LOWELL LIBSON LTD 2 016 • New York · annual exhibition British Art: Recent Acquisitions at Stellan Holm · 1018 Madison Avenue 23–30 January 2016

Maastricht TEFAF: The European Fine Art Fair 11–20 March 2016

LONDON MASTERPIECE LONDON 30 June–6 July 2016

London LONDON ART WEEK 1–8 July 2016

[ B ] LOWELL LIBSON LTD 2016 • Agostino Aglio 80 Catherine Andras 54 Mary Black 38 Adam Buck 56 3 Clifford Street · London w1s 2lf Edward Burch 64 Telephone: +44 (0)20 7734 8686 John Constable 84, 88 Email: [email protected] Website: www.lowell-libson.com Richard Cosway 68 John Robert Cozens 28 Lowell Libson [email protected] Sir Nathaniel Dance 18 Jonny Yarker [email protected] John Downman 42

Deborah Greenhalgh [email protected] Richard Eurich 106 Thomas Gainsborough 26 Cressida St Aubyn [email protected] Benjamin Robert Haydon 74 John Hoppner 48 Thomas Hudson 14 James Jefferys 58, 62 Louis Laguerre 9 Lady Mary Lowther 34 Samuel Palmer 98 George Richmond 77 Thomas Rowlandson 32 John Russell 50 We are delighted to be supporting the following exhibitions in 2016: Archibald Skirving 45 NEW YORK Michael Henry Spang 64 Pierre-Jean Mariette and The Art of Collecting Drawings George Stubbs 22 The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Henry Tonks 102 22 January – 1 May William Turner of Oxford 94 LONDON Light, time, legacy: Francis Towne’s Benjamin West 70 watercolours of Rome The British Museum, Rex Whistler 104 21 January – 14 August Matthew Cotes Wyatt 72 This catalogue presents some of the remarkable acquisitions that we have made over the last year. The group of paintings includes a very splendid pair of unusually large baroque ceiling studies by Louis Laguerre, separated since the early 1960s, which we have recently reunited; Thomas Hudson’s powerful portrait of his friend and collaborator Joseph van Aken; a Grand Tour masterwork by Nathaniel Dance (detail opposite) – recently acquired from us by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts – as well as perhaps the greatest Constable oil sketch we have ever handled. We have been delighted to support the important exhibition devoted to Jean-Etienne Liotard’s works seen at the Scottish National Gallery and the Royal Academy, London and our continuing interest in pastels is underlined by a group of portraits of the second half of the eighteenth century which demonstrate both the beauty of the medium and the fascinating social contexts in which they were made. The continuing tradition of neo-classical figure drawing is represented by works by Jefferys, Cosway, Haydon and Richmond as well as a contemporary cast of Spang’s famous écorché figure. Landscapes include evocative works by Gainsborough, Cozens, Constable, Palmer and Turner of Oxford whilst our interest in the twentieth century takes the form of three rather fascinating and quirky interior groups by Henry Tonks, Rex Whistler and Richard Eurich. Last year was a busy one for us and we continued our strongly held policy of supporting muse- ums and specific exhibitions. Amongst the highlights were the Ashmolean’s splendidGreat British Watercolours for which we were sole sponsor. This exhibition is commemorated in an impressive catalogue designed by Robert Dalrymple who has been responsible for our catalogues for many years. The Courtauld opened its elegant new dedicated drawings gallery with the ground breaking Jonathan Richardson self-portrait exhibition, we were pleased to support both the construction of this new space and the exhibition. Jonny Yarker continues to have an active academic life and has continued his research into eighteenth century British art and the Grand Tour, with articles and papers appearing on a wide range of topics: Gainsborough, Giovanni Volpato, Robert and James Adam as dealers in antiquities and a Russian chandelier! Sadly, for us, Laurence Allan with whom I have worked for over thirty years, decided to retire at the end of 2015. Many clients can well attest to the brilliance of his ability to frame and hang pictures with immaculate taste. We shall certainly miss his friendship as well as his many talents. Deborah Greenhalgh and Cressida St Aubyn continue to ensure that our business runs with superb efficiency. Their good humour, intelligence, unflappable competence and good counsel make life in the gallery and at fairs a delight for both their colleagues and our visitors. 2016 promises to be an exciting year with our usual appearances in New York, Maastricht and in London. The year starts with our support of two important exhibitions: Pierre-Jean Mariette and The Art of Collecting Drawings at the Morgan Library & Gallery, New York and Light, time, legacy: Francis Towne’s watercolours of Rome at the British Museum. Jonny Yarker has made an important contribution to all aspects of the business since he joined us in 2012. I am aware of the great commitment he has made and am therefore delighted that he has now become my co-director. I look forward to his increasing role in building the business with me for an active and very positive future. Lowell Libson

[ 7 ] Alta: check resolution LOUIS LAGUERRE 1663–1721 A Feast of the Gods with Venus and Bacchus & Cupid and Psyche before Jupiter

Oil on canvas From the Restoration until the rise of commission was for William Cavendish, Each 36 x 48 ⅛ inches · 914 x 1223 mm Palladianism in the 1720s decorative history 1st Duke of Devonshire, at Chatsworth, Painted c.1720 painting formed the preeminent artistic Derbyshire, where between 1689 and 1697 discipline in Britain. It was a field domi- he painted at least six interiors, including A Feast of the Gods with Venus and Bacchus nated by Continental artists including the the hall and chapel, with mythological Collections Italian Antonio Verrio and the Frenchman and religious subjects. Thereafter he was With Appleby Brothers, London, June 1957 Louis Laguerre. Laguerre had trained in much in demand for decorative schemes Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, 1961; Paris under Charles Le Brun and arrived in the baroque manner. He was employed John and Eileen Harris, acquired from the in London in 1684 where he established by William III at Hampton Court Palace, above, to 2015. a flourishing practice producing major where his work included a series of roundels Literature decorative schemes for many of the most illustrating the labours of Hercules on Jacob Simon and Ellis Hillman, English important interiors of the date, including the exterior of Fountain Court. In 1698 he Baroque Sketches: The Painted Interior in the Chatsworth, Marlborough House, Petworth painted the ballroom at Burghley House Age of Thornhill, 1974, no.12; and Hampton Court. The present impres- with scenes from the story of Anthony and Elizabeth Einberg (ed.), Manners and Morals: sive, large oil studies were made by Laguerre Cleopatra. Other documented commis- Hogarth and British Painting, 1700–1760, in preparation for a major decorative scheme sions include several interiors at Canons, exh. cat., London (Tate Gallery), no.10. and illustrate the breadth and ambition of Middlesex, for James Brydges, 1st Duke of his work. Chandos, staircases at Buckingham House Exhibited George Vertue noted, in his short and Marlborough House, London, and English Baroque Sketches: The Painted Interior biography of Laguerre, that he was the son at Petworth House, Sussex, as well as the in the Age of Thornhill, exh. cat., Twickenham of a Catalonian who was ‘Maitre of the saloon at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.3 (Marble Hill), 1974, no.12; Menagerie of Foreign Fowles & Animals’ Laguerre was a director of Sir Godfrey London, Tate Gallery, Manners and Morals: Hogarth and British Painting, 1700–1760, and that Louis XIV was his godfather.1 Kneller’s Academy of Painting, founded exh. cat., London (Tate) no.10. Laguerre trained at the Académie Royale in 1711. His chief rival after the death of under Charles Le Brun, in 1682 he won third Verrio in 1707 was a fellow director of the Cupid and Psyche before Jupiter prize in the prix de Rome for a painting academy, James Thornhill. In 1715 Laguerre entitled Cain batit la ville d’Hénoch, and was awarded the commission to paint the Collections another third prize the following year, for his interior of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral With Appleby Brothers, London, June 1957; Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, 1961; sculpture Invention des forges … par Tubal- but due to ‘some political contrivance’ the Anthony Hobson, acquired from the above, Cain. Rather than stay in France Laguerre scheme was actually awarded to Thornhill. to 2015. travelled to London in the company of The present paintings are unusually another decorative painter Ricard. He large sketches made in preparation for what rapidly established a practice in London, as must have been one of Laguerre’s grand- Vertue noted: est decorative schemes. A large amount ‘so young, yet so forward a Genius soon of information about Laguerre’s working afterwards mett with encouragement from many practice survives. A remarkable document, Noblemen. & painted for them. Halls. Stair preserved in the Yorkshire Archaeological cases. Ceilings, &c. in a great Number’.2 Society Archive, records the agreement Laguerre was responsible for executing made between Laguerre and Thomas decorative schemes in a number of signifi- Osborne, 4th Duke of Leeds for the decora- cant interiors. His first major independent tion of the staircase at Kiveton House.4

[ 8 ] [ 9 ]

The agreement, dated 1704 and lists in and Psyche before Jupiter reprises the subject- programme of decoration for two conjoin- and British Painting 1700–1760 held at the Tate remarkable detail the practical requirements matter Laguerre had used in 1702 at Kiveton. ing rooms. The architectural decoration is Gallery in 1987 as the single example of a Laguerre was required to fulfil in executing As with the Kiveton drawing, the present also similar in both designs, but the visual great French Baroque ceiling design from the fresco: ‘Lewis Laguerre will at his own sketch shows a multitude of figures seated emphasis is slightly different. In Cupid and the period. charge find all the materials whatsoever as on clouds, on the left hand side the figure Psyche before Jupiter, the action is more These large sketches are two of the most oyls colours and workmanship (Scaffolding of seated Minerva, on the right the figure condensed and immediate suggesting the ambitious surviving oil studies made by the excepted).’ The document also stipulates the of Mars and a seated figure of Mercury; in design is for a smaller room than The Feast of most significant decorative history painter programme of the scheme in detail: the centre of the composition Jupiter, with the Gods. in Britain in the early eighteenth century. ‘he shall paint in proper colours the upper a large eagle at his feat, also identifiable are Unlike Thornhill, Laguerre produced They neatly illustrate the prevailing fashion ceilings and covings in the above said room with the figures of Venus, Bacchus and Hercules, few oil sketches and even fewer drawings. for Baroque, illusionistic decoration which the history of the marriage between Psyche and Flora and Diana. Laguerre’s sketch is An anecdote related by Joseph Highmore, dominated British interiors in the first Cupid as in a step thereof hereto affixed is shown structured around architectural elements; as suggests the reason for this paucity: decades of the eighteenth century. Laguerre forth as masterlike as he is capable of panting’.5 at Buckingham House, Telamons support an ‘Burleigh House is adorned with the paint- was a highly important figure within the The ‘affixed’ drawing, preserved with entablature and the cloud supporting Venus ings of several masters, among others, London art world and Vertue’s obituary Louis Laguerre the agreement, shows the ceiling was to be and her attendants break onto the wallspace, of Cheron and Laguerre; these two were notice stressed that he was: ‘a man of Good The ceiling of the Saloon, Blenheim Palace composed of an illusionistic sky populated suggesting the scheme was also designed employed on different apartments. At their Judgement wellread in historys sacred Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, UK/wwBridgeman Images by a pantheon of gods. The swirling mass to include the decoration of the rest of the arrival, Cheron opened his chest of draw- & profane’ and he concluded: ‘From his Louis Laguerre Sketch for ceiling decorations at Kiveton of Baroque figures demonstrates Laguerre’s room. Compositionally the sketch of Cupid Pen and wash · 175 x 191 mm ings after the life, such as academy figures, Paintings most of the Present History paint- appeal; bringing a Continental language of and Psyche is close to the work Laguerre Duke of Leeds Collection, Reproduced by permission of the draperies &c. and Lord Exeter observing ers learnt the Manner of such works.’7 This decoration to English interiors. Laguerre’s carried out at Blenheim Palace. Yorkshire Archaeological Society. that Laguerre produced nothing of this kind, is a significant observation and underscores work at Kiveton House was destroyed In about 1720 Laguerre was commis- asked him where was his box of drawings. the centrality of Laguerre to a generation of in 1811. At about the same date Laguerre sioned to complete the decoration of Laguerre, pointing to his head, answered, ‘History’ painters. completed work on the staircase hall at the saloon at Blenheim Palace. The ceil- ‘I carry them all here.’6It suggests that the notes Buckingham House for John Sheffield, ing depicted the Triumph of the Duke of present grand bozetti were made specifically 1 G. Vertue, eds. L. Cust and A. Hind, ‘The 1st Duke of Buckingham. The decoration Marlborough and was completed in roughly for a demanding client and underlines their Notebooks of George Vertue’, The Walpole demonstrates Laguerre’s skill at integrating 1720. The composition and approach – rarity and importance. Society, London, 1929–47, III, pp.125–6. wall and ceiling painting with the existing particularly the vertical dynamism – are These two oil sketches first appeared 2 G. Vertue, eds. L. Cust and A. Hind, ‘The architecture. The ceiling, which shows similar: the seated figure of Britannia on the on the market in June 1957 when they were Notebooks of George Vertue’, The Walpole Juno asking Venus to cause Aeneas and left of the composition is close to the figure with Appleby Brothers in London and Society, London, 1929–47, III, pp.125–6. 3 For the fullest discussion of Laguerre as a Dido to fall in love, is supported on a series of Minerva on the left of Cupid and Psyche attributed to James Thornhill. The canvases decorative painter, see: Edward Croft-Murray, of painted Telamons, flanked by painted before Jupiter. were with Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox by 1961 Decorative Painting: In England 1537–1837, grisaille medallions, in characteristic style, The ceiling design of The Feast of the Gods when they were sold separately to the great London, 1962, vol.I, pp.61–68 and 250–4. figures from the ceiling spill onto the walls. is even more architectonic. The assemblage architectural historian John Harris and the 4 Norbert Lynton, ‘Laguerre at Kiveton’, The Burlington Magazine, vol.98, no.639, 1956, The large sketches of Cupid and Psyche of gods – identical to the figures found in eminent bibliophile Anthony Hobson. It pp.204–207. before Jupiter and A Feast of the Gods are Cupid and Psyche before Jupiter – are shown was Harris who recognised that the canvases 5 Norbert Lynton, ‘Laguerre at Kiveton’, characteristic of Laguerre’s composition and bursting through a frieze of Telamons were by Laguerre by the time he lent The The Burlington Magazine, vol.98, no.639, 1956, working method. The sketches seem likely supporting an entablature. The riotous Feast of the Gods to the exhibition English p.205. to date from about 1720 but are currently composition displays the illusionistic gran- Baroque Sketches: The Painted Interior in the Age 6 The Gentleman’s Magazine, LXXXVI, part 1, April, Louis Laguerre The Creation of Pandora, 1816, p.302. unrelated to a specific project. The two deur of Laguerre’s most mature composi- William James Bennett, after James Stephanoff of Thornhill held at Marble Hill in 1974. The oil sketch for the staircase ceiling at Petworth Staircase, Buckingham House, 1818 7 G. Vertue, eds. L. Cust and A. Hind, ‘The House, c.1720 designs show illusionistic skies filled with tions. Narratively the pair of designs are Aquatint · 12 ½ x 10 ⅜ inches · 317 x 264 mm Feast of the Gods was then lent to the impor- Notebooks of George Vertue’, The Walpole Oil on canvas · 21 ½ x 25 ½ inches · 550 x 648 mm mythological characters. The first Cupid closely related and clearly formed part of a Pub. W. H. Pyne, The Royal Residences, 1819, vol.2, pl.46. tant exhibition: Manners & Morals: Hogarth Society, London, 1929–47, III, pp.125–6. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

