Henry Pilleau The Dead Sea

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.

KT379Signed and dated l.l.: John Dearman 1845, signed and inscribed on stretcher: Cattle crossing Merrow Down Guilford Surrey/storm passing off.Jn. Dearman 184., oil on paper laid down on canvas stamped PREPARED BY/CHARLES ROBERSON/LONG ACRE LONDON18 x 15.4 cm.; 7 x 6 1/8 inchesFrame size 28 x 26 cm.; 11 x 10 inchesProvenanceChristie’s, London (1002V);John Abbott (1937-2011)This delightful oil sketch captures a huge brooding sky with distant light breaking through which suggests that the storm is passing. The grandeur of nature is enhanced by the small figure of a shepherd with a flash of red at his neck, with his dog and flock of sheep, which draw the eye to the foreground. Virtuoso handling of the impasto of the landscape in the middle distance show the work of an artist spontaneously enjoying his paint. Dearman also records the weather effects on the stretcher in his neat hand.The artist lived in Camberwell, London in the 1830s and had a house in Guilford High Street. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1824-1856 and also showed often at the Royal Society of British Artists and the British Institution.

Inscribed and dated l.r.: Patti 4 July 1847, inscribed: sloping towards x which is a very deep stuffy vegetable dell and with colour notes, numbered 212, pen and brown ink with pencil20.2 x 44.5 cm.; 8 1/8 x 17 ½ inches, framed size 37 x 60.5 cm.; 14 1/2 x 23 3/4 inchesProvenanceMary Ann Streeter (1932-2023), Boston, by descent until 2025£5500Lear travelled to Sicily between May 3 and July 15, 1847, with John Joshua Proby, later the 2nd Earl of Carysfort. They were to make two other tours together that year, to Calabria and Naples.Patti is a village in North-Eastern Sicily in the province of Messina between Milazzo and Capo Calvà, which includes the ancient Graeco-Roman village of Tindari with its famous Sanctuary.After graduating from Radcliffe College (Harvard University) with a degree in Fine Arts, Mary Ann Streeter moved to London for a year and started buying Lear watercolours in the late 1950s. She built up a large collection of Lear’s work.

Signed l.r.: CF Tunnicliffe, watercolour over pencil with touches of white on cream paper41 x 55 cm.; 16 1/8 x 21 5/8 inchesProvenanceThe Tryon Gallery;Private collection, UK, sold atChristies South Kensington, London, 3 November 2010, lot 58The artist was a countryman who was brought up Cheshire. After studying at the Macclesfield School of Art he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London, gaining his teaching diploma and a further scholarship to study in the RCA's new Etching and Engraving School.He worked as a commercial artist and taught art at Manchester Grammar School.Tunnicliffe was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and in 1974 a ‘Members Exhibition’ was held there of his work.He and his wife Winifred moved from Cheshire to Angelsey in 1947 and lived at Shorelands in Malltraeth until his death.

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.

Two, bodycolour, one on paper watermarked: SMITH & ALLNUTT 1815Each 20.5 x 33.5 cmProvenance: Mrs BaldockThe artists of the Patna School specialised in the depiction of everyday activities for their British patrons. Traditionally described as the work of the Company School (reflecting the patronage of the East India Company employees) this unique genre evolved as the painting styles of Western and Mughal traditions merged.

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 l.c.: R. Cooper, pen and brown ink and wash over pencil on laid paper partially watermarked with the Strasburg Lily20 x 29.4 cm.; 7 7/8 x 11 5/8 inchesFramed size 31 x 41 cm.; 12 1/4 x 16 1/8 inchesProvenanceIolo Williams collectionThe artist was born in Edinburgh and trained with his father, the engraver Richard Cooper Snr (1701-1764). He moved to London in 1761, but by 1767 was on the Continent and in Italy by 1771, where he stayed until late 1775.Cooper spent most of his time in Rome and Naples and befriended Jacob More, with whom he travelled, and was later appointed as one of More’s executors.On his return to England Cooper taught drawing at Eton College and later he also taught Princess Charlotte. He produced a series of landscape prints based on his Italian work.

Signed with initials l.r., pen and brown ink14.5 x 12 cm.; 5 ½ x 4 ¾ inchesProvenance:Mrs F.L. Evans;With Colnaghi, 1951, catalogue no. 59Duncan Beresford-Jones until 2000The Shah of Persia presented a group of Arabian horses to the Prince Regent, commemorated in a painting of 1819 by H.B. Chalon (Tate Britain, TO2357). Landseer was also attracted to the subject and two versions of oils of an Arabian stallion with an Attendant in Persian dress are known, see Richard Ormond, Sir Edwin Landseer, 1982, p. 54.The Shah sent an Ambassador, Mirza Abdul Hassan Shiraz, to London in 1819 to discuss with Lord Castlereagh, the Foreign Secretary, aspects of the Anglo-Persian treaty concluded by Sir Gore Ouseley in Tehran in 1812, and more recently revised. That treaty had established an Anglo-Persian alliance against a possible Franco-Russian one and the Shah was hoping for positive assurances that England would protect Persia in the event of a Russian invasion.The Ambassador left Tehran in October 1818 laden with presents from the Shah, including eighteen selected Arabian horses for the Prince Regent. The horses travelled with the Ambassador to Constantinople and then the British government organised their transport to London, an expensive undertaking arranged by a Mr George Willcox and costing over £1500. The presentation of the Shah’s gifts was listed in The Times of 24 May and took place at Carlton House, the Prince Regent’s London residence. There are seven horses pictured in Chalon’s painting, and it is not known how many of them survived the journey, but the present drawing presumably shows one of them.Mirza Abdu Hassan Shiraz’s visit aroused considerable social and popular attention but the visit was not a success, as following the defeat of Napoleon and the conclusion of an alliance with Russia the British no longer attached much importance to their Persian alliance.

KT635Signed with monogram, inscribe and dated in pencil l.l.: TRAETH MAWR/Sept 27th 55, watercolour over pencil heightened with white on buff paper33.7 x 51.8 cm.; 13 3/8 x 20 3/8 inchesFrame size 50 x 67 cm.; 19 5/8 x 26 3/8 inchesProvenanceAgnew’s, (DB5417)Private collection, Herefordshire, until 2024James Holland OWS was born in Burslem, Staffordshire, where his father and other members of his family (including his brother Thomas, also an artist) were employed at the pottery works of William Davenport in Longport. James was employed there from the age of twelve, for seven years, painting flowers on pottery and porcelain.In 1819, Holland came to London where he continued to work as a pottery painter, but also gave lessons in drawing landscapes, architecture, and marine subjects. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1824, became an associate exhibitor of The Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1835 and joined the Society of British Artists in 1843. In 1858 he was elected a full member of the Old Water Colour Society.Holland travelled extensively on the Continent between the 1830s and the 1850s, and he became known for his topographical works which were reproduced in the illustrated travel annuals of the day. He visited Venice, Milan, Geneva, and Paris, Portugal, Normandy and made tours of North Wales in 1850 and 1855.He exhibited prolifically during his lifetime and showed thirty-two pictures at the Royal Academy, ninety-one at the British Institution, and 108 at the Society of British Artists.