Guy Peppiatt Fine Art British Portrait and Figure
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BRITISH PORTRAIT AND FIGURE DRAWINGS 2020 BRITISH PORTRAIT AND FIGURE DRAWINGS BRITISH PORTRAIT AND FIGURE DRAWINGS 2020 GUY PEPPIATT FINE ART FINE GUY PEPPIATT GUY PEPPIATT FINE ART LTD Riverwide House, 6 Mason’s Yard Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BU GUY PEPPIATT FINE ART Guy Peppiatt started his working life at Dulwich Picture Gallery before joining Sotheby’s British Pictures Department in 1993. He soon specialised in early British drawings and watercolours and took over the running of Sotheby’s Topographical sales. Guy left Sotheby’s in 2004 to work as a dealer in early British watercolours and since 2006 he has shared a gallery on the ground floor of 6 Mason’s Yard off Duke St., St. James’s with the Old Master and European Drawings dealer Stephen Ongpin. He advises clients and museums on their collections, buys and sells on their behalf and can provide insurance valuations. He exhibits as part of Master Drawings New York every January as well as London Art Week in July and December. Email: [email protected] Tel: 020 7930 3839 or 07956 968 284 Sarah Hobrough has spent nearly 25 years in the field of British drawings and watercolours. She started her career at Spink and Son in 1995, where she began to develop a specialism in British watercolours of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 2002, she helped set up Lowell Libson Ltd, serving as co- director of the gallery. In 2007, Sarah decided to pursue her other passion, gardens and plants, and undertook a post graduate diploma in landscape design. She established a landscape design company, which she continues to run, alongside her art consultancy practise. She has consulted for dealers and auction houses, helping Christie’s watercolour department for a number of years, as well private clients, helping them research and develop their collections. She is delighted to be joining Guy Peppiatt Fine Art as a consultant. Email: [email protected] Tel: 07798 611 017 BRITISH PORTRAIT AND FIGURE DRAWINGS 30th March to 9th April 2020 Monday to Friday 10am to 6pm Weekends and evenings by appointment Guy Peppiatt Fine Art Ltd Riverwide House, 6 Mason’s Yard Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BU Tel: +44 (0) 20 7930 3839 Mobile: +44 (0) 7956 968 284 Fax: +44 (0) 020 7839 1504 [email protected] www.peppiattfineart.co.uk INTRODUCTION This is our third and largest catalogue of British portraits and figure drawings, the previous ones By 1806, both Russell and Gardner had died and the demand for large pastel portraits fell. Henry were in 2009 and 2016. While concentrating on landscapes, figure drawings often come our Edridge’s small pencil and wash drawings became popular (no. 44) and Samuel de Wilde was way either at auction or from private collections. The current exhibition follows the history of the actor’s portraitist of choice (nos. 50 and 51). Sir Thomas Lawrence reigned supreme for portrait painting in Britain from 1740 to 1850 and includes most of the best known portraitists of glamorous large-scale portraits in oil in the tradition of Gainsborough and his pupil George Henry the period. Harlow’s career was sadly brief but his pencil portraits are of great quality (no.45). Hogarth (see no.2) was the first great British-born portrait painter - the 17th century had been John Linnell drew portraits in watercolour from circa 1815 (nos. 56 and 57) and George Richmond dominated by Van Dyck and Lely and the early 18th century by Kneller. Dating from the same from the 1830s (nos. 55 and 58). No. 58 comprises two chalk sketches by Richmond of John period is the only recorded portrait by Thomas Robins (no.1), one of the first British artists to Ruskin for a now sadly lost watercolour portrait and Daniel Maclise supposedly drew a thousand draw landscapes on paper, and a rare conversation piece by Thomas Worlidge (no.9) dated 1737. portraits in the early 1830s before concentrating on history painting. The brothers John and Cornelius Varley (nos. 59, 61 and 62) and William Mulready (no.60) were friends and sketched While Reynolds and Gainsborough dominated the market for portraits in oil from the 1750s, the together as young men. None specialised in portraiture but drew figure studies of friends and demand for more affordable portraits executed in pastel, increased. John Russell (nos. 31 and 32) each other. Paintings portraits in oil was not Constable’s forte but his pencil study, probably of his and Daniel Gardner (nos. 14-16) dominated the market for large scale pastel portraits in the late wife Maria (no.65), is especially delicate. eighteenth century and on a smaller scale, the Irishman Hugh Douglas