[ 12 ] [ 13 ] THOMAS HUDSON 1701–1779 Joseph van Aken, the drapery painter

Oil on canvas Writing in 1743 George Vertue observed in England proved fashionable and his crowded 32½ x 27¾ inches · 825 x 705 mm one of his notebooks that the most skilled city scenes, such as The Stocks Market (Bank of Painted c.1745 living drapery painter was Joseph van Aken: England, London) and Covent Garden Market Collections ‘Mr Van acken – whose draperys silks satins (Museum of London) are important topo- Thomas Hudson; Velvets, gold & embroideryes which he dos paint graphical views of London. From early in his Presumably Hudson sale, Messrs. Langford, for several of them painters extreamly well – and career, van Aken and his brother, Alexander, London, 3rd March 1779, lot 18 ‘Vanhaken’; is a great addition to their works and indeed puts were noted as drapery painters. From John Lane (1854–1925), The Bodley Head, them so much on a Level that its very difficult to 1735 the van Akens began to work closely Vigo Street, London; know one hand from another.’1 with a number of fashionable portraitists, Lane sale, Sotheby’s, London, 1st July 1925, It is a statement which neatly communicates particularly Thomas Hudson. Hudson, the lot 117; the division of labour which was central to son-in-law of Jonathan Richardson, was the Sir George Sutton, Bt. the profession of painting in eighteenth- most fashionable portraitist of the second century London. Portraitists completed quarter of the eighteenth century, hugely Literature the face and hands, whilst drapery painters prolific he produced portraits of most of the C.H. Collins-Baker, ‘Notes on some Portraits were responsible for the pose and costume. leading figures of the period. Hudson’s highly in Mr John Lane’s Collection’, Modern scholarship tends to cast this divi- successful practice was based in Covent The Cononoisseur, XLVIII, July 1917, p.130; E. G. Miles, Thomas Hudson 1701–1779, Portrait sion as one of the superior portrait painter Garden where he employed a large studio painter and collector. A bicentenary exhibition, and inferior or client drapery painter, but which included amongst his apprentices Exh. cat., London (Kenwood House), 1979, contemporary accounts, such as Vertue’s Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Worldige and under no.37 as untraced. notebooks, point to Joseph van Aken’s Joseph Wright of Derby.2 To handle the celebrity and importance. Drapery painters volume of commissions Hudson relied upon Engraved were frequently regarded as master techni- the services of a drapery painter. Vertue by John Faber, mezzotint. cians and artists with a status parallel to that noted in 1744 that: of portraitists, the drapery painter Peter ‘It is truly observd that Hudson has lately more Toms, for example, was a founder member success and approbation than the other or any of the Royal Academy. The present portrait, other of ye busines – at present a great Run – his which was executed by the painter with pictures being dressd and decorated by Mr Joseph whom van Aken had the longest and most Van Aken – who is a very elegant and ingenious successful collaboration, Thomas Hudson, is painter. Serves & helps him and other painters therefore a hugely important document for to dress and set off their pictures to advantage he understanding the commercial and creative having an excellent free Genteel and florid manner apparatus of eighteenth-century portrait of pencelling Silks Sattins Velvets. Gold laceings studios. It is also a portrait which underlines Carvings &c.’3 Hudson’s abilities as a painter; it was clearly For Vertue, Hudson’s success was highly regarded by Hudson who had it entirely predicated on his creative partner- engraved and published by John Faber. ship with van Aken. Vertue alludes to the Joseph van Aken moved to London about process involved, heads would have been 1720 with his artist brothers Arnold and completed in Hudson’s studio and the John Faber, the Younger, after Thomas Hudson Alexander. His Flemish-style conversation canvas then carried to van Aken’s workshop Joseph Vanhaeken Mezzotint · 14 x 9 ¾ inches · 349 x 250 mm pieces, such as An English Family at Tea (Tate for the addition of the figure and drapery. Lowell Libson Ltd Gallery, London), painted on arrival in Anecdotally, it was for refusing to carry a

[ 14 ] portrait to van Aken’s studio, that the young Contemporary evidence shows that van professional collaborator. Hudson depicts van and Ramsay, were joint executors of his will. Joshua Reynolds left his apprenticeship with Aken won the respect and friendship of Aken holding his palette and brushes in his The present portrait was almost certainly Hudson.4 The visual evidence for van Aken’s fellow artists and joined Hogarth, Hudson, left hand and a porte crayon in his right; to retained by Hudson in his personal collec- involvement in creating portraits in the 1730s Francis Hayman, and the sculptor Henry complete the sense of van Aken as an active tion and eventually dispersed in his own sale and 1740s comes in the form of a remarkable Cheere on a trip to Paris in 1748, going on artist, Hudson places a blank canvas in the after his death. group of drapery studies preserved in the to Flanders and the northern Netherlands foreground and dresses him in a loose jacket Shortly after van Aken’s death, Vertue Scottish National Gallery which relate to van with Hudson and Cheere to visit some of and distinctive fur hat. Van Aken’s dress is noted: Aken’s work with both Hudson and Allan the leading continental painters of the day. entirely typical of the costume adopted by The Ingenious Mr Joseph VanhAcken painter Ramsay.5 They show the kind of dress and The close creative relationship between contemporary artists in their self-portraits. (had been 30 years or more in England) haveing poses van Aken added to both Hudson and Hudson and van Aken is further underlined Hogarth frequently depicted himself with- catchd cold fell into a Feavour of which in about Ramsay’s heads and suggest his importance by their joint acquisition of lots from out his wig but wearing a soft hat of some a fortnights Time he dyd – aged about 50 – a man for introducing and popularising van Dyck Jonathan Richardson’s sale of drawings in description. The fur hat immediately recalls of good compleaxion a good round fatt face and costume amongst patrician sitters in the 1746, as Vertue noted with Hudson: ‘Mr Rembrandt and works by contemporary shortish stature. A small cast with one Eye.7 1730s. Indeed van Aken and his brother van Aken jointly bought also drawings artists, such as the Italian painter Francesco The present portrait is therefore a worked for a generation of portrait painters paintings &c.’6 The fact that Hudson and Trevisani. The handling of the sitter in the powerful testament of both Hudson and van including Isaac Whood, Hamlet Winstanley van Aken purchased lots together, suggests present portrait is a long way from Dutch Aken’s professional relationship and their and Henry Pickering underscoring Vertue’s that they were appreciative that their models and suggests Hudson’s interest in friendship. The image also stands as impor- observation that ‘its very difficult to know purchases had a practical application in the contemporary French and Italian painting tant evidence of the relationship between one hand from another.’ lives of their respective studios. At the sale whilst he foreshortened hands, bold shadow portraitist and drapery painter in the genera- Van Aken’s success enabled him to form of Richardson’s paintings the same year, a and painterly handling all demonstrate tion before the foundation of the Royal his own collection of works of art, which priced copy in the Houlditch MS reveals, van Hudson’s abilities as a portraitist. Academy. A masterpiece within Hudson’s included Rembrandt’s The Entombment Aken purchased £36.12.6 worth of paintings Van Aken died in London on 4 July 1749, own oeuvre, it represents an important link (Hunterian Art Gallery, University of and Hudson £92.15. leaving a widow but no children. He was between the portraiture of the early eight- Joseph van Aken An English Family at Tea, c.1720 Glasgow). His substantial collection was The present portrait is therefore a striking buried in St Pancras Church in London. At his eenth century and that of Hudson’s greatest Oil on canvas · 39 ⅛ x 45 ¾ inches · 994 x 1162 mm dispersed in several impressive auctions. image of Joseph van Aken by his closest death his two principal collaborators, Hudson pupil: Sir Joshua Reynolds. © Tate, London 2015

notes 1 G. Vertue, eds. L. Cust and A. Hind, ‘The Notebooks of George Vertue’, The Walpole Society, London, 1933, III, p.117. 2 For the best account of Hudson’s studio see Mark Hallett, Reynolds: Portraiture in Action, New Haven and London, 2014, pp.33–42. 3 G. Vertue, eds. L. Cust and A. Hind, ‘The Notebooks of George Vertue’, The Walpole Society, London, 1933, III, p.123. 4 E. G. Miles, Thomas Hudson 1701–1779, Portrait painter and collector. A bicentenary exhibition, Exh. cat., London (Kenwood House), 1979, p.5. 5 Alastair Smart, Allan Ramsay: Painter, Essayist and Man of the Enlightenment, New Haven and London, 1992, pp.60–64. 6 G. Vertue, eds. L. Cust and A. Hind, ‘The Notebooks of George Vertue’, The Walpole Society, London, 1933, III, p.135. 7 G. Vertue, eds. L. Cust and A. Hind, ‘The Francesco Trevisani (1656–1746) Self-portrait, c.1700 Thomas Hudson Alexander Van Aken, c.1748 John Faber, the Younger, after Thomas Hudson Notebooks of George Vertue’, The Walpole Thomas Hudson Charles Erskine, 1747 Oil on canvas · 29 ½ x 23 ¾ inches · 749 x 628 mm Oil on canvas · 29 ⅝ x 25 inches · 752 mm x 635 mm Alexander Van Haecken Society, London, 1933, III, p.150. Oil on canvas · 29 ¾ x 24 ½ inches · 755 x 622 mm Private collection © National Portrait Gallery, London Mezzotint, published 1748 · 12 ⅞ x 9 inches · 327 x 230 mm Scottish National Gallery Photo © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images © Trustees of the British Museum [ 16 ] [ 17 ] SIR NATHANIEL DANCE ra 1735–1811 Olive Craster

Oil on canvas Nathaniel Dance’s portrait of Olive Craster of which is now at the Yale Center for British 29¼ x 24¼ inches · 744 x 614 mm is one of the finest depictions of a female Art. It also seems likely that he was engaged Signed, inscribed and dated (centre left): traveller made in Italy during the second in some form of partnership with Batoni; a N. Dance. fecit Roma. 1762 half of the eighteenth century. It is also travel card of 1762 introduced ‘Rome, Sigr. Dance’s first recorded bust-length portrait of Pompeo Batoni & Mr Dance, for Portrait Collections a female sitter and one of the most success- and History Painting.’3 The precise nature of Commissioned in Rome by the sitter and her ful paintings he made during his stay in Dance’s relationship with Batoni demands husband; Rome. The institutionalised programme of greater investigation; but it seems to have Michael Craster, Craster Tower, Craster, Continental travel which we have come to been close and collegiate. The first evidence by direct descent to 2014. characterise as the Grand Tour was a largely that Dance had been commissioned to paint Literature male phenomenon, comparatively few Olive Craster comes in a letter Dance wrote Sir Edmund Craster, The Craster Family: Three women travelled to Rome and even fewer to his father where he expresses his initial Generations, Gateshead on Tyne, 1953, pp.39 recorded their experiences in detail. Olive apprehension and subsequent delight: and 43; Craster, who kept meticulous accounts and Mr Crastow [sic] and his lady have had B. Skinner, ‘Some Aspects of the Work of records of her tour, is a notable exception. their portraits painted, the Gentleman by Nathaniel Dance in Rome’, The Burlington These accounts, when read in conjunction Pompeo Batoni, who is esteemed the best Magazine, CI, 1959, p.349, fig.51; with Dance’s magnificent portrait, make her Italian Painter living, and the Lady by me. A. Busiri Vici, ‘Ritratti di N. Dance tra dueri a figure of exceptional interest. Made as a When it was proposed to me, I was not very e salotti’, Capitolium, XL, July/August 1965, pendant to the portrait of George Craster by desirous of undertaking a thing in competi- pp.388–9; Pompeo Batoni, Dance’s portrait of Olive tion with a Man of his Merit…However, I had A.M. Clark, E.P. Bowron (ed.), Pompeo Craster also provides important evidence of the courage to undertake it, and have had the Batoni. A complete catalogue of his works with the relationship between British and Italian good fortune to succeed better than my best an introductory text, Oxford, 1985, pp.288–9, painting at the height of the Grand Tour. friends expected.4 under no.256; Nathaniel Dance was the son of George The paragone was an interesting one and Brinsley Ford, John Ingamells (ed.), Dance, the clerk of works to the City may have been recommended by Batoni A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in of London. Having trained with Francis himself. Olive Craster listed the portraits as Italy 1701–1800, New Haven and London, 1997, Hayman in London he set out for Rome, a single payment in her Account of Antiques p.250; arriving in May 1754.1 Not much is known & Curiosities &c. of 61 scudi and 5 baiocchi Ann French, Art Treasures in the North: about his early stay in Italy, although by 1758 suggesting that the idea had originated from he was attending the Accademia del Nudo.2 Batoni himself.5 Northern Families on the Grand Tour, London, Dance seems to have gravitated towards the George Craster was the oldest surviving 2009, pp.93–5, fig.82, pl.8, repr. on front studio of Pompeo Batoni, by that date the son of John Craster, a London lawyer who cover; most distinguished and sought after portrait- owned estates in Craster in Northumberland. Francesco Petrucci, Pittura di Ritratto a ist in Rome. It was as a history painter that George Craster acquired a legal training at Roma: Il Settecento, Rome, 2010, II, p.531, Dance sought to succeed in Italy. At the time Grey’s Inn, but was destined for a career in reproduced. the Crasters arrived in Rome, in the summer the army; his father purchased a commission Exhibited of 1762, Dance was largely unknown. He had in the Royal Troop of Horse Guards. In 1757 London, Kenwood, Nathaniel Dance 1735–1811, made one important conversation piece of he married Olive Sharpe. Olive is recorded 1977, no.6; four travellers, James Grant, John Mytton, as a neighbour of the Crasters in London, Newcastle, Laing Art Gallery, Art Treasures in Thomas Robinson, and Thomas Wynn she was the daughter of the Solicitor of the the North, 1999–2000. posed in front of the Colosseum; a version Treasury, John Sharpe, and consequently

[ 18 ] heiress to a £30,000 fortune. The Sharpes common in travel literature of the Grand portrait & History painting, Mr Hamilton Italian cities; two separate pages preserved in go to.’ Again this reference reflects her own were a distinguished family of lawyers, Tour, but Olive Craster’s account is singular for ye later only Mr Delane for landskip.’10 her papers list the silk flowers she acquired purchases. Olive Craster’s Account of Antiques colonial administrators and politicians. It both in its focus, she places unusual empha- Again Olive Craster’s recommendations in Genoa and Rome.11 & Curiosities lists ‘two miniature’ after the was therefore Olive Sharpe’s money which sis on producers of fans, jewellery food echo the purchases she records in her Dance’s most striking and whimsical portraits of her husband and herself by: enabled the Crasters to embark on an expen- and domestic objects, and in having been Account of Antiques & Curiosities. We know inclusion, is the pet squirrel, seen seated ‘Sigra Tibaldi’ for 32 scudi and 8 Baiocchi. sive, and extensive, period of Continental compiled by a woman. that the Crasters took the unusual decision on Olive Craster’s hand. Squirrels contain These were miniatures by Maria Felice travel shortly after their marriage in 1757. So we find Olive recommending the to sit for their portraits by different painters. no specific allegorical message or heraldic Tibaldi-Subleyras an established miniaturist Olive’s surviving notebooks document Abbé Peter Grant in Rome ‘a very friendly George Craster sat to Pompeo Batoni, then significance for the Craster or Sharpe fami- who was the widow of the French painter their tour.6 They passed through Paris in good man, & useful to strangers’ along the leading portraitist in the city, wearing lies. Squirrels were, however, frequently kept Pierre Subleyras. The miniature of George November 1760, at the height of the Seven with the young painter and cicerone John his uniform as an army officer. Unlike other as pets during the eighteenth century and Craster, after Batoni’s portrait, survives and Years’ War, and spent the winter in the Russel ‘a modest agreeable man.’ On the portraits by Batoni of the period, Craster is they feature in a number of portraits in the was initially mounted as a bracelet.12 popular spa town of Montpellier. It was in highly structured Roman market place for shown without any attributes of Continental period. Olive Craster’s accounts record that Montpellier that Oliver Craster began spend- fine art and antiquities, she observes wisely: travel, there is no view of ruins in the she acquired: ‘at Bologna viz a little lap dog notes ing lavishly. Her Memorandum Book meticu- ‘all antiques to be met with here, tho at Roman campagna, antique bust or even a Ditto black & white’, it is therefore entirely 1 For Dance see: David Goodreau, Nathaniel lously records the personal expenditure present very difficult, anything rare that is books, instead he is shown in a conventional, possible that she also acquired a squirrel. Dance: 1735–1811, exh. cat. London (Kenwood she made for clothes and other fashionable found being bought up immediately & at English manner. Dance’s portrait of Olive is, The reason for choosing two different House), 1977. 2 For the Accademia del Nudo and artistic Pompeo Batoni (1708–1787) acquisitions, ranging from yards of dress high prices, what is good & really valuable by contrast, a tour de force. painters to complete their portraits is Rome in 1750s see: eds. Martin Postle George Craster (1734–1772), 1762 fabric, gloves, shoes and slippers, fans, flower cannot be bought so cheap as strangers Painted in a feigned oval, an English unclear; although from Dance’s letter to Oil on canvas · 30 ⅛ x 25 inches · 764 x 635 mm and Robin Simon, Richard Wilson and the © Christie’s Images egrets, gauze and feathers, silk stockings, imagine, the Romans well know there convention, Dance depicts Olive Craster his father quoted above, it seems to have Transformation of European Landscape Painting, mittens, lace, corsets, handkerchiefs to boxes value, I mean pictures, statues, cameos, bust length, her body angled to the left, been the Crasters’ decision. It may have exh. cat. New Haven (Yale Center for British for combs and brushes.7 intaglios &c. that are antique.’8 This was a staring out at the viewer. She is spectacularly been that Batoni was encouraging his young Art), 2014, pp.35–51. 3 Basil Skinner, ‘Some Aspects of the Work The Crasters stayed in the South of sentiment that was frequently repeated by dressed in a blue silk dress and wearing protégé, or that Olive Craster wanted to of Nathaniel Dance in Rome’, Burlington France for most of 1761. By October they travellers during the century; the perception an exquisite lace jacket. The meticulously promote the work of a young British painter. Magazine, September 1959, pp.346–349. were in Marseilles ready to travel by sea to of Rome as a place where wealthy British rendered costume points to its specificity Olive Craster’s notes on Rome included 4 London, Royal Institute of British Architects, Naples, where they arrived by January 13th collectors could acquire antiquities and old and suggests that it accurately records an a reference to ‘Sigra Tibaldi’, who she MSS 72.034(42).8/.88:92D. 5 Northumberland County Record Office, 1762. Once in Naples, Olive began again master paintings cheaply was in contrast to existing dress. Olive Craster’s hair is dressed commends: ‘for miniature & fan painting, Craster MSS, ‘An Account of Antiques & to acquire items for her wardrobe. Her the reality. The account does recommend a with silk flowers and a feather aigrette of the general price for fans in that way is 25 or Curiosities &c.’, ZCR/Box/20. Memorandum Book records that on January number of modern artists including: ‘Picler precisely the kind she list acquiring in several 30 sequins, or as much more as you chuse to 6 The Craster archive is owned privately but on 13th she purchased for 159 ducats: ‘blue & is at present the most famous engraver & deposit at Northumberland County Record Office,ZCR /Box/20. We are extremely silver Negligee.’ This seems likely to be makes cameos, extremely well’ this was the Nathaniel Dance grateful to the current owners for permission A Conversation Piece the material which she had made up for great gem engraver Giovanni Pichler. Oliver to quote from Olive Craster’s papers. in Rome: James the dress she is wearing in her portrait by Craster’s Account of Antiques & Curiosities 7 Northumberland County Record Office, Grant, Mr Mytton, Dance. The next expense is recorded as: records the acquisition of some gems: Craster MSS, ‘Memorandum Book’, ZCR/Box/20. the Hon. Thomas ‘pd. Madame Zoukeys’, which is possibly ‘an intallio of Tullys Head’, ‘an agate of 8 Northumberland County Record Office, Robinson, and Mr Craster MSS, ‘An Account of Antiques & the dress maker. Olive was highly conscious Hercules’s Mistress’, ‘a Cornelian Socrates Wynne, c.1760 Curiosities &c.’, ZCR/Box/20. of conversions, both of measurements for head’, ‘a small onix Minervas head’ and ‘a Oil on canvas 9 Northumberland County Record Office, 38 ⅝ x 48 ¾ inches the fabric, and for the exchange rate. Her blue onix of cupid who has mercury of his Craster MSS, ‘An Account of Antiques & 981 x 128 mm notebook contains careful notes that a purse & caduceus, set in a gold ring.’9 At Yale Center for British Curiosities &c.’, ZCR/Box/20. ‘Canne is 2 yards’ and that the ‘Naples ducat least one of the above seem likely to come Art, Paul Mellon 10 Northumberland County Record Office, Collection Craster MSS, Untitled list of cities and people, is 4 shillings.’ from Pichler and they seem to constitute the ZCR/Box/20. The Crasters reached Rome in June 1762. most substantial outlay the Crasters made in 11 Northumberland County Record Office, We have a sense of who they met and dealt Italy. Again the emphasis is on wearability as Craster MSS, ‘A list of flowers bought at Genoa Nathaniel Dance with through a remarkable city-by-city digest Olive Craster records, as a separate expense: Dec. 1761/ Flowers bought at Rome July y 23d 1762’, ZCR/Box/20. Angelica Kauffmann, 1764 Olive compiled, possibly as a record to be ‘setting Menervas head in a ring.’ Oil on canvas · 30 x 25 ½ inches · 762 x 635 mm 12 Anne French, Art Treasures inthe North: © Burghley House Collection, Lincolnshire, passed to a friend or relative contemplating For pictures Olive Craster recommends: Northern Families on the Grand Tour, Norwich, Bridgeman Images an Italian tour. Gazetteers of this kind are ‘Sigre Pompeo Battoni, & Mr Dance for 2009, p.95, fig.83.

[ 20 ] [ 21 ] GEORGE STUBBS ara 1724–1806 The legs of a draught-horse

Pencil, heightened with white, on buff paper This finely executed study is an exception- demonstrating the full power of Stubbs as 4 ⅛ x 9 ¾ inches · 106 x 248 mm ally rare autograph drawing by George a draughtsman. Inscribed by James Ward: Stubbs Stubbs and appears to be the the only animal Although his achievements were prodi- Drawn c.1786 drawing by him to have been on the market gious, and his working life long and profes- since 1947. As Judy Egerton noted in her sionally rewarding, we know relatively little Collections Catalogue Raisonné in 2007: ‘The greatest about Stubbs. He was born in Liverpool, the George Stubbs ara; gap in our knowledge of Stubbs’s working son of a currier and leather seller. He was Stubbs sale, Peter Coxe, 24 Somerset Street, methods lies in the unaccountable disappear- briefly a pupil or assistant to the local artist Portman Square, London, 26th – 27th May 1807, lot 30 as ‘one drawing of four horses ance of almost all of his drawings.’1 There Hamlet Winstanley and copied pictures from legs’sold with ‘2 Academy figures’; is a large body of evidence to suggest that the collection of the 10th Earl of Derby at James Ward ra (1769–1859), purchased at the Stubbs made drawings throughout his career Knowsley Hall, near Liverpool. In the mid- above sale; and a number of discreet groups of studies 1740s, Stubbs was established as a portrait Edith Winifred Jackson, granddaughter of survive relating to his anatomical projects. painter in York but also undertook system- the above; Indeed Basil Taylor calculated that no fewer atic anatomical dissections and provided Thomas H. Knowles, by descent, 1932; than ‘575 drawings on separate sheets or in illustrations for John Burton’s Essay Towards T.W. Knowles, son of the above, 1956; sketchbooks’ were sold in Stubbs’s studio a Complete New System of Midwifery published Prudence Turner (née Summerhayes), gift sale in 1807.2 This is the first drawing from in 1751.3 from the above; the 1807 sale to be identified; as such it is Stubbs went to Italy in 1754 and, on his Derek Turner, by descent to 2015. not only important evidence of the kind of return, retreated with his common-law wife graphic material that is currently missing Mary Spencer to an isolated farmhouse from Stubbs’s oeuvre but a beautiful sheet at Horkstow in Lincolnshire, where he dissected horses and assembled meticulous drawings from which he planned to produce a volume of engravings. Largely on the basis of these drawings, from 1760, in London, Stubbs achieved success with portraits of thoroughbred racehorses and other sport- ing subjects that he executed for the prime minister, the Marquess of Rockingham, the Duke of Richmond, Lord Brooke, and their Whig racing associates. In the mid-1760s, following the successful publication of his The Anatomy of the Horse in 1766, Stubbs was elected to the committee of the Society of Artists, later serving also as a treasurer

George Stubbs A draught-horse pulling a harrow, driven on by a farm labourer Oil on panel · 21 x 29 inches · 530 x 740 mm Signed and dated 1786 Private collection, courtesy of Richard Green (Fine Paintings)

[ 22 ] and president. During this period he was George Stubbs the Tate. It was in these canvases that Stubbs of Stubbs’ collection. It was almost certainly associated with the Scottish men of science Reapers, 1785 marked his return to the Royal Academy, contained in lot 30, listed as ‘one drawing Oil on panel · 35 ⅜ x 53 ⅞ inches and medicine William and John Hunter, for 899 x 1368 mm having fallen out over the issue of the exhib- of four horses legs’. As an equine painter whom he executed a series of portraits of © Tate, London 2015 iting of his enamels. This pair of paintings James Ward was passionately interested in exotic animals.4 He was elected an associ- have been viewed as a response to the popu- the work of George Stubbs. In his surviving ate of the Royal Academy in 1780, and full larity of picturesque rural subjects made by account book, Ward listed cleaning and membership followed the next year. His later Gainsborough, Wheatley and Morland and repairing works by Stubbs for the sugar years were occupied by large projects, first to some of the many illustrators of Thomson’s merchant Thomas Garle in 1807, presum- document the history of the turf from 1750 Seasons. Stubbs’s Haymakers is similar to an ably paintings Garle had purchased from in a series of paintings that were eventu- oval scene on the same theme painted in Stubbs’ studio sale. At the same moment he ally exhibited at the Turf Gallery in 1794 watercolour by Thomas Hearne, A Landscape borrowed £14 from Garle listing the money and engraved by his son George Townley and Figures from Thomson’s Seasons of 1783 as: ‘cash lent at Stubbs sale’.9 This confirms Stubbs.5 Finally, in 1795, commenced work (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester). The Ward as a purchaser at the auction. Lot 30 on his ambitious Comparative Anatomical pictures’ unsentimental yet sympathetic also contained ‘2 Academy Figures’, Ward Exposition of the Structure of the Human body observation of work in the countryside, with certainly owned at least one other draw- with that of a Tiger and a Common Fowl. George Stubbs little or no narrative content, is reminiscent ing by Stubbs, described as an ‘Anatomical This meticulous drawing, prepared on Haymakers, 1785 of Stubbs’s earlier depictions of groups figure’, as it was sold along with his own x distinctive buff coloured paper, was made Oil on panel · 35 ¼ 53 ¼ inches of grooms and stable-lads rubbing down 895 x 1353 mm drawings at Phillips on 4 April 1835.10 The by Stubbs towards the end of his career © Tate, London 2015 horses. As Judy Egerton has observed Stubbs present sheet remained with James Ward, and is entirely characteristic of the few evidently made a number of life studies in who inscribed it ‘Stubbs’ in his distinctive surviving drawings we have by Stubbs. The preparation for the finished composition. hand, and has an unbroken provenance to careful and sensitive observation of legs in The first day of Stubbs’ sale included ‘Six the present. motion is stylistically similar in technique, studies of the Reaper [sic], and two finished notes particularly the small diagonal hatched lines drawings of ditto’, ‘A capital Drawing, the employed for the shadows under the horse’s original design for the Corn Field with 1 Judy Egerton, George Stubbs, Painter. Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 2007, p.80. feet, to the drawings Stubbs prepared for the Reapers’ and ‘Ditto, the original design for 2 Quoted in: Judy Egerton, George Stubbs, Comparative Anatomical Exposition which are the Painting of the Hay Field and Men load- Painter. Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and George Stubbs London, 2007, p.80. now preserved at Yale.6 The soft tonalities, Study for the Self-portrait in Enamel, c.1781 ing a Hey Cart.’8 The present sheet shows 3 Basil Taylor, Stubbs, London, 1971, pp.7–51. use of graphite and careful hatching also Pencil · 12 x 9 ⅛ inches · 305 x 232 mm the legs of a draught horse, which is close in 4 Eds. Peter Black, Mungo Campbell and Anne recall Stubbs’s squared self-portrait made Inscribed verso design to the draught horse on the right of Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection Dulau, ‘My highest pleasures: William Hunter’s in preparation for a plaque by Wedgwood George Stubbs The Haymakers. The same horse, with distinc- art collection, exh. cat., Glasgow (Hunterian, and now in the National Portrait Gallery, Tiger, lateral view, with skin tive white fetlocks, was used in the Draught- University of Glasgow), 2007, pp.45–47. London. The technical precision and and tissue removed, 1795–1806 horse pulling a harrow, driven by a farm labourer. 5 Christopher Lennox-Boyd, Rob Dixon and (Finished study for Table IX, specificity of subject-matter of Stubbs’s This points again to the systematic way that Tim Clayton, George Stubbs: The Complete A Comparative Anatomical Engraved Works, London, 1989, pp.43–55. drawings suggest that he viewed them as Exposition of the Structure of the Stubbs prepared drawings from life for the 6 Ed. Judy Egerton, George Stubbs 1724–1806, Human Body with that of a Tiger essential steps in the production of finished execution of his most important finished oil Exh. cat., London (Tate Gallery), 1984, and a Common Fowl) works of art. Equally the present sheet Pencil · 16 x 21 ¼ inches paintings. Stubbs sent Haymakers and Reapers pp.183–216. also relates directly to Stubbs’s oil painting: 406 x 540 mm to the 1787 exhibition of the Society for 7 J. Egerton, George Stubbs, Painter. Catalogue A draught-horse pulling a harrow, driven on by Inscribed verso Promoting Painting and Design in Liverpool. Raisonné, New Haven and London, 2007, Yale Center for British Art, p.478, no.253. a farm labourer, signed and dated 1786.7 The Paul Mellon Collection His personal vote of confidence in his 8 Judy Egerton, George Stubbs 1724–1806, arrangement of the legs precisely relate to subjects was to translate them into enamel. exh. cat., London (Tate), 1984, p.168. the finished picture, suggesting that it was In printed Proposals issued on 24 September 9 Ed. Edward Nygren, ‘James Ward, RA (1769– made in preparation for the final painting. 1788, Stubbs invited subscriptions for engrav- 1859): Papers and Patrons’, The Walpole Society, vol.75, 2013, p.91. As such our drawing relates closely to an ings of Haymakers and Reapers. 10 Ed. Edward Nygren, ‘James Ward, RA (1769– important pair of paintings Stubbs made in This drawing was purchased by the 1859): Papers and Patrons’, The Walpole Society, 1785: The Haymakers and The Reapers, now in animal painter James Ward at the 1807 sale vol.75, 2013, p.120.

[ 24 ] [ 25 ] THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH Ra 1727–1788 Figures and cattle beside a woodland pool

Grey washes, heightened with white chalk Gainsborough’s landscapes were never in Gainsborough’s drawings. It was the over pencil purely topographical and the present imperceptible feeling of ‘bold effect, great 10 ¾ x 13 ¾ inches · 273 x 349 mm sheet demonstrates his interest in deploy- breadth of form’ and ‘solemnity’ described Drawn c.1777 ing a limited vocabulary of visual motifs: by Edwards which probably explained Collections cattle, figures, trees and ponds. Many of the emotional appeal of such drawings to Private collection, 2003; Gainsborough’s surviving drawings from Gainsborough’s contemporaries. this period all feature a similar group of Private collection, UK, to 2015. notes components, rearranged to form new 1 Edward Edwards, Anecdotes of Painting, Literature compositions. To achieve these ‘free Hugh Belsey, ‘A Second Supplement to London, 1808, p.139. sketches’ Gainsborough developed a visual 2 Ed. Robert Wark, Joshua Reynolds Discourses on John Hayes’s The Drawings of Thomas short-hand, particularly in his handling of Art, New Haven and London, 1975, p.250. Gainsborough’, Master Drawings, vol.XLVI, trees, figures and cattle; the latter often no.4, Winter 2008, pp.502–3, no. 1062, fig.86. appearing in an almost abstract reduction of shapes and lines. This fluid wash study is a quintessential This sheet is typical of Gainsborough’s landscape drawing made by Thomas landscape drawings and raises the question Gainsborough at the height of his crea- of its appeal to contemporaries. The ideal- tive powers. Writing in his Anecdotes of ised composition is partly inspired by the Painters published in 1808, Edward Edwards work of Gaspard Dughet, whose landscapes made an important early assessment of would have been familiar to Gainsborough Gainsborough’s late landscape drawings: and his contemporaries both in the original ‘in his latter works, bold effect, great breadth and through the medium of engraving. of form, with little variety of parts, united by This sensibility was shared by Alexander Thomas Gainsborough a judicious management of light and shade, Cozens and there is growing evidence that A herdsman with six cows by a woodland stream, c.1780s combine to produce a certain degree of solemnity. Gainsborough, like Cozens, was conscious Black chalk with brown, blue and grey wash heightened with white 8 ⅝ x 12 ¼ inches, 221 x 311 mm This solemnity, though striking, is not easily of the ability for his landscape drawings to Private collection, USA (formerly with Lowell Libson Ltd) accounted for, when the simplicity of materials suggest certain emotions. It was the appar- is considered, which seldom represent more than ent simplicity of his formula, as described by a stony bank, with a few trees, a pond, and some Pyne, which prompted Joshua Reynolds to distant hills.’1 offer the audience of his fourteenthDiscourse The present sheet perfectly encapsulates a word of caution about Gainsborough’s these qualities: Gainsborough has simply technique, noting: ‘Like every other used grey wash, white chalk and pencil to technical practice, it seems to me wholly to create a composition of ‘stony bank’, ‘a depend on the general talent of him who few trees’ and a ‘pond’. The sheet is part of uses it … it shows the solicitude and extreme a body of drawings Gainsborough made, activity which he [Gainsborough] had about which were highly prized by contemporary everything related to his art; that he wished collectors, presumably precisely because to have his objects embodied as it were, and Thomas Gainsborough they evoked an emotional response, char- distinctly before him.’2 But there is consider- Figures in a wooded landscape, c.1788 Black chalk and grey wash heightened with white acterised by Edwards as ‘a certain degree able evidence that contemporaries read 10 ½ x 15 ⅜ inches · 267 x 390 mm of solemnity.’ something more immediate and emotional Private collection, USA (formerly with Lowell Libson Ltd)

[ 26 ] JOHN ROBERT COZENS 1752–1797 London and the Thames from Greenwich

Watercolour over pencil This sophisticated and beautifully modulat- 14 ½ x 20 ⅝ inches · 367 x 525 mm ed London view was made by John Robert Signed and dated on the original-mount, Cozens at the end of his professional lower left: Jno Cozens 1792 career and this cityscape is an extremely Collections rare aspect of his work. Cozens’s career Private collection, Yorkshire, until c.1956; marks a watershed in the history of British Agnew’s, London; watercolour painting: his art forms a vital H.G. Balfour, purchased from the above, link between the pioneers of the medium 1957; in the eighteenth century and those artists by family descent, until 1995; who turned it into a major art form in the Leger Galleries, London; nineteenth. Most famous for his two hugely Sir Edwin Manton (1909–2005), purchased important Continental tours, Cozens’s from the above, 1996; English views are exceptionally rare and Judy Caruso, New York, a gift from the the present sheet was completed shortly above, to 2015. before he suffered a debilitating nervous breakdown in 1794. Literature C. F. Bell and T. Girtin, ‘The Drawings and Cozens trained with his father, the Sketches of John Robert Cozens’, Walpole landscape painter and drawing master Society, vol.XXIII, 1935, no.441 (for a discus- Alexander Cozens. In 1776 he travelled with sion of the group); Richard Payne Knight to the Continent, Francis Hawcroft, Watercolours by John Robert acting as draughtsman, sketching the land- Cozens, London 1971, p.34, under no.9; scapes they saw in Switzerland and Italy. Andrew Wilton, The Art of Alexander and When Payne Knight returned to England, John Robert Cozens, exh. cat., New Haven, Cozens stayed behind in Rome, joining the Yale Center for British Art, 1980, p.51, under expatriate community of British artists then no.137. living in the city. On his return to London in 1779, he worked his sketches up into Exhibited finished watercolours, presenting a port- London, Agnew’s, Annual Exhibition of folio of them to Knight. Their success led Watercolour Drawings, 1957, no.32. to requests for replicas from a small circle of connoisseurs, one of whom was the young William Beckford, a former pupil of Alexander Cozens. John Robert’s fortunes were tied to Beckford for the next stage of his career. In 1782 Cozens joined Beckford on his Grand Tour. His work for Beckford introduced to watercolour a new depth and consistency of tone and a technique of colouring in layered washes similar to oil glazes that transformed topographical views into affective landscape visions.

[ 28 ] In the present lyrical watercolour Cozens practice that was later much imitated. In the John Robert Cozens captured a classic London panorama. The present sheet, these are beautifully preserved London from Greenwich Hill, c.1791 Watercolour and pencil · 14 ⅞ x 21 ⅛ inches · 378 x 537 mm scene depicts the view from the top of the hill and demonstrate his technique of handling Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection in Greenwich near the observatory. Looking these muted colour washes and his ability over the twin domes of the Royal Hospital to draw with the brush. This example is John Robert Cozens for Seamen, the eye follows the bend of the ­especially notable for the beauty of the light- The Thames from Richmond Hill, looking river to the Isle of Dogs and Thames anchor- ing effects which have not been diminished southwest, c.1791 Pencil and watercolour · 14 ¼ x 20 ⅝ inches · 362 x 524 mm age, and westward towards the city, with the by fading. Inscribed verso dome of St Paul’s Cathedral conspicuous on Only a very few British compositions by Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection the horizon and an exaggeratedly high hill Cozens are known to exist, these include views (Hampstead, or possibly Highgate) beyond of The Thames from Richmond (Yale Center for the hospital. Vertical forms – spires, tree British Art); The Falls of Lodore (Abbot Hall trunks and ships’ masts – counterbalance the Art Gallery, Kendal); Lake Windermere (Private undulating contours of land and vegetation collection) and Windsor from the South West that suggest an evocative association with the (Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford). This view hilly environs of Rome. of London from Greenwich, however, appears Cozens’s sensitive handling and consum- to be one of the most popular subjects of mate understanding of tone sets his English Cozens’s career and it is known in six variants, watercolours apart from the simple topo- including versions now in the Courtauld and graphical ‘stained’ drawings of the time. Yale Center for British Art. This sheet was Following his second trip to Italy and the formerly owned by Sir Edwin Manton, who work he undertook for William Beckford, assembled one of the greatest collections of Cozens developed a limited, almost mono- British art formed in the second half of the chromatic palette of greys and muted blues. twentieth century. In 2007 his family’s founda- With countless touches of a severely limited tion bequeathed over two hundred eighteenth palette of colour applied with the point and and early nineteenth-century British paintings, flat of the brush, Cozens built up structural drawings, and prints including major groups masses that gradually dissolve as the view of works by Constable and Turner to The recedes into the distance, the sky and horizon Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in suffused with delicate washes of colour, a Williamstown, Massachusetts.

[ 30 ] THOMAS ROWLANDSON 1756–1827 Antiquaries in Westminster Abbey

Watercolour This seems to be the first idea for a joke armour-clad figure. Unlike the later engrav- 9 ½ x 13 ⅝ inches · 240 x 345 mm which would form the basis of a satire of ing from the The English Dance of Death, Signed and dated: Rowlandson 1802 members of the Society of Antiquaries Rowlandson does not specifically characterise the figures as antiquaries, suggesting the Collections investigating a tomb, which appeared as one elision between members of a learned Sir George Agnew, 2nd Bt. (1852–1941); of the illustrations for Rowlandson’s The With Agnew’s, 1942; English Dance of Death, published from 1814 society and tomb robbers. The figures are Major Leonard M. E. Dent DSO, to 1816 with a verse text by William Combe. in the process of removing a coffin from the acquired from the above; The series follows a long graphic tradition – South ambulatory in Westminster Abbey. Dent sale, Christie’s, 10th July 1984, lot 14; most famously expounded by Hans Holbein Rowlandson shows an accurate view look- Private collection, to 2015. in the sixteenth century – designed to show ing east from the south transept to the Lady Death as the fate shared by all ranks of Chapel with the tombs of King Sebert to the Literature society. Rowlandson chose also to satirise the left and Richard II and Edward IV beyond. Hillfields, The Antique Collector, Aug–Sept, behaviour and attributes of assorted figures The tomb Rowlandson shows open has 1964, p.136; in English contemporary life, members of been identified as that of Sir John Golafer, a Leonard M. E. Dent, Hillfields: Notes on the the Society of Antiquaries among them. The favourite of Richard II; it is perhaps therefore contents, 1972, p.5. plate shows a clutch of antiquaries peering not a coincidence that the tomb robbers Exhibited at the body of a crowned king in a newly are fleeing a ghost dressed in armour. This London, Agnew’s, 1942, no.63; opened coffin. Death stands on a nearby drawing neatly satirises the contemporary Reading Art Gallery, Rowlandson: Drawings tomb, his arrow poised to strike. William fascination with indigenous archeology, iden- from Town and Country, 1962, no.60. Combe’s text makes specific reference to tifying the humourous boundary that existed members of the Society of Antiquaries in between antiquarian research and something the opening of royal tombs (with occasional more sinister. Writing shortly after the death of Thomas disturbing rumours of trafficking in relics notes Rowlandson, his friend, Henry Angelo noted: and mementoes): 1 Henry Angelo, Reminiscences, London, 1830, ‘Everyone at all acquainted with the arts must ‘A curious wish their fancies tickled vol.I, p.233. 2 Eds. Bernard Nurse, David Gaimster and Sarah well know the caricature works of that very To know how Royal Folk were pickled.’2 McCarthy, Making History: Antiquaries in Britain, eccentric genius: the extent of his talent, however, In this drawing Rowlandson has shown 1707–2007, , London (Royal Academy of Arts), as a draughtsman is not so generally known three men fleeing in terror from a ghostly, 2007, pp.74–5. … His powers indeed were so versatile, and his fancy so rich, that every species of composition flowed from his pen with equal facility.’1 The present depiction of Antiquaries in Westminster Abbey perfectly encapsulates Rowlandson’s versatility, combining, as it does, the expected humorous caricature, with an archeologically Thomas Rowlandson accurate view of the South ambulatory of Death and the Antiquaries, 1816 Aquatint · 5 ½ x 9 ½ inches Westminster Abbey. Preserved in beautiful 140 x 240 mm condition, this watercolour was owned by Caption: ‘Death, jealous of his George Agnew and Leonard Dent two of the rights, stands sentry / Over this strange, burglarious entry.’ most distinguished collectors of Rowlandson’s © The Society of Antiquaries of work in the twentieth century. London

[ 32 ] LADY MARY LOWTHER 1740–1824 Self-portrait

Pastel on paper laid down on canvas This remarkable self-portrait was made by 31 ⅜ x 25 ¾ inches · 798 x 654 mm Lady Mary Lowther in about 1765, shortly Inscribed: Countess/ of/ Lonsdale after she married Sir James Lowther, later 1st Drawn c.1765 Earl of Lonsdale. The eldest daughter of the Collections Prime Minister John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, The artist; Lady Mary’s self-portrait was probably made Lady Ranfurly, née Mary Juliana Stuart shortly after her marriage and is a fascinat- (1797–1866), niece of the above, by descent; ing example of the kind of ambitious work Thomas, 3rd Earl of Ranfurly, undertaken by amateur patrician women in son of the above; the middle of the eighteenth century. Uchter, 5th Earl of Ranfurly, by descent, to Mary Stuart was born into a highly 1929; accomplished family. Her mother, Mary, was Ranfurly sale, Christie’s, London, 21st June the daughter of the great traveller and writer 1929, lot 80 (as Liotard); Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. In 1761 Mary Charles Milnes Gaskell, Thornes House, was married to Sir James Lowther, the rich- Wakefield, acquired at the above sale; est land-owner in the north-west of England. And by descent to 2015. Horace Walpole sharply noted: ‘The great Literature prince of the coal-pits, Sir James Lowther, Neil Jeffares,Pastels & pastellists: The Dictionary marries the eldest infanta of the adjoining coal- of pastellists before 1800, London, 2006, p.574, pits, Lord Bute’s daughter.’1 But the marriage repr. fig.818. turned out to be extremely unhappy and the couple eventually separated. Shortly after Exhibited her marriage Lady Mary began to produce Heaton Hall, Manchester City Art Galleries. a series of topographical views of the land- scape around Lowther Hall. She made excur- sions into the surrounding area with her sketchbooks. In 1766 Lady Mary made a tour of the southern Lakes, travelling via Pooley Bridge along the western shore of Ullswater, and over the Kirkstone Pass. A surviving sketchbook from this tour, now in a private collection, contains twenty-one drawings in pencil and grey wash. Her subjects varied from Lowther Hall itself, local antiquities, rivers, cascades and pastoral scenes to more ambitious prospects including extensive views of Ullswater and an ambitious pano- ramic view over Windermere.2 It is unclear who taught Mary Stuart to draw. As a young girl, her father, as succes- sively Secretary of State for the Northern

[ 34 ] Paul Sandby ra The name derives from the round frame, She evidently continued to practice as an adopted by patrician women in the second Portrait of a lady at a drawing table which is prominent in Lowther’s Self- artist as well. In 1797 the landscape painter half of the eighteenth century. The present Pencil and brown wash · 8 ½ x 6 ½ inches · 210 x 165 mm Inscribed in pencil, lower centre: ‘E’ portrait. A contemporary mezzotint entitled and diarist Joseph Farington called on a glass pastel passed from Lowther to her niece Mary Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection The Fair Lady working Tambour published painter named Brewer: ‘Brewer I called on Juliana, Countess of Ranfurly, a reduced copy, by Carrington Bowles in 1764 neatly in Castle St. Leicester Fields, and saw his also presumably by Lowther herself, passed Published by Carrington Bowles illustrates how this form of embroidery painting on paper for glass, He has 7s 6d. to another niece, Lady Caroline Dawson- The Fair Lady working Tambour, c.1766–84 Hand-coloured mezzotint · 13 ⅞ x 9 ¾ inches · 352 x 248 mm was considered a polite accomplishment a lesson and has been employed by Ladies Damer and remains with her descendants at © The Trustees of the British Museum appropriate for gentlewomen. Lowther’s Douglas, Lonsdale, & Buckinghamshire.’8 Llanvihangel Court, Abergavenny. Self-portrait therefore shows her practicing Lowther remained active in the art world two of the domestic arts acceptable for and is unusually listed in her own right as notes patrician women to master: crayon painting a purchaser at public auctions. She is listed and embroidery. As Amanda Vickery has buying drawings and sculpture at the sale 1 Hugh Owen, The Lowther Family: Eight Hundred Years of ‘A Family of Ancient Gentry and Worship’, pointed out, these twin activities should be of Robert Adam, she bought some of the Chichester, 1990, p.284. viewed as embodying the conflicted status sketchbooks of the Scottish architect James 2 Stephen Hebron, In the Line of Beauty: Early of women in the period: ‘embroidery was Playfair at his posthumous sale in January Views of the Lake District by Amateur Artists, used to cultivate submissive femininity in 1795 and is named as a buyer at the auction exh. cat., Grasmere (The Wordsworth Trust), 2008, pp.21–32. women, but women could use embroidery of the collection of the artist William 3 Kim Sloan, A Noble Art: Amateur Artists and to find artistic and even radical expression Hodges in June 1795. Drawing Masters c.1600–1800, exh. cat., London Departments and Prime Minister had access Jeffares has associated her style with both and thereby negotiate the constraints Lowther’s activities as topographical (British Museum), 2000, pp.107–108. to the most fashionable drawing masters. As Mary Black and Katherine Read.4 Black was of femininity. Thus the significance of watercolourist, pastellist, embroiderer, 4 Neil Jeffares,Pastels & pastellists: The Dictionary Stephen Hebron has noted, Mary’s earliest the more celebrated teacher: fancy needlework for women was deeply gardener and collector suggest the crea- of pastellists before 1800, online edition. 5 Ed. Mark Laird and Alicia Weisberg-Roberts, watercolours are close in approach to the ‘Miss Black was at this time an eminent teacher paradoxical.’5 Mary Lowther trapped in an tive and practical world open to women Mrs Delany & her Circle, exh. cat., New Haven works of Paul Sandby’s students, particularly of crayon painting amongst the ladies of quality, unhappy and childless marriage undoubt- in the late eighteenth century; the present (Yale Center for British Art), 2009, p.99. her figures and extensive use of gouache. who frequently brought their performances for Sir edly viewed her accomplishments as Self-portrait is a highly accomplished work 6 Francis Russell, John 3rd Earl of Bute: Patron and In the 1760s Sandby taught a number of Joshua’s inspection; and I have heard him observe creative escapism. commemorating both Lowther’s abilities as Collector, London, 2004, p.94. 7 Kew, Public Record Office, Prob 11 / 1686 / 52. prominent aristocratic amateurs including of Miss Black’s scholars, that their first essays In the 1770s Lowther moved to a villa a pastellist and her work in embroidery. It 8 Ed. Kenneth Garlick and Angus Macintyre, George, Viscount Nuneham and his sister, were better than their last.’ in Fulham where she was able to explore is an important document of her life and as The Diary of Joseph Farington, New Haven and Lady Elizabeth Harcourt and Lady Frances Henry Angelo recorded that ‘Miss Black’ her other great passion, gardening. Lady evidence of the modes of self-representation London, 1979, p.951. Scott.3 Sandby seems also to have taught was engaged to teach ‘painting in crayons’ Mary Coke visited and noted: ‘she has members of the Royal Family, including to the daughters of George III. Indeed the a great many fine plants in her Garden Mary Lowther Prince Augustus Frederick, later Duke of evidence suggests that Mary Black taught which is laid out with a great deal of taste Long Meg &c from the Gate, 1766 Sussex, the youngest son of Bute’s protégé, a large number of patrician women in this considering the smallness of the extent.’6 Pencil, pen & ink and watercolour 10 ¾ x 16 ¼ inches · 271 x 413 mm George III. From 1763 Sandby also worked period. Mary Delaney noted in her letters She evidently became a close friend of the Inscribed on artist’s washline mount for Mary Stuart’s father, painting a spectacu- that ‘my friend ye paintress’ Miss Black, who botanical painter and Royal Academician, By Permission of The Wordsworth lar series of views of his Bedfordshire estate, arranged a ‘little dance’ where the guests Mary Moser, leaving a group of her water- Trust, Grasmere Luton Hoo. includes the Lady Greys and Lady Stamford. colours to her nephew in her will: If Paul Sandby was responsible for Mary The present striking self-portrait shows ‘And I give the thirteen watercolour drawings Stuart’s proficiency as a landscape painter, it Lowther embroidering, more specifically of flowers from nature by Miss Moser which seems likely that it was one of the accom- she is shown seated at a tambour frame. are now hanging in the Green Drawing room plished female pastellists working in London Tambour work was a form of chainstitch in Somerset Street to my nephew the Right who taught her to handle the medium. Neil embroidery influenced by Indian muslins. Honourable Sir Charles Stuart.’7

