William Payne Rustics by a ruined church at the water’s edge

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).

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.

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

Signed with initials and dated l.r.: J.B. April 7 18.., pen and grey ink and grey wash16.2 x 21.2 cm.; 6 3/8 x 8 3/8 inchesLiteratureDr A. Sneddon, ‘Representing Magic in Modern Ireland, Belief, History and Culture,’, CUP, 2022, ill. fig. 1In Britain and Ireland amongst ordinary people popular belief in witches remained strong up until the twentieth century. This drawing appears to depict a consultation with a cunning person or white witch. A stock part of 18th and 19th century country life, these commercial, multifarious magical practitioners provided local communities with a range of services for a small fee, such as un-witching, fortune-telling, and divination. They could gain quite serious reputations and some prospered. The position gave them status in their local communities. The 'witch' seems to have a good-natured face and her bonnet is not peaked, and a cat is perched benignly on it. The old woman is seated, a horse skull above her chair and consulting a magical book or grimoire: the ownership of such expensive objects often added to the allure and kudos of cunning-folk. The family are approaching her in a deferential way (the man holds his hat, his wife looks expectant) to ask her help. The girl looks frightened, is she seeing the real witch, the cause of their maladies? After all, cunning-folk were often brought in to counter black or harmful magic.Boyne left Co. Down for London at the age of nine with his father and was apprenticed to the engraver William Byrne. He joined a company of strolling players until 1781 and thereafter established a drawing school.Boyne’s caricatures which provide an amusing insight into British contemporary life can be found in many public collections including the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Fitzwilliam Museum and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.With thanks for Dr Andrew Sneddon for his comments on this drawing.

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.

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 grey wash over pencil24.5 x 17.1 cm.; 10 x 6 ¾ inchesProvenanceWith the Squire Gallery;J. Thursby-Pelham;Mrs Guy Argles and by descent until 1995, anon. sale Christie’s, London, 7 November 1995, lot 71;Spink, London;Christie’s, London, 21 November 2002, lot 8, where bought by the previous owner;Dreweatt’s, Château de Lasfonds sale, 16 November 2022, lot 143ExhibitedSpink, London, ‘Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings, 28 May – 21 June 1996, no. 4This imposing drawing shows Satan holding his shield aloft to defend himself against Heaven. Romney made many illustrations to Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ around 1794. This drawing appears to show a moment in Book 1 when Satan and the other rebels are ‘Hurled headlong, flaming from the ethereal sky’. Elsewhere in the poem Milton compares Satan’s shield to a moon seen through Galileo’s telescope.Another similar drawing in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum also shows Satan holding his shield above his headhttps://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/16046It is possible that the French Revolution, raging at this time, was close to Romney’s mind when he worked on these drawings for 'Paradise Lost', giving them some contemporary political significance.

Signed with initials l.l.: TC, oil on paper laid down on canvas26.5 x 36 cm.; 10 3/8 x 14 1/8 inchesThe artist studied in Birmingham under Joseph V. Barber (1788-1838) and moved to London in 1828. He was one of the leading practitioners of the Birmingham School of Artists and a founder member of the Etching Club. Creswick exhibited over 250 paintings in London during his lifetime at the Royal Academy and Suffolk Street Galleries, and also worked as an illustrator. He sought out subjects from the rivers and streams all over the British Isles.The present work has a pleasing spontaneity and sense of place which reflects Creswick’s habit of painting outside from nature. He was particularly drawn to streams which he painted many times. He revels in depicting the colours, shapes and textures of the boulders in the foreground of this work and excels himself conveying the softness of the moss on the first rock. John Ruskin praised Creswick’s handling of foliage and his observations from nature in the first volume of Modern Painters (1843). Oils on paper by him are comparatively rare.Creswick’s work is represented in many British institutional collections and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.

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.

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.