Peter de Wint On the moors

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 l.l.: E.A., watercolour over traces of pencil heightened with bodycolour and stopping out, with touches of red chalk, in a period burr maple frameSheet 38.9 x 27.6 cm.; 15 ¼ x 10 ¾ inches, painted area 33 x 18 cm.; 13 x 7 inchesProvenanceChristie’s, London, 3 February 2000, lot 160;Sotheby’s, Gleneagles, 30 August 2000, lot 1153;Private collection, London until 2023Alexander is best known for his exquisite watercolours of flora, fauna and the natural world.Alexander studied at the Royal Institution, Edinburgh from 1887-8, and in Paris with the sculptor Emmanuel Frémier.In 1887-8 the artist travelled to Tangier with his father and fellow artists Pollock Nisbet and Joseph Crawhall. He returned to Egypt in 1892 and lived there for four years. After his return he married Dora, moved to just outside Musselburgh, and created a menagerie that he used for his work. Plants remained important subjects for his painting and, in 1909, he illustrated J. H. Crawford’s The Wild Flowers.In 1902 Alexander was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy becoming a full member in 1913. He exhibited widely including at the Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Academy, Fine Art Society, Royal Watercolour Society and the Leicester Galleries.Alexander’s work is held in the Tate Gallery, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Dundee Art Gallery and by Fife Council.

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).

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.

William Henry Hunt, OWS (1790-1864)Lighting the BrazierSigned l.l.: W HUNT., watercolour over traces of pencil with scratching out, title inscribed on original frame36.2 x 26.7 cm.; 14 ¼ x 10 ½ inchesProvenanceAgnew’s, Liverpool, no. 253;Malllams, Oxford, 19 March 2026, lot 443This unpublished watercolour is a notable addition to the group of black subjects drawn by W.H. Hunt held in public collections in the UK and USA. It fits into a group on which Hunt was working in 1830s depicting black children warming themselves by fires. For domestic servants lighting fires was a daily job.In the 1830s Hunt exhibited twenty humorous images of children which were later lithographed as Hunt’s Comic Sketches published in 1844, including two of black children, including Master James Crow -Out of His Element and Miss Jim Ima Crow seated by fires. The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, has the original watercolour of Jim Crow which appears to show the same black boy as in the present work (see J. Witt, William Henry Hunt (1790-1846), 1982, no.477, see lithograph). Both boys are shown seated in front of a brazier, a suggestion that they feel the cold alluded to in the title of the lithograph, seated on a barrel or basket of the same height. The present watercolour (executed circa 1830-40) also has similarities with a watercolour of the same black model holding a slate at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London also entitled ‘A Brown Study’ (FA526). Both drawings share the same neutral background and have an added strip at the top. Another version of this work, without an added strip, is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art (B1975.4.583).Hunt made several other studies of black sitters, including a drawing of a young girl in pencil on buff paper in the Courtauld Institute, London and a boy posing as a boxer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2020.120). Jan Marsh has suggested that because of Hunt’s choice of theme his sitters are most likely to have been youths aged around 10 – 14 years old who were not at school or apprenticed but earning small amounts in the street running errands, carrying parcels and doing other small jobs, and were therefore visible and available to artists notably in London, Bristol and Liverpool (private email March 2026). Hunt preferred to use the same sitters as models. Hunt was born with a deformation of his legs which restricted his movement and seems to have had a form of dwarfism. According to his early biographer, F. G. Stephens, Hunt was: ‘was a little less than… five foot. He was broad as well as round shouldered and his head was large beyond proportion to the rest of his figure which the torso was that of a larger man. His large and long frock coats and loose trousers although favourable to him on other accounts, did not add to his outward graces.’ . Stephens adds that Hunt’s personal disabilities: ‘frequently made him reserved and not very easily accessible to strangers.’ While Hunt’s interactions with black sitters were inevitably informed by the prejudices of his age it is quite possible that his own disability drew him to marginalised members of his society. He is known to have befriended black acrobats and musicians.British artists showed increasing interest in Black subjects during the 1830s. Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire over the years 1833 -1838 and the abolition movement was hotly debated in Parliament and beyond.

