F. M. Slave Girl of the Cape

Signed with initials on border l.r.: F .Y (?) M, and inscribed l.c.: Female Hottentot watercolour on wove paper, with a laid paper borderDrawing size 20.6 x 15.3 cm.; 8 ½ x 6 inches, with border 26 x 20 cm.; 10 ¼ x 7 7/8 inchesThis drawing came from a now disbound English album which contained works on paper from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Signed l.l.: John, pencil and black chalk45.5 x 30.5 cm.; 17 7/8 x 12 inchesProvenanceLady Hornby (1934-2021)ExhibitedAugustus John, Olympia, 23-28 February 1999, no. 61 (no catalogue)This freely drawn, captivating drawing dates from c. 1904-1906. It epitomises the qualities of John’s fluent draughtsmanship and his ability to capture the essence of a sitter with apparent ease. Its immediacy, sureness and simplicity place it amongst his finest female portraits.Sheran Cazalet was the daughter of Peter Cazalet, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother’s, racing trainer. Her grandparents, William and Maud Cazalet, were friends of Augustus John. She married Sir Simon Hornby in 1968. He was the last family member to serve as chairman of WH Smith and served as chairman of the Design Council; he died in 2010. The couple lived at The Ham, Oxfordshire, where they assembled a collection of twentieth century works on paper, created a beautiful garden and entertained in style. Many of the contents of The Ham were sold at Christie’s, London, in 2012.

Signed l.r.: W. HUNT, pencil, tiny sketches of figures and a list verso, on wove paper12 x 8.4 cm.; 7 ¼ x 4 ¾ inchesProvenance: Cyril and Shirley Fry until 2021Literature: J. Witt, 'William Henry Hunt (1790-1864)', 1982, no. 370Exhibited: 'Hunt Exhibition Fry Collection', 1967, no. 17 (1)This drawing dates from circa 1820. Hunt drew the same girl on another occasion in a similar pose (Rossetti Collection, J. Witt, ibid. no. 492).

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.

Pencil on laid paper15 x 17.5 cm.; 6 x 7 ¼ inchesProvenanceSabin Galleries Ltd., “The Sublime and Beautiful’, 1973, no. 88The artist was an architect and surveyor as well as an artist, the fifth and youngest son of the architect George Dance the Elder, from a family of architects, artists and dramatists. His brother Nathaniel Dance (Dance-Holland) was also a painter and later a politician. Both brothers were founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768. There has been confusion over the authorship of some of the caricatures with which both brothers are associated.

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.

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.

One hundred and forty-four drawings on sixty-eight pages, laid into an album bound in vellum, the fly leaf with a large label inscribed: Miss Stones/First Efforts/plates.71The drawings are of various sizes, on laid paper, each page 31.5 x 19.7 cm.; 12 1⁄4 x 7 3⁄4 inchesProvenancePrivate collection, U.K.;Private sale by Sotheby’s Australia, January 25 2001; Patrick Dockar-Drysdale (1929-2020)ExhibitedTate Britain, 'Now you See Us- Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920', May - October 2024, ill. p.42, p. 205Sarah Stone was the daughter of James Stone, a fan painter and is thought to have assisted her father. The family lived in London.The dated drawings in this album suggest that Stone executed many of them when she was ten or eleven years old and identify her as something of a child prodigy. This album contains many copies from drawing books which were a popular means of allowing an artist to develop their technique by copying. The number of drawings and the repetition of certain subjects reflect a systematic approach and a determination to improve and there are drawings after Holbein, Ribera and Boucher, the minor details may be after Le Brun.One of the drawings is inscribed ‘The New Drawing Book‘ which could be a reference to Francis Vivares, A New Drawing Book, in the Manner of Chalk fit for Youth to Draw after. 6 sepia soft ground etchings, by W. Hebert after Vanloo and Boucher, 4to. Frans. Vivares. Sept. 1759. The plates in this were in the manner of red chalk.The range of subjects in the present album suggests Stone was using one of the compilation drawing books, such as Carrington Bowles, The School of Art; or, most compleat Drawing-Book extant: consisting of an extensive series of well chosen examples, selected from the designs of those eminent masters, Watteau, Boucher, Bouchardson, Le Brun, Eisen, &c. engraved on sixty copper plates, and performed in a method which expresses the manner of handling the chalk, 1765 and later editions.

Inscribed (recto): T Von Holst, pencil and pen and brown ink, verso: pencil, on laid paper with a partial Strasburg Lily watermark, laid down on a brown sheet numbered 1027.2 x 21.4 cm; 10 3⁄4 x 8 1⁄2 inchesProvenanceJohn Welch Etherington Rolls (1807-1870);By family descent to Lady Shelley Rolls, her sale at Sotheby’s, London,12 June 1959;P. & D. Colnaghi;Private collection U.K. until 2019Von Holst’s drawing of the seated woman, recto, is after a figure in Raphael’s ‘Miraculous Draft of Fishes’; the drawing for the tapestry cartoon is in the Albertina, Vienna. A print was made after the drawing, which von Holst probably copied. The figure of the standing female on the recto is a characteristic Holst pose, derived from Vincenzo Danti’s bronze statue of Venus in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence (see Max Browne, The Romantic Art of Theodor von Holst 1810-44, 1994, p.15).The drawing on the verso illustrates a scene inspired by a Gothic novel such as The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, published in 1794. One of the most popular novels of its day, its main character Emily St. Aubert, a virtuous and beautiful young woman, undertakes a series of dramatic adventures; she escapes from captivity at the hands of a cruel villain in a brooding castle to freedom.The brown card inlay on which the present drawing is contained is from the Rolls album, a large leather-bound album which forms the largest-known group of drawings by the artist. The family lived at The Hendre in Monmouthshire, where they also had at least five oils by von Holst. They were also involved with the theatre and opened their own in the grounds.The pencil inscription “T. Von Holst’ appears on almost all the drawings in the album and is effectively its collection mark.

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.