Cecil Arthur Hunt Mount Etna, Sicily

Oil on paper laid down on board, inscribed on reverse of board: George Mason ARA and stamped with a Christie’s stencil21 x 21 cm.; 8 ¼ x 8 ¼ inchesProvenanceThe artist’s studio sale, Christie’s, 15 February 1873, lot 91, where bought byGeorge Dunlop Leslie, RA (1835-1921); his daughter Lydia Leslie, By descent to T. L. Twidell ExhibitedStoke-on-Trent Museum & Art Gallery, George Heming Mason, 1982, cat. no 20 (ill) (lent by T.W. Twidell). ExhibitedGeorge 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.

Signed with initials l.r.: HBB, watercolour and bodycolour over pencil, inscribed verso: Siracuse and stamped with collector’s markProvenanceGilbert 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.

Pen and brown ink and wash over traces of pencil on laid paper12 x 9.7 cm.; 4 ¾ x 3 3/4 inchesFramed in a dark wood moulding31 x 29 cm.; 12 1/4 x 11 1/2 inchesProvenance: Dickinson

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).

Pencil9 x 15 cm.; 3 ½ x 6 inchesProvenanceThe artist's studio sale, Christie's, 8 - 15 May 1874, bt. by Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd. (23366);J.M.M., a Christmas present from C. 1962

Charles Gore (1729-1807)A view of the East front of Arundel Castle, West Sussex, seen from the Bowling GreenInscribed l. r.: Arundel Castle taken from the Platform or/Bowling Green by Charles Gore Esq 1781 and indistinctly inscribed in pencil u. r.: Arundel Castle Sufsex/1781Watercolour over touches of pencil on laid paper, with a Whatman watermark19.6 by 49 cm., 7 ¾ by 19 ¼ inchesProvenanceIolo Williams (1890-1962); And by descent until sold Sotheby's, London, 13 July 1989, lot 5; Private collection;With Guy Peppiatt Fine ArtThe bowling green is the name for the square earthworks located, with the fishponds, on the east side of the castle. They were probably made originally to improve the castle’s defences during the Civil War. Used as a bowling green in eighteenth century, as shown in the drawing by Charles Gore, today a rose garden can be found here. The Hon. Charles Gore was the son of a Lincolnshire landowner and educated at Westminster. He married a wealthy heiress of a shipbuilding company and learnt to draw and design ships. Gore travelled extensively in Europe, sketching with the German artist Jacob Philipp Hackert (1737-1807). Gore copied marine oils, completed the unfinished drawings of other artists, and also developed his own style having acquired an expert knowledge of the sea. His interest in classical antiquities led Charles Gore to join Hackert and Richard Payne Knight on their expedition to Sicily from April to June 1777.In 1779 Gore returned to England and became a member of the Dilettanti Society in 1781. He painted a series of panoramic views of Sussex including the current drawing. The family returned to the Continent in 1782 and he settled in Weimar in 1791 with his daughter Eliza. Examples of Gore's work can be found in the British Museum, the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich and the Goethe-Nationalmuseum, Weimar.

Pen and grey ink and wash, inscribed verso and dated: Kerswell Oct.3.181223.7 x 37 cm.; 9 ¼ x 14 ½ inchesProvenancePrivate collection, U.K. until 2025Kerswell is a hamlet in the Teignbridge district of Devon north-east of Exeter.

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.

Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, P.R.A. (British 1879-1972)The Great Wall of ChinaOil on boardExhibitedMartyn Gregory Gallery, ‘Modern British Painters’, October 1988, Catalogue no. 52, no. 34This is a study for a painting of the same size of the Great Wall of China exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy, 1938, no.45 and the Royal Academy, London, Exhibition of Works by Sir Gerald Kelly, 1957, no.231.Born in London of Irish descent, Kelly was educated at Cambridge University, later living and studying art in Paris where he met Degas, Monet, Renoir and Sickert. Whistler was also an early influence as were Cézanne and Gaugin. Kelly was an enthusiastic traveller, visiting amongst other countries China, Spain, America, South Africa and Burma, where he painted some of his most characteristic and charming figure studies. He became a successful society portraitist whose sitters included Somerset Maugham, whom he painted several times, and he undertook numerous state portraits. Kelly is represented in many public collections, including the Tate, which holds seven works. He had retrospective exhibitions at the Leicester Galleries in 1950 and in 1957 at the RA. He was elected RA in 1930, was the Academy's Keeper from 1943-45 and President, defeating Augustus John in the election, from 1949-54. Kelly held a number of official positions, such as membership of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, 1938-43, and was knighted in 1945. Between 1909 and 1970 Kelly exhibited over 300 works at the RA. During his lifetime his work became well known through popular prints.

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.