and watercolour heightened with bodycolour with scratching out 26.7 x 37.8 cm.; 10 ½ x 14 7/8 inchesProvenanceWith Agnew’s, London 2002, no. 53Anonymous 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 2026Samuel 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).