John ‘Warwick’ Smith At Naples

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.

KT494Inscribed on original mount in pen and brown ink: Portland., watercolour over pencil13.3 x 22.5 cm.; 5 ¼ x 8 7/8 inchesFrame size 27 x 35.5 cm.; 10 5/8 x 14 inchesProvenanceCothill Antiques, sold on 1 July 1970 toThomas Agnew & Sons Ltd., no. 33077, catalogue no. 30;Private collection, U.K. 1971 - 2021The 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 was one of the most admired watercolourists of his day.

Henry Lamb (Australian/British 1883 – 1960)Inscribed l.r.: Edwin John, pencilProvenanceThe Estate of the artist;Davis & Langdale Company, New York (DLA 3328);Where purchased by Sarah John (1946 - 2024);Bequeathed to the present ownerThis drawing dates from c. 1913-1915. Edwin John (1905-1978) was the fourth son of Augustus John and Ida and was born in Paris. After a brief career as a middleweight boxer he became a watercolourist. He inherited the estate of his aunt Gwen and did much to secure her posthumous reputation.Henry Lamb was born in Adelaide, Australia in 1883. He studied medicine in Manchester before abandoning it in1905 to train as an artist. At twenty-two he left for London to study under Augustus John and William Orpen at their Chelsea Art School at 72 Flood Street. They held weekly classes in life drawing and painting, still life, figure composition, landscape and decorative painting.He was a talented student and he and John formed a strong friendship. For a while Lamb imitated John’s bohemian manner of dress, wore gold earrings and grew his hair longer. He also began to draw like John. Lamb was a frequent visitor to the John household into 1930s and became close to Dorelia (with whom he had an affair) and to the children who he encouraged to draw.This drawing also has echoes of the work of Stanley Spencer. Spencer (like John) had studied at the Slade from 1908-1912 under Henry Tonks. Lamb and Spencer met in 1913 and were close friends for a while. Another drawing of Edwin from this period was with Piano Nobile in 2024 (Augustus John and the First Crisis of Brilliance, 26 April –13 July 2024, no. 12).

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.

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

Signed l.l.: David Cox., watercolour over traces of pencil with touches of pen and black ink on buff paper29.6 x 39 cm; 11 ¾ x 15 ⅜ inchesProvenance: Agnew’s, London, 126th annual exhibition, March 1999, no. 63; The Flannery collection, UK, and by descent until 2018.This very freely drawn watercolour represents a transitional stage in the development of the important theme of ‘Peace and War’, one of David Cox’s major subjects. Two local men, one seated, one standing, watch a small troop of soldiers on the march in an extensive sweeping landscape under a huge sky, with Lancaster Castle in the middle distance and the waters of Morecambe Bay beyond. Unusually for Cox there is not much pencil underdrawing.Cox’s preoccupation with military activity during the very unsettled years of the 1830s and 1840s manifests itself after his 1838 trip with his wife to Seabrook, near Hythe in Kent, for six weeks. The artist made sketching trips along the coast of Kent, including one to Lympne, five miles from Hythe, resulting in Peace and War: Lympne Castle ( c. 1838, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery).The present work, which is similar in style and feel to the Lympne watercolour, presumably dates from the same time, but shows the composition reversed and the distant focus of Lancaster Castle as in Lancaster: Peace and War, 1842 (Art Institute of Chicago). Most of Cox’s numerous ‘Peace and War’ subjects are set at Lancaster rather than Lympne and have more developed references to ‘War’ than the small troop of riders seen here on the top of the hill on the left.The theme is repeatedly treated by Cox at this period, resulting in his 1838 exhibits at the Society of Painters in Water-colours in London, Rocky Scene – Infantry on the March and Stirling Castle – Cavalry on the March and the 1839 Cavalry on the March. In 1848 the first work to be entitled Peace and War (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, National Museums Liverpool) was exhibited at the Society of Painters in Water-colours.

