Samuel Jackson Cader Idris

KT383Watercolour over pencil heightened with gum arabic and scratching out24.7 x 35.5 cm.; 9 7/8 x 14 inchesProvenance: Christopher and Rosemary Warren until 2020Exhibited: City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, ‘The Watercolours of Samuel Jackson 1794-1869’, 1986, no. 33 (private collection)This atmospheric and beautifully preserved watercolour dates from circa 1825. Jackson’s observation of gentle evening light and the reflections on the Avon are masterful. The well-recorded evening sketching meetings of the Bristol artists and amateurs in Leigh Woods at this time doubtless inspired Jackson to tackle this popular subject at dusk.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).His work is well represented at the British Museum, Bristol City Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art amongst other institutions.

Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour on thick cream paper12.8 x 17.7 cm; 5 ⅛ x 7 inchesProvenance: Frances Foster, the artist’s second wife.This delightful sketch is unusually spontaneous for the artist and shows the influence of John Ruskin. Huge skies are a frequent component of Birket Foster’s more finished watercolours.

Signed l.l.: E. Lear, pencil with watercolour, gum arabic and pen and black ink17.7 x 23 cm.; 7 x 9 inchesThese 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.

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 white29 x 53 cm.; 11 3/8 x 20 ¾ inchesProvenanceMrs R.K. Judges;The Fine Art Society, January 1993, where bought byMartin 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.

Cecil Arthur Hunt, RWS (1873-1965)Mount Etna, SicilySigned in pencil l.l.: C.A. Hunt, watercolour, inscribed on label attached to backboard: From Cecil & Phyllis Hunt/Christmas 1954/Etna9 x 13,5 cm.; 3 ½ x 5 5/8 inchesFrame size 15 x 29 cm.; 6 x 11 3/8 inchesProvenanceAgnew’s;Private collection UKHunt 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).

Watercolour over traces of pencil on Creswick paper31 x 48.3 cm.; 12 ¼ x 19 inchesProvenanceChristie’s, London, the Artist’s sale, 27 May 1850, lot 378;Christie's London, April 25, 1995, 116;Bill Thomson, Albany Gallery until 2021De Wint first visited Shropshire in 1829-1830 and exhibited a number of Shropshire views throughout his career. He had two major patrons there, Lord Clive at Oakley Park near Ludlow, not far from the Clee Hills, and Edward Cheney of Badger Hall.

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.

Two, each signed l.l.and l.r., each inscribed l.c.: F. Concolr./life and F. Ocelot.of.Albany./Life, watercolour over pencilEach approx. 25 x 17.5 cm.; 9 ¾ x 6 7/8 inchesThe artist was self-taught and specialised in drawings of animals and field sports.From a wealthy Quaker family, Howitt took up art professionally when he encountered financial difficulties and became a drawing master in Ealing.He married Thomas Rowlandson's sister Elizabeth in 1779 and was part of Rowlandson's circle together with George Morland, Henry Wigstead and J.R. Smith.

Signed and dated lower left: J. Severn Roma 1825Oil on canvas61.6 by 75cm., 24 1/4 by 39 1/2 inches, framed size 82 x 90 cm.; 32 1/4 x 35 3/8 inches£22,000This unpublished painting depicts the wife and child of a brigand apparently hiding from the authorities, probably in the Alban Hills. The sleeping man, his rifle at his side, is watched over by his wife who rocks their child in a makeshift cradle covered by a cloth and hanging from a tree branch. Banditti were a popular artistic subject, made fashionable by the work of Salvator Rosa, and Severn experienced an attempted robbery first hand in 1823 when he was travelling around Naples, where brigands were common. Here he focusses on the humanity of the mother and draws attention to the precarious condition of the family.Joseph Severn was the eldest son of a music teacher from Hoxton. At the age of 14 he became apprenticed to the engraver William Bond before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1815. Here, in 1820, he was awarded the gold medal for historical painting for his Una and the Red Cross Knight in the Cave of Despair, which granted him a travelling scholarship. This coincided with the illness of his friend, the poet John Keats, and together they travelled to Rome in search of a better climate for the ailing poet. During the winter of 1820-21 Severn nursed Keats in their apartment near the Spanish Steps, his detailed letters from the period of great importance, but, on 23 February 1821, Keats died.Severn remained in Rome, launching his own artistic career as a painter of landscapes, portraits and subject paintings. His pictures of Italian peasant life won him such an avid following that there were times during the 1820s when he could not keep up with the flood of commissions. At the beginning of 1827 he wrote to his younger brother Charles that he had “now 9 pictures on order”, and by the beginning of the following year he had “eleven pictures on hand” and this popularity continued well into the 1830s. Patrons, friends, family and fellow artists all praised the freshness and originality of his Italian painting. Sir Charles Eastlake wrote of the “richness of colour” and the "truth of circumstance, situation, incident & costume," of Severn’s Italian work (Charles Eastlake to Severn, 7 May 1834 and May 1832 (MS: Harvard, bMS Eng 1434 [52, 51], quoted in Grant F. Scott, Joseph Severn Letters and Memoirs, 2005, p. 23). It seems probable that the present work was a commission.Severn exhibited extensively at the Royal Academy during the late 1820s and 1830s showing eleven paintings of which ten were Italian genre pictures. Today comparable paintings from this period can be found in the Thorvaldens Museum in Denmark, Italian woman and her Daughter, 1831 and Italian Peasant in The Royal Collection, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Fountain of 1828 has a similar landscape background to the present work and hangs in the Royal Palace, Brussels. The Vintage, was commissioned by the Duke of Bedford in 1825 for Woburn Abbey. Further work is in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London and the Victoria and Albert Museum.Severn played a crucial role in the foundation of the British Academy of the Fine Arts at Rome (1823-1936), securing funding from various influential patrons including William Hamilton, the antiquarian, and hosting evening gatherings in his apartment on the Via di San Isodoro, where artists met to study and draw from life, and where they had access to casts, painting and sculpting material and books. It was also a temporary rooming house where artists who had recently arrived from England could stay while looking for a studio (see, Grant F. Scott, op. cit., p.17).Severn remained in Rome for most of his life other than a spell in England from 1841-1861. With the help of William Gladstone, an avid patron, he became British Consul in Rome from 1860-72. He died in Rome in 1879 and, at his request, was buried next to Keats in the Protestant cemetery near Porta San Paolo and adjacent to the Pyramid of Cestius. Their graves are pictured below.

Chale Bay- looking out to sea from St Catherine’s Down and Oratory, Isle of WightWatercolour over traces of pencil.32.3 x 54.1 cm.; 12 ¾ x 21 ¼ inchesProvenanceSpink, London, sold 11 October 1956;Private collection U.K., until 2020;With Karen Taylor Fine Art;Private collection, U.K. until 2024Turner of Oxford was in Sussex in 1846 from when this beautiful drawing may well date, as he made a large watercolour from near Portsmouth with the Isle of Wight in the distance in that year. He has chosen a calm day and the stillness of the shepherds amplifies the awe with which they are observing the beauty of nature.The location has an interesting history. In 1313, a ship, the St Mary of Bayonne, was blown off-course and ran aground on the treacherous Atherfield Ledge in Chale Bay. Its cargo of white wine was sold illegally by the sailors and many barrels found their way into the cellars of Walter de Godeton, Lord of the Manor of Chale.The ship came from Gascony, then part of King Edward II’s kingdom. He was not amused, and Walter de Godeton was fined by an ecclesiastical court. The Pope heard of the incident and, to avoid excommunication, de Godeton was ordered to build an oratory and beacon on Chale Down as penance.