Hamilton’s oval portraits (nos. 11-13) and John Downman’s distinctive combination of coloured chalks and watercolour A number of works in the exhibition were drawn by artists on their travels. Samuel Daniell, a were also popular (nos. 35 and 36). The city of Bath was the place to visit for a fashionable close relation of the Indian Daniells, was in South Africa in the early 1800s (nos. 46 and 47) while Georgian and if not Gainsborough, William Hoare of Bath was the man to paint your portrait, (see George Chinnery (nos. 48 and 49) was in India by 1802 before moving to Macao to escape nos. 17 and 18 for two of his chalk sketches). The catalogue includes seven drawings by George debts, and his wife, in 1825. John Frederick Lewis (no. 79) was in Egypt for most of the 1840s Romney. While his portraits in oil were traditional in style, his drawings were anything but and while Sir David Wilkie travelled to the Middle East in 1840 (nos. 72-73). show a different side to his character. Vigorously drawn in ink or pencil, they are often unrelated to his oils. One of the rarest drawings in the catalogue is a black and white chalk head study drawn We hope you enjoy the range and diversity of the catalogue. I have much enjoyed putting it by Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool the late 1760s. together over the last four years. Satirical caricatures were popular in in the late eighteenth century especially those of Rowlandson Guy Peppiatt and Gillray and they achieved mass popularity in the form of engravings. While Gillray drawings are rare, Rowlandson was a prolific draughtsman (nos. 19, 21 and 22). His friend, the Irish merchant John Nixon became a more than competent caricaturist in a similar style (nos. 40-41) and Robert Dighton (no.39) was well known for his satirical portraits. 2 3 1 2 Thomas Robins the Elder (1715-1770) William Hogarth (1697-1764) Portrait of a Sportsman with two Spaniels in a Wooded Landscape Study of a Mother and Son Gouache on vellum, in an 18th century carved pearwood veneer frame local grand houses. He returned to his home county drawing at least two Oil on canvas 22.2 by 26.3 cm., 8 ¾ by 10 ¼ in. panoramic views of the city of Cheltenham in 1748. 11.7 by 9.3 cm., 4 ½ by 3 ½ in. This portrait is unique in Robins’s work and is likely to be of a Robins’s importance is as one of the earliest topographical artists working Provenance: Gloucestershire landowner. Cathryn Spence who dates the work to on paper (or vellum), recording gardens and country houses from 1747 Probably with the art dealer William Benoni White (1803-c.1878); 1740-45 suggests it may show Benjamin Hyett (1708-1762) who owned until the late 1760s when few others were doing so. His works are often John Postle Heseltine (1843-1929) by 1906, his Executor’s sale, Painswick House, Gloucestershire. Hyett inherited the house from this drawn within a framework of painted intertwining rococo flowers. John Sotheby’s, 29th May 1935, lot 315 (pt), bt. Turner for £22; father, Charles Hyett, M.P. in 1738 and built the Painswick Rococo Garden Harris describes him as `an artist who painted English houses and garden Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 15th July 1998, lot 45, bt. Agnew; which was painted by Robins in 1748. It may show Hunt Court near when they were most enchanting; whose eye captured the rococo garden Private Collection, Scotland, 2004; Badgeworth which Hyett acquired through a prenuptial settlement in at its perfection and when it was most whimsical; whose paintings are With Agnew’s, 2008; 1744. Near Crickley there is a Druid’s Table or Chimney which may be almost sensual in the sheer delight they give; such was Thomas Robins the Private Collection the unusual stones in the background of this work. Elder’ (op. cit. above, p.1). Literature: Thomas Robins was born at Charlton Kings near Cheltenham. Little is We are grateful to John Harris and Cathryn Spence who is working on a Elizabeth Einberg, William Hogarth – A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, known of his early life but he was in Bath by 1760 where he established catalogue raisonné on Robins, for confirming the attribution. 2016, p.70, no.32, ill. his reputation as a topographical artist producing views of the city and Exhibited: London, Whitechapel Gallery, Georgian England, March 1906, no.1 Stylistically this sketch dates from circa 1730 and is probably a fragment of a larger, unfinished portrait. A similar small sketch `Two unknown Gentlemen in Conversation’ recorded in a private collection (Einberg, op. cit., no.31) may come from the same canvas. It has been suggested that the sitters in this sketch may be Mary Edwards and her son Gerard who were sitters in other portraits by Hogarth (op.