[ 36 ] [ 37 ] MARY BLACK 1737–1814 Portrait of a Young Lady

Pastel This striking and immediate pastel has 30 x 24¾ inches · 763 x 629 mm been convincingly identified as the work of Drawn 1768 the little known painter Mary Black. Black Collections occupied an unusual position in eighteenth- With Leggatt Brothers, London, 1958, as by century Britain, operating as a professional Francis Cotes; artist and drawing master. Initially trained Private collection, USA, acquired from the by her father, Thomas Black, and in the above, to 2015. studio of Allan Ramsay, Mary Black became a member of the Society of Artists in 1769 Literature and gained a considerable reputation as a Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before teacher. Although Black worked in both oil 1800, online edition; and pastel, this is the first composition in F. Walford, A short memoir of Miss Mary Black, pastel to be securely attributed to her hand. an accomplished artist, London, 1876. p.17, The present engaging and highly skilled ‘A Hampshire Peasant Girl with a Black Dog, pastel offers an important opportunity to Life size, three-quarter length, in crayons.’ recover the life and work of a professional Exhibited female artist working in mid eighteenth- London, Society of Artists, 1768, no.11, century London. as a ‘Portrait of a Young Lady; in Crayons Mary Black was the daughter of Thomas (with a black dog in her hands)’. Black, of 1 Bolton Street, Piccadilly, a painter and member of the Northamptonshire gentry. Black apparently worked with Allan Ramsay in the early 1760s, she possibly joined his studio to help assist with the production of copies of the portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte which occupied him throughout the decade.1 It was in this context that Allan Cunningham described her condescendingly as: ‘a lady of less talent than good taste.’2 Black evidently learnt the business of portrai- ture in Ramsay’s busy studio and had early aspirations to establish herself as an independent practitioner. In common with other female artists of the period, both professional and amateur, she was celebrated as a copyist. In the brief obituary published in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1815 she was specifically commended for her abilities as a copyist: ‘so faithful were her imitations of the elder

[ 38 ] masters, that it required no slight judgement so as gently as I cou’d – she said she was in hopes more famous female colleague Katherine clients. Henry Angelo claimed that Black notes to distinguish them from the originals. to have had ½ Reynolds price, that he wou’d have Read, as a ‘crayon painter’. taught the daughters of George III.11 In his 1 Alastair Smart, Allan Ramsay: Painter, Essayist She was patronised by the last Earl of had 50l for one of that size, which I told her was The present work, Portrait of young lady, Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds, James Northcote and Man of the Enlightenment, New Haven and London, 1982, p.217–218. Godolphin, whose fine picture by Teniers, 5 times more than He deserv’d, then she said she was one of these exhibits, shown at the noted: 2 Allan Cunningham, The Lives of the most comprising above a hundred figures, she hop’d she might a ¼ part but she would be satis- Society of Artists in 1768. It was seen in the Miss Black was at this time an eminent teacher eminent British painters and sculptors, London, copied with the utmost fidelity and spirit.’3 fied with what ever I thought proper, but I did exhibition by Horace Walpole who anno- of crayon painting amongst the ladies of quality, 1831, vol.IV, p.36. But it is clear that Black was also keen to not care to make myself an estimator of others tated his catalogue with the information that who frequently brought their performances for Sir 3 The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1815, vol.117, p.89. establish herself as a professional painter labours – in short I don’t know how at all to she held ‘a black dog in her hands’ and it Joshua’s inspection; and I have heard him observe 4 Frances Harris, ‘Mary Black and the portrait of Dr Monsey’, The Burlington Magazine, and there is evidence that she employed manage between you but I think at all events if I was on the basis of this information and the of Miss Black’s scholars, that their first essays vol.135, no.1085, August 1993, pp.534–536. all the commercial strategies open to a were you I wou’d have no copies for she will by no stylistic similarities with a mezzotint depict- were better than their last. Implying that Miss 5 Frances Harris, ‘Mary Black and the portrait young male painter at the time to achieve means be pleas’d to do ‘em at 5g a piece I presume ing Miss Drummond, that Neil Jeffares identi- Black’s interference in the work diminished at her of Dr Monsey’, The Burlington Magazine, recognition: she exhibited in the new public for she hints to me there is very less labour & fied the present work with Mary Black.7 scholars advanced.12 vol.135, no.1085, August 1993, p.535. 6 Frances Harris, ‘Mary Black and the portrait exhibiting spaces, worked with print makers time in a copy than an original.’5 The same work was subsequently listed in F. This negativity, again suggests the of Dr Monsey’, The Burlington Magazine, and experimented with new genres. Mary Black’s unreasonable expectation to Walford, A short memoir of Miss Mary Black, prejudice against a professional female artist, vol.135, no.1085, August 1993, p.535. A remarkable series of letters survive be paid a quarter of what Joshua Reynolds an accomplished artist as: ‘A Hampshire Peasant even when she was acting in the capac- 7 Neil Jeffares,Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, charting the commission and execution was then charging for his portraiture seems Girl with a Black Dog, Life size, three-quarter ity as a teacher and copyist rather than as accessed 23 September, 2015: http://www. of her most impressive surviving portrait to have infuriated the Monseys. Dr James length, in crayons.’8 This raises the possibil- a portraitist. pastellists.com/Articles/Black.pdf ?zoom_high light=mary+black#search=”mary black” in oils, the spectacular depiction of Dr Monsey replied: ity that the pastel is not a portrait, but a Mary Black’s experiences as an artist 8 F. Walford, A short memoir of Miss Mary Black, Messenger Monsey now in the collection of ‘I am sorry to find Miss Black is grown so saucy, James Watson, after Mary Black subject-picture, of the sort that were popular stand as a fascinating example of the margin- an accomplished artist, London, 1876, p.17. the Royal College of Physicians in London.4 as it will only embarrass, or stop the progress of Miss Drummond, 1766 on the walls of the new exhibiting societies. alisation of women in eighteenth-century 9 Martin Postle, Angels and Urchins: The Fancy Mezzotint · 10 ⅞ x 9 inches · 275 x 228 mm Monsey was a physician and companion to her reputation and improvement … She will not Black’s bravura pastel depicts a beautiful London. The pastel of a Girl holding a Dog Picture in 18th-Century British Art, exh, cat, © The Trustees of the British Museum London (Kenwood House), 1998, p.5. Francis Godolphin, 2nd Earl of Godolphin, get a Mounsey every day to sit like inanimate young girl, dressed in white and wearing demonstrates the level of her technical skill, 10 Neil Jeffares,Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, Mary Black’s portrait dates from 1764 blockheads more to encourage her than for any a pink hat, tied with a pink ribbon, she is whilst its ambiguous subject-matter and accessed 23 September, 2015: http://www. when he was already seventy years old. In necessity we had of her Labours. I saw you like holding a black dog. The ‘Peasant Girl’ could exhibition at the Society of Artists in 1768 pastellists.com/Articles/Black.pdf ?zoom_high a series of letters between Monsey and his and encouraged her ingenuity: I was desposed be read as a ‘Fancy Picture’. This ambiguous suggest Black’s awareness of contemporary light=mary+black#search=”mary black” cousin, Dr James Monsey of Rammerscales, the same way. She has merit in the picture and I category was described by Martin Postle strategies of display. Preserved in remark- 11 Henry Angelo, Reminiscences of Henry Angelo, London, 1828, p.194. considerable light is thrown on Mary Black think I have some also, for I assure you I would as: ‘among the most original, popular, and ably good condition and in its original, 12 James Northcote, Memoirs of James Northcote, and her aspirations. The initial commission not set in the same way to Reynolds if he would self-consciously modern art forms to have carved gilt-wood swept frame the pastel London, 1813, p.39. was from both cousins, Mary Black was paint me for nothing.’6 emerged in Britain during the eighteenth- is both an extremely beautiful decorative asked to paint portraits of each of them and The finished portrait demonstrates what century.’9 object and a potent reminder of the difficult copies of the portraits which they could an impressive technician Black was. The As Neil Jeffares has noted the handling position professional female artists occupied then exchange. Monsey initially ‘liked and magnificent pink suit, play of textures and of the present work recalls the ‘luminous in the period. encouraged her ingenuity’ but she was characterful head all demonstrate that she treatment of flesh’ present in the work of expecting to be paid a price commensurate was a powerful portraitist. But the Monseys’ the professional pastellist Katherine Read.10 with her training, and proportionate to response to her suggestion of adequate The use of pastel is skilled suggesting she the prices charged by male contemporar- remuneration underline the difficulties was highly trained in the medium. Black’s ies. Monsey wrote to his cousin, who had women faced attempting to operate profes- attempt to establish herself as a profes- returned to Scotland: sionally within a male dominated commer- sional painter were largely unsuccessful. ‘I have talk’d to Miss Black about the picture cial sphere. Mary Black did exhibit three She instead fell back on the more accepted Mary Black Messenger Monsey, 1764 & copies. She does not seem satisfied with the pictures at the Society of Artists at the end Oil on canvas · 50 x 40 inches · 1270 x 1016 mm female role, becoming a celebrated teacher, Prices, which I did not take very well & told her of the 1760s, where she was listed, like her Royal College of Physicians, London with a large circle of aristocratic and royal

[ 40 ] [ 41 ] JOHN DOWNMAN ra 1750–1824 Peter, Mary and Anne Middelton

Watercolour over pencil This enchanting portrait depicts three with Benjamin West and enrolling as one of 12 ½ x 11 ½ inches · 320 x 290 mm children of William Middelton of Stockeld the first students at the newly formed Royal Drawn 1792 Park and his wife Clara, daughter of William Academy Schools. After a Grand Tour to Collections Grice. The drawing dates from 1792, the year Italy, where he travelled with Joseph Wright Private collection, France, to 2002; before William Middelton separated from of Derby, Downman returned to London in Private collection, UK, to 2015. his wife in one of the most dramatic divorce 1776 and established a practice as a portrait- cases in late eighteenth-century Britain. The ist: first in Cambridge, then in London and Literature drawing is characteristic of Downman’s the West Country, to which he returned Dr George. Williamson, John Downman ara, portraiture at the end of the century and periodically over the next thirty years. London 1907, p.lv, no.22, referring to the forms one of a group of pictures he made of Within a few years of his return to London study in the Butleigh Court albums, Third the Middelton family. Downman preserved a in 1779, he gained a reputation as one of series, volume 2, drawing no.22, ‘Two more study for the present drawing in the volumes the most fashionable portraitists of the day, children of Mr Middleton, 1792, with their of ‘The Original Portraits of Distinguished and was patronized by the royal family, as brother in a group.’ Persons Painted and Drawn in the last half well as such fashion icons as the Duchess Century to 1820 by John Downman’ now of Devonshire, the Duchess of Richmond, split between the British Museum and and Mrs Siddons. His popularity was largely Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. dependent on his ability to work quickly John Downman was born in Ruabon, and in quantity. In order to do so he gave North Wales, in 1750. Downman moved to up portraits in oil and devised a technique London to become an artist in 1769, training of working in chalks on a lightweight wove

John Downman John Downman Study for Master Peter Middelton, and his father Study for Mary and Anne Middelton, 1792 William Middelton of Stockeld Park, Yorkshire, 1792 Charcoal, touched with red chalk · 6 ⅜ x 4 ⅝ inches · 161 x 116 mm Charcoal, touched with red chalk · 6 ⅜ x 4 ⅝ inches · 161 x 117 mm © The Trustees of the British Museum © The Trustees of the British Museum