Pen and grey ink and watercolour and pencil27.4 x 43.1 cm.; 10 3⁄4 x 17 inchesProvenanceChristie’s, London, 21 November 2002, lot 20; where bought by the previous owner;Private collection, U.K., until 2022The present work is a significant example of Rowlandson’s landscape draughtsmanship. It probably dates from the same time as a smaller view of Glastonbury showing the abbey from the main street and marketplace of the town in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum (Dyce Collection) which was etched by the artist as plate 24 of Rowlandson's World in Miniature, No. 2, 1816. Rowlandson has used a certain amount of artistic license in his interpretation of the topography.

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.

Head and shoulders, pen and brown ink and wash22.9 x 17.3 cm; 9 x 10 3/4 inchesProvenance: Private collection, UK, bought at a charity auction at the Finchingfield GuildhallLandseer’s caricatures are a less well-known aspect of his art. They were made for private circulation and show Landseer’s effortless ability to capture the physical oddities of his subjects in an acute yet affectionate fashion. This drawing was once thought to depict Paganini but the subject is currently unidentified.

Oil on laid paper laid down on canvas20.5 x 25.1 cm.; 8 1/8 x 9 7/8 inchesProvenancePrivate collection, USA, until 2025This charming plein air sketch was made not long after the completion of the restoration of the Arch of Titus in 1824. During the early nineteenth century the integrity of the structure was spoilt by the remains of medieval stone walls and accumulations of rubble at the sides. These were cleared in the early 1820s by Giuseppe Valadier (1762–1839) who restored the Arch to something approaching its original (and current) appearance. The artist differentiates between the original Pentelic marble and the white Travertine used for the newly carved sections of the monument.On the Via Sacra to the south-east of the Forum, the Arch of Titus was designed to glorify the memory of the emperor Titus and his official deification or consecratio. It was built shortly after the death of Titus in 81AD by his brother Domitian, who succeeded him as emperor.

Inscribed l.c.: Zaffia in Barbaria, pen and brown ink and wash on laid paper, collector’s mark on old backing23.1 x 33.7 cm; 9 1/8 x 13 1/4 inchesProvenance: Anna Place, the artist’s widow until 1732;Frances Wyndham, the artist’s daughter; Her nephew Francis Parrott ;By family descent to Francis Parrott Jr; His sister Elizabeth, widow of Captain John Fraser of Hospitalfield, Arbroath; Her daughter Elizabeth and Patrick Allan-Fraser; His sale, Sotheby’s, June 1931, lot 133; Sir Bruce Ingram, (Lugt, 1405a); R.E.S. Willison;Sotheby’s London, 19 November 1987, lot 85; Michael and Justina Ryan until 2019This is a view of Safi, southwest of Casablanca in western Morocco. The sixteenth century fortress built by the Portugese dominates the town.Another drawing of this town from a slightly different aspect by Jan Peeters (1624-78) (View of Zaffia in Barbary c.1665, pen, brown ink and grey wash, on paper) also belonged to Sir Bruce Ingram and is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum (PD.587-1963).Place was the earliest English artist whose main preoccupation was with landscape. He travelled on foot through Yorkshire, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and France, and was thus a forerunner of the sketching tours of artists a hundred years later. He knew Wenceslas Hollar (1607-1677), whose topographical work influenced his style and who accompanied an expedition to Tangier in 1669 to make records of the area. Place also worked as a book illustrator, pioneer of mezzotint and experimental potter (see E. Croft-Murray and P. Hulton, 'Catalogue of British Drawings', vol. I, British Museum, 1960 pp. 456-470).This drawing is recorded on page 10 of the 'Drawings Notebook' at Hospitalfield House, Arbroath which was compiled by Wadham Wyndham, the artist’s son-in-law.