Signed with monogram l.r., inscribed l.l.: near Calikut., watercolour heightened with touches of bodycolourProvenanceFranklin Lushington (1823-1901) and thence by descentLear was invited to India by his friend and patron Lord Northbrook who was appointed Viceroy in 1871, and his journey there was the last and longest of his life. He was overwhelmed by the colour and vitality of India and enjoyed the bustle of Viceregal life.Calicut, or present-day Kozhikode, is on the Malabar coast in Kerala and was a centre of the Indian spice trade. Edward Lear arrived there in October 1874, just as the monsoon began. He was warned about the dangers of contracting fever but stayed, despite the pouring rain, until the skies were clear enough to draw. He described the roads around the city as “of such redundant beauty one can hardly dream.” Franklin Lushington, Lear’s close friend and first owner of this drawing, was the son of Edmund Henry Lushington. He was appointed judge to the Supreme Court of Justice in the Ionian Islands in 1855 and Lear went with him to live in Corfu. They first met in Malta in 1849, where Franklin’s elder brother Henry was Chief Secretary to the government. On his death, Lear left all his papers to Lushington, who later destroyed most of them.

KT734Edward Lear (British 1812-1888)Sunset at Philae, EgyptInscribed and dated l.r.: Philae. Feby. 3. 1854/from Biggeh. Sunset. P 18 and extensively further inscribed with colour notes, pen and brown ink and watercolour over traces of pencil33 x 50 cm.; 13 x 19 ¾ inchesProvenanceAppleby Brothers, 27 William IV Street, Trafalgar Square, London, no. M2139;Private collection, U.K. until 2026Lear visited Philae for the second time in late January and early February 1854. He had intended to travel up the Nile with the artist Holman Hunt but left Cairo earlier than expected when the opportunity arose after Christmas 1853, having met Thomas Seddon (1821-1856) and the explorer Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890). His views of the island were often taken from a vantage point which situated it in the landscape, showing the First Cataract, the rocky barrier that divided ancient Egypt from Nubia and the Nile. Here he enjoys painting the rocks in different shades of grey as the sun goes down, its light illuminating the temple with a golden glow. Lear spent ten days exploring the island and set up camp in the Temple of Isis. Many parties of English travellers visited, and Lear entertained some of them with dinner and music on the Temple Terrace. He adored the place and wrote that it was ‘more like a real fairy island than anything else I can compare it to. It is very small, & was formerly all covered with temples, of which the ruins of 5 or 6 now only remain. The great Temple of Isis, on the terrace of which I am now writing, is so extremely wonderful that no words can give the least idea of it. The Nile is divided here into several channels, by other rocky islands, & beyond you see the desert & the great granite hills of Assouan’ (Lear in a letter to his sister Ann, 7th February 1854, quoted in V. Noakes, ‘Edward Lear’, 1988, p, 124). He made many drawings of Philae, including a similar work dated a day later, 4 February 1854, from a different vantage point which is in the Ashmolean Museum. Lear painted Philae in oils around twenty times. He wrote on his 1867 trip that ‘In no place- it seems to me, can the variety & simplicity of colours be so well studied as in Egypt; in no place are the various beauties of shadow more observable, or more interminably numerous (Diary, 25.ii.67).Bigeh is an island and archaeological site in the Nile, formerly in the First Cataract of the river and it controlled the access to ancient Upper Egypt and Nubia. It was sacred to the ancient Egyptians who believed that Osiris was buried on the island. Its sacred temple was only accessible to priests. 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. An international fund-raising campaign by UNESCO led to their relocation to higher ground by 1968.

Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827)Soldiers on parade, FrancePen and grey ink and watercolour over traces of pencil, inscribed: Depot de Gardes Françoise14.4 x 23.4 cm.; 5 33/4 x 9 ¼ inchesProvenanceRichard Green LtdRowlandson frequently painted military subjects and here he draws English soldiers standing to attention while passers-by walk past unperturbed carrying on their daily activities. The dépôt de Gardes françaises was the Parisian barracks for the elite regiment of troops which protected the French Royal family and was disbanded in 1789 when the soldiers joined the Revolutionary troops.

Daniel Maclise , R.A. (1806-1870)A seated girl reading in a doorwayPencil13.5 x 8 cm.; 5 ¼ x 3 1/8 inchesProvenanceCovent 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.