[ 42 ] ARCHIBALD SKIRVING 1749–1819 A young girl, probably Elizabeth Forbes paper that allowed him to reproduce up to On discovering the extent of her adultery, Pencil Fabre, and underscores his importance as a ten or twelve versions of the same portrait.1 William Middelton immediately initiated 12 x 8¾ inches · 305 x 223 mm major neo-classical artist. Downman exhibited 148 works at the Royal divorce proceedings which dragged on for Signed, lower right, A. Skirving, and dated, Archibald Skirving began his career as Academy between 1770 and 1819; he became three years. The result was, as Lawrence lower left, 28th May 1792 a junior clerk in the Edinburgh customs an associate of the Royal Academy in 1795, Stone has noted: Collections office. He is likely to have spent a period at but never gained full membership. His ‘ironically a tragedy for all parties involved. By Private collection, France, to 2015. the Trustees’ Academy in Edinburgh, where reputation as snobbish, undemocratic, and the time William Middelton had completed his Charles Pavillon was master from 1768 to slow-witted may have lost him the essential fanatical vendetta in 1796, he was a broken- 1772. In 1777 Skirving moved to London support of his peers. In the 1790s his critical hearted recluse. He had killed his wife’s favourite This sensitively observed study is an where he had various letters of introduction, popularity began to flag, and towards the dog and horse, destroyed her reputation by extremely rare survival from the period including one to John Hamilton Mortimer. end of that decade he developed a style of publicly exposing her as an adulteress with a of Skirving’s residence in Italy. Skirving He is recorded exhibiting work at the Royal chalk portraiture which was larger in scale, stable boy, closed up his country seat, discharged travelled to Rome in 1787 and remained there Academy in 1778, where he is described as a bolder in execution, and more penetrating in most of his servants, and sent his children off to until 1794 producing a number of power- miniature painter lodging ‘at Mrs Milward’s, the description of personality. boarding school.’2 ful works including a spectacular pastel Little Brook Street, Hanover Square’ but The present portrait depicts three portrait of the artist, dealer and painter Skirving met with little success in London children of William Constable and Clara Gavin Hamilton now in the Scottish National and returned to Scotland.1 Louisa Grace. In 1760, William assumed Portrait Gallery. The present engaging draw- Skirving left for Italy in 1786, settling the name Middelton on succeeding to the ing demonstrates Skirving’s debt to conti- in Rome and becoming a member of the estates of his great-uncle, William Middelton nental draughtsman, particularly the work large English community. Once in Rome of Stockeld Park and Myddleton Lodge, of French artists such as François-Xavier he practiced as a portraitist, particularly in Yorkshire. In 1792 he sat to Downman miniature, and acted as agent for a number for his portrait, along with his eldest son, of visiting tourists. Francis Garden, Lord William. The portrait is recorded in one Gardenstone described Skirving, ‘a young of the albums Downman put together at painter of merit [who] comes from the the end of his life and now in the British neighbourhood of Edinburgh’ and gave Museum. In the present drawing, the young him a number of commissions, including boy, holding the bow and arrow, is Peter making miniature copies of paintings by Middelton. He was born in 1785 and in Caravaggio.2 In 1790 ‘Mr Skirving – Crayons 1812 married the daughter of the 17th Lord – Palazzo del Babuino’ was listed among Stourton, the Hon. Juliana Stourton. Upon the British artists in Rome. This places him his father’s death in 1847, he succeeded to the at the heart of the British community in estates. Downman also shows Peter’s sister, the Campo Marzio, close to the Caffé degli Mary, who died in 1796, aged only nine. The Inglesi and the present, informal study smallest of the children is Anne Middelton, is likely to be of a British sitter. In 1792 who was born in 1788 and died, unmarried, Skirving met Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo in 1826. the banker and author. Forbes was travelling The year after Downman completed his notes with his wife, Elizabeth and a daughter, also portraits of the Middelton family tragedy 1 Jane Munro, John Downman 1750–1824, exh. cat., called Elizabeth.3 Forbes described Skirving Cambridge (Fitzwilliam Museum), 1996, p.13. struck. Clara Louis Middelton had fallen in as ‘a very ingenious artist’ and his journal 2 Lawrence Stone, Broken Lives: Separation and Archibald Skirving Self-portrait, 1790 love with the young groom at Stockeld Park, Divorce in England 1660–1857, Oxford, 1993, Pastel · 28 x 21 ⅝ inches, 710 x 4550 mm records that Skirving introduced him to the John Rose, pursuing him in secret meetings. pp.246–247. Scottish National Portrait Gallery Italian landscape painter, Giovanni Battista

[ 44 ] [ 45 ] Lusieri. The present, informal drawing technique – particularly the strong lateral informal study suggests a degree of intima- belongs to a group of studies Skirving made hatching – the isolated portraits, the sitters cy. Forbes became an important patron and towards the end of his stay in Italy, includ- are detached from their surroundings, has friend of Skirving and later supported him ing a study of Father James McCormick and invited comparison with the later portrait back in Britain. The physiognomy of the girl a profile study ofAn Unknown Gentleman drawings by Jean-Auguste-Dominique also corresponds to that of Elizabeth Forbes, signed and dated 1793.4 Ingres of visitors to Rome. Whilst Ingres who went on to marry Colin Mackenzie The present drawing is closest to did not visit Italy until the following decade, of Portmore and to be painted as a young Skirving’s masterful portrait of British Skirving almost certainly knew other French married woman by Henry Raeburn, a Tourists in Rome also dated 1792; a work artists resident at the French Academy, picture now in the Scottish National Gallery. which has long been regarded as a power- including Fabre who was in Rome from 1787 This engaging sketch is a welcome addi- ful demonstration of Skirving’s abilities as until 1793.6 tion to Skirving’s small Roman oeuvre. The a draughtsman as well as his debt to the The precise date of the present drawing – masterly drawing, executed with economic Continental artists he encountered in Rome. 28th May 1792 – ties it to the exact moment precision and a technical confidence which Similar in style to the present drawing, the Skirving was spending with Sir William Skirving refined for his grander portraits, ambitious sheet shows a husband and wife Forbes and his family and the subject demonstrating his skill and importance as a in profile with a frontal portrait of their is almost certainly Forbes’s eleven year neo-classical draughtsman in the 1790s. son, which demonstrates Skirving’s sympa- old daughter, Elizabeth. Shown standing thy and interest in children.5 The precise frontally, wrapped in a travelling cloak the

notes 1 For Skirving see: Stephen Lloyd, Raeburn’s Rival: Archibald Skirving 1749–1819, exh. cat., Edinburgh (Scottish National Portrait Gallery), 1999. 2 Francis Garden, Lord Gardenstone, Travelling Memorandums, Edinburgh, 1802, III, pp.152–3. 3 For Forbes see ed. John Ingamells, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701–1800, New Haven and London, 1997, pp.364–5. 4 See Stephen Lloyd, Raeburn’s Rival: Archibald Skirving 1749–1819, exh. cat., Edinburgh (Scottish National Portrait Gallery), 1999, pp.18–22. 5 Eds. Andrew Wilton and Ilaria Bignamini, Grand Tour: The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century, exh. cat., London (Tate Gallery), 1996, no.55, p.103. 6 See Stephen Lloyd, Raeburn’s Rival: Archibald Skirving 1749–1819, exh. cat., Edinburgh (Scottish National Portrait Gallery), 1999, pp.18–22. Archibald Skirving Henry Raeburn British Tourists in Rome, 1792 Elizabeth Forbes, Mrs Colin Mackenzie of Portmore, 1805 Pencil · 14 x 19 ½ inches · 356 x 495 mm Oil on canvas · 49 ¾ x 39 ½ inches · 1265 x 1004 mm Private collection, UK National Galleries of Scotland

[ 46 ] JOHN HOPPNER ra 1758–1810 A young girl

Black, red, and white chalk on blue paper the natural successor to Gainsborough and Paper in the manner of Gainsborough, with 16 ⅞ x 11 ⅛ inches · 429 x 282 mm Reynolds and was Lawrence’s only viable whose drawings He is passionately enamoured.’1 Drawn 1790s competitor in the 1790s. In common with a number of trois crayons Collections This rare and engaging figure drawing is studies he made at roughly the same date of Private collection, UK, to 2015. particularly fine example of Hoppner’s work women in large hats, the present sheet seems as a draughtsman. Executed in black, red and unlikely to have been conceived specifically Hoppner entered the Royal Academy white chalks on blue paper it was probably as a portrait, but rather to have served as Schools in 1775, winning a silver medal for made not as a preparation for a portrait, the model for an engraving. Hoppner’s drawing from life in 1778 and the gold medal but as a study in its own right, possibly for delicate drawing of his wife, Phoebe Hoppner, for historical painting of King Lear in 1781. a print which was never executed. Dating now in the British Museum, was engraved Hoppner married Phoebe Wright, the daugh- from the 1790s this drawing demonstrates by J. Kingsbury and entitled: Eliza from ter of the remarkable American wax sculptor Hoppner’s stylistic debt to Gainsborough; Yorrick.2 Engaging images of young children Patience Lovell Wright and the Hoppners the rapid use of chalks on blue paper recalls were becoming popular in the 1780s and initially took up residence in Mrs Wright’s Gainsborough’s figural studies of the 1790s thanks to the Fancy Pictures painted house and waxworks in Cockspur Street, 1760s. Hoppner knew Gainsborough and and exhibited by both Gainsborough and Westminster. Hoppner began exhibiting at consciously emulated his drawing style, in Reynolds. These works, frequently without the Royal Academy in 1780 and rapidly estab- 1803 Joseph Farington noted: specific narrative content, often showed lished himself as one of the most successful ‘Hoppner shewed me several sketches of young children, either as representatives of portraitist in London, positioning himself as Landscapes made with Black Chalk on White innocence or members of the idealised rural poor. The ambiguous meaning ascribed to Reynolds’s Fancy Pictures was largely the result of the haphazard manner of their conception; he drew the figure before ascrib- ing the meaning. Hoppner in common with Reynolds and Gainsborough seems likely to have drawn a rapid study of a young girl, which he could then title, possibly when the drawing was engraved.

notes 1 Eds. Kenneth Garlick and Angus Macintyre, The Diary of Joseph Farington, New Haven and London, 1979, VI, p.2147. For Hoppner’s relationship with Gainsborough see John Hayes, The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough, London, 1970, pp.79–80. 2 See eds. Stephen Lloyd and Kim Sloan, The Intimate Portrait: Drawings, Miniatures James Watson, after Sir Joshua Reynolds John Hoppner and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence, exh. cat., Miss Sarah Price, 1770 Phoebe Hoppner, the artist’s wife Edinburgh and London (National Galleries of Mezzotint · 14 ⅞ x 10 ⅞ inches · 378 x 278 mm Black and red chalk · 9 ⅞ x 7 ¾ inches · 250 x 198 mm Scotland and British Museum), 2008, no.94, © The Trustees of the British Museum © The Trustees of the British Museum p.146.

[ 48 ] JOHN RUSSELL RA 1745–1806 Thomas Wignell: the ‘Atlas of the American Theatre’

Pastel This compelling pastel portrait by John for his Company. At the beginning of the 24 ¼ x 18 ¼ inches · 615 x 465 mm Russell depicts Thomas Wignell (1753–1803), American War of Independence Hallam Signed and dated, top left: J. Russell, RA, one of the most significant figures of the and Wignell went to Jamaica, where they pt / 1792 in the original frame American theatre in the second half of performed with the American Company. Collections the eighteenth century. Wignell, after Wignell returned to the United States in 1785 The sitter; performing at the Covent Garden Theatre in where he is recorded performing the role of Anne Brunton Merry, widow of the above London, and later in Jamaica, worked in the Lewson in The Gamester and Squire Froom (d. 1808); newly independent United States at the John in Love à-La-Mode at the John Street Theatre Vincent Bendix (1881–1945) Chicago by 1932; Street Theatre in New York, before founding in New York. In the spring season of 1787 Bendix sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 29th the Chestnut Theatre in Philadelphia. He Wignell took a part in Royall Tyler’s The May 1942, lot 17; was described by contemporaries as ‘the Contrast.2 A romantic comedy of manners, Baron Jean Gerome Léon Cassel van Doorn, Atlas of the American Theatre’1 and as an The Contrast owes a debt to the plays of Englewood, New Jersey; actor-manager he is acknowledged to be one Richard Brinsley Sheridan, in it Tyler van Doorn sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, of the first great stars of the American stage. satirised an anglophile New York full of 6th March 1971, lot 107; Thomas Wignell was born into a theatri- fops. Central to the play are two homespun Private collection to 2015. cal family in London. His father worked New England patriots, the heroic republican Literature at the Covent Garden Theatre and it was Colonel Henry Manly and Manly’s excitable George C. Williamson, John Russell RA, there that Wignell first performed, playing manservant, Jonathan. The two characters 1894, p.131; Prince Arthur in Shakespeare’s King John. He are significant for establishing the Yankee Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim, became a member of Garrick’s Company stereotype in the American theatre. Jonathan Edward A. Langhans, A Biographical before travelling to North America in 1774 was played by Wignell and the popularity of Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, with his cousin, Lewis Hallam. Hallam had the character seems to have largely been the Dancers, Managers and other stage person- built the first theatre in New York in 1754 and result of his performance. A short, stocky, nel in London, 1660–1800, Southern Illinois had returned to London to recruit actors red haired man Wignell clearly stood out University Press, 1993, vol.16, p.59 (repr.); on the stage, and he took advantage of his Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before appearance in marketing himself. 1800, 2006, London, 2006, p.469. The Contrast’s most famous scene is a lengthy meta-theatrical joke in which Exhibited Jonathan decides to do some sightseeing London, Royal Academy, 1792, no.312. and stumbles, unintentionally, into a theatre where he witnesses a performance of John O’Keefe’s The Poor Soldier. The Poor Soldier contained Wignell’s other famous character part, ‘Darby’, of whom Jonathan later remarks: ‘I liked one little fellow … Why he had red hair and a little round plump face like mine only not altogether handsome. His name was – Darby; that was his baptising name; his other name I forgot. Oh! It was Wig – Wag – Wag-all, Darby Wag-all, – pray, do you know him?’3

[ 50 ] Thomas Sandby ra seat 2,000. Whilst the theatre was under Interior elevation of the entrance wall of the Ante- construction Wignell travelled to England Room, New Somerset House, showing arrangement to recruit players, musicians, and other of pictures of the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1792, personnel for his new venture. April 1792 Pen and wash on laid paper · 6 ½ x 8 ⅝ inches · 166 x 219 mm It was whilst in London, in 1792, that Given by Leverhulme Trust, 1936 Wignell sat to John Russell for the present Photo: © Royal Academy of Arts, London portrait. A commission which might have originated with John Inigo Richards. Russell had been elected a Royal Academician in 1788 and rapidly became a prolific Wignell thus simultaneously embodies exhibitor at the Academy, where Richards the republican patriot, the Yankee’s cowardly was Secretary. This was a significant Irish mirror image, and the metropolitan- role, Richards, a founder member of the born performer. The success of the perfor- Academy, had become Secretary in 1788, mance resulted in Tyler presenting Wignell it required him to live in apartments in with the copyright of the play. Wignell first the Academy’s new premises in Somerset published the play in Philadelphia in 1790, House. As Secretary he presided over the presenting George Washington with two entries to the annual exhibition and coordi- copies the same year. nated the hang. The American Company moved to It is fortunate that a detailed diagram Philadelphia permanently the same year, of the hang at Somerset House in 1792 however Wignell and Hallam quarrelled, survives, made by Thomas Sandby it shows William Russell Birch The late theatre in Chestnut Street, Philadelphia Destroy’d by Fire in 1820. apparently over who should visit Britain to Wignell’s portrait was placed in the Ante- Engraving · Library of Congress, Washington dc recruit new actors for the Company and as a Room on one side of the door to the Great result Wignell, supported by wealthy friends Room, a very prominent position.5 The year notes in Philadelphia, began the construction 1792 was a significant one for Russell, he Wignell turned to the left, looking out of 1 From a review of The Contrast in The New of the Chestnut Street Theatre. This new exhibited at the same time One of the Porters the composition, his mouth open, as if about York Daily Advertiser, quoted in Glenn Hughes, project is significant because it introduces an of the Royal Academy now in the Courtauld A History of the American Theatre 1700–1950, to speak. This dynamism is complimented important figure, Wignell’s brother-in-law, and a celebrated portrait of his neighbour, New York, 1951, p.54. by the fluid, energetic technique. the English landscape painter John Inigo the sculptor and Royal Academician John 2 Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim, Edward Wignell returned to America in 1792 A. Langhans, A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Richards. Richards had married Wignell’s Bacon, now in the Victoria and Albert taking with him the tragic actor James Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and other sister, Elizabeth Wignell in 1769, he was Museum.6 Russell’s portrait of Bacon was stage personnel in London, 1660–1800, Southern Fennell. In 1796 he brought Anne Brunton a Royal Academician and designed and described in the press as being: Illinois University Press, 1993, vol.16, p.61. Merry (who he was to marry in 1803) and painted backdrops for the London stage. ‘A very strong likeness … the frequenters of 3 Ed. Robert Allan Gates, 18th and 19th Century American Drama, New York, 1982, p.59. He was principal scene painter at Covent the Exhibition are so well acquainted with the Thomas Abthorpe Cooper over to work at the Chestnut Street Theatre. Wignell’s 4 Ed. Julia Swindells and David Francis Taylor, Garden from 1777 and designed a number of beauties of Mr Russel’s productions, that it is The Oxford Handbook of The Georgian Theatre: important, naturalistic sets for productions.4 sufficient to observe his Portraits, this year, are company prospered and he went on to open 1737–1832, Oxford, 2014, p.269. Wignell seems to have asked Richards to in the usual stile of excellence.’7 a theatre in Washington DC, the first dedicat- 5 See John Murdoch, ‘Architecture and provide plans for his new theatre, which Russell’s concentration on figures associ- ed theatre in the recently established capital. Experience: The Visitor and the Spaces of The present, exceptionally well preserved Somerset House, 1780–1796’ in ed. David H. was based upon Covent Garden and could ated with the Academy possibly prompted Solkin, Art on the Line: The Royal Academy John Inigo Richards to suggest he draw portrait is an important record of one of the Exhibitions at Somerset House 1780–1836, exh. cat. Wignell, who would have been a frequent pioneers of the American theatre. Wignell London (Courtauld Institute), 2002, pp.9–21. visitor to his apartments in Somerset was not only the first great character actor 6 For Russell see Neil Jeffares,Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, online edition. Royall Tyler House. Russell’s portrait of Bacon is close in America but a pioneering actor manager, The Contrast, Frontispiece and Title Page, 1790 7 Morning Herald, 1792, quoted in Neil Jeffares, John Hay Library, Brown University Library, Providence, both stylistically and compositionally to bringing an important generation of Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, online Rhode Island his portrait of Wignell. Russell has shown performers to the new nation. edition.

[ 52 ] [ 53 ] CATHERINE ANDRAS 1775–1860 Mrs Rose Bruce of Dublin

Wax, set in the original shadow box Catherine Andras was one of the most was Rose Bruce, ‘widow of Samuel Bruce, Figure: 7⅛ inches x 180 mm high celebrated wax sculptors of the early nine- Minister of Shand Street Meeting House in Box:13 x 11 x 4 ¾ inches · 330 x 279 x 121 mm teenth century, her full-sized effigy of Nelson, Dublin’, as the contemporary inscription on With an extensive inscription of 1807 by the now in Westminster Abbey, is one of the most the reverse of the case reports. Bruce was sitter’s son, Robert Bruce, including: This important sculptures in the medium made staying in Bristol with her son Robert Bruce, effigy was model’d from the life in 1799 while during the period. The present meticulously who is listed as a member of the Merchant she was on a visit to her Son, Robert in Bristol, modelled sculpture is one of Andras’s earliest Adventurers and recorded importing clover by Catherine Andrews, now of London. Robert waxes and is unusually well documented by seed and other goods from Dublin. The Bruce 1807. an inscription (now attached to the backboard) inscription continues that Bruce was an: Sculpted 1799 made by the sitter’s son giving details of Rose ‘exemplary woman, left a widow when little Collections Bruce’s biography and the circumstances of more than 38 years of age, with 5 Sons and Two Robert Bruce, Bristol, 1800; the commission. Daughters, the eldest not having attained his Private collection to 2015. Catherine Andras was born in Bristol and 14th year, devoted herself to the welfare, and worked in a local toy shop where her skills for by unexampled economy ability and firmness Exhibited creating wax models, following an introduc- inspired by the tenderest maternal affection, Possibly, London, Royal Academy, 1800, tion to the established portrait miniature obtained her great object of giving the most no.805, (‘A lady in wax’) painter Robert Bowyer she began working in liberal education and some accomplishments to London under the latter’s guidance. Bowyer all her children, except the youngest Son, who was a highly reputed artist and in 1789, on died an infant, fitted her Sons to fill respectable the death of Jeremiah Meyer, was appointed situations in life, instilling into them principals Miniature Painter in Ordinary to the King of honour and religion, that assisted them to which helped him secure the patronage maintain the stations they obtained, without of numerous aristocratic figures including reproach. The whole income with which she Nelson. It would have been as a result of her managed to effect these objects, being consider- affiliation with Bowyer that in 1800 Andras ably under £300 p ann: and without assistance was commissioned to model from life Princess either pecuniary or otherwise. Her eldest Son, Charlotte then aged five, and, later in the year, Michael, died 31st Dec: 1778, a Merchant. Her Nelson for the first time. Nelson sat for Andras surviving issue are William, a D.D. Principal whilst he was in London on eight week leave of the Belfast Academy, an eminent Minister prior to his departure for the Baltic campaign of the Gospel. Robert, established in Bristol, as on 13th January 1801. Andras was awarded the a Merchant, 30th Oct: 1782 Samuel, a Stock & Greater Silver Pallet by the Royal Society of Insurance Broker in Dublin in 1780 Elizabeth, Arts in 1801 and later in the year her wax of who lived in their Brothers house in Dublin Nelson was exhibited at the Royal Academy. un-married, & Mary where they have resided in This small, exquisitely rendered wax sculp- ease and comfort with their venerable Mother, ture was made at the beginning of Andras’s since 1796, and when she died in peace and career, whilst she was still based in Bristol honour on the 9th of Dec: 1806 in her 79th year. modelling for a toyshop. Andras has depicted She was the eldest Daughter of Robert Rainey the sitter seated, a fictive chair painted on the of Maghera Co, Antrim, born 11th July 1728, backboard, the folds of her costume meticu- married in 1751 – her husband was born 17th lously described and rendered. The sitter march 1722 and died 12th Feb: 1767.’

[ 54 ] ADAM BUCK 1759–1833 Three young women

Watercolour subscription 100 engravings from paintings on 21¾ x 18 inches · 554 x 458 mm Greek vases which have never been published, Signed and dated 1811 drawn and etched by Adam Buck from private Collections collections now in England. The publica- Antony Cleminson, to 2014. tion was intended as a continuation of Sir William Hamilton’s Collection of Engravings This elegant portrait group is a fine example from Ancient Vases (1791–7). Buck painted of Adam Buck’s work, displaying a refined a fine self-portrait with his family in 1813, neo-classicism which places him amongst which is now in the Yale Center for British European practitioners such as Christian Art, including nine of the Greek vases Købke and François-Xavier Fabre. Born and he planned to engrave. Long thought to trained in Dublin, Buck practiced first as a depict the collector and pioneering designer miniaturist before moving to London in 1795 Thomas Hope and his family, Ian Jenkins where he worked for a fashionable clientele, established the identities of the sitters in 1988 which included George IV and the Duke of re-establishing Buck as one of the pioneers York. His elegant and spare portrait drawings of neo-Greek taste in the first quarter of the were in great demand and he was a prolific nineteenth-century.2 exhibitor at the Royal Academy between This charming portrait is entirely typical 1795 and 1833. As well as portraiture, Buck of the best of Buck’s mature portraits. Adam Buck The Artist with his children also produced a large number of fashion The three sitters are music making and the Watercolour and pencil with gum and scraping out on board · 17 ½ x 16 ½ inches · 445 x 419 mm plates, decorative compositions of loosely combination of harp and harpsichord neatly Signed and dated 1813 allegorical subject-matter, such as Faith, evokes their accomplishments. Small details Yale Center for British Art, New Haven Paul Mellon Hope and Charity. His subsequent reputa- point to Buck’s interest in the antique, one Collection tion has largely rested on the proliferation of the women is seated on a modish klismos of these prints and their use as designs in fan chair, a similar chair is present in a number and on transfer-printed porcelain. But Buck of Buck’s portraits of the period.3 The stark, was a committed and intelligent interpreter unadorned interior is entirely typical of of ancient Greek forms, something apparent Buck’s portraiture, as is the small injection in the strength of design in his portrait of of colour and individuality in the form of Three Young Women. the pink chair cover, framing curtain and The seriousness with which he engaged supine dog. There are obvious compositional with the antique led Anthony Pasquin to similarities with Buck’s most important notes observe: ‘he appears to study the antique works such as his Self-Portrait at Yale; Buck 1 A. Pasquin, An Authentic history of the professors more rigorously than any of our emerging uses an identical geometric floor to render of painting, sculpture, and architecture who have practiced in Ireland … to which are added, artists and by that means he will imbibe a the figures in space. Buck’s continuing inter- Memoirs of the royal academicians, 1796, p.41. chastity of thinking, which may eventually est in the power of Attic decoration is seen 2 Ian Jenkin, ‘Adam Buck and the Vogue for lead him to the personification of apparent in the poses of the sitters themselves, which Greek Vases’, The Burlington Magazine, vol.130, beauty.’1 In London he not only studied and recall the emphatic outlines of Greek vase no.1023, June, 1988, p.448–457. 3 For Buck’s portraiture at this period see Peter collected the newly fashionable Greek vases, decoration. With its, economy of form this Darvall, A Regency Buck: Adam Buck (1759–1833), in 1811 he published a prospectus for a book is an elegant and impressive essay in Buck’s exh. cat., Oxford (Ashmolean Museum), 2015, on vase painting: Proposals for publishing by neo-classical portraiture. pp.79–83.

[ 56 ] JAMES JEFFERYS 1751–1784 An Incantation

Pen and black ink over pencil This remarkable drawing is one of the of the works formerly contained in the 7 ⅜ x 9 ¼ inches · 188 x 235 mm boldest and most impressive compositions Roland, Browse and Delbanco album with Drawn 1779 from an album made in Rome in the late the surviving documented drawings of the Collections 1770s. The album has stimulated periodic British history painter, James Jefferys.1 Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London, debate amongst scholars over the last forty Born in Maidstone, the son of a 1949; years but the majority of sheets are now portraitist and coach builder, James Sidney Sabin Ltd, London, by 1976; securely attributed to James Jefferys.An Jefferys was apprenticed to the celebrated Nancy and William Pressly, USA, acquired Incantation is one of Jefferys’ most stark London line engraver William Woollett from the above in 1976, to 2015. and impressive compositions, depicting in 1771 and attended classes at the Royal grotesque figures engaged in some form of Academy Schools between 1772 and 1775. Literature witchcraft. The motif of the supernatural At Woollett’s studio he met the historical Nancy L. Pressly, The Fuseli Circle in Rome; was central to the fantastical drawings of painter, draftsman, and print maker John Early Romantic Art of the 1770s, exh. cat., Henry Fuseli and his circle made in the Hamilton Mortimer, who would become New Haven (Yale Center for British Art), cultural melting-pot of Rome. Jefferys’ an important role model. Jefferys exhibited 1979, no.94, pp. 94–95. was undoubtedly aware of treatments of historical drawings at the Royal Academy Exhibited similar subject-matter by his contemporar- and the Society of Arts and in 1774 was London, Roland, Browse and Delbanco, ies. In its bold linearity, outstanding state of awarded the Society’s gold palette for 1949; preservation and remarkable composition, his drawing, Deluge. The following year, New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, this drawing encapsulates Jefferys work and Jefferys won one of the first travelling The Fuseli Circle in Rome; Early Romantic Art a peculiarly fertile moment of European scholarships awarded by the Society of of the 1770s, no.94. art which saw the neoclassicism of Mengs Dilettanti, which enabled him to study in metamorphose into the restless harbinger Rome for three years. Soon after Jefferys of William Blake’s romanticism. arrival in Rome, on 7 October 1775, the This drawing was part of an album of painter and art dealer Alexander Day drawings initially attributed to an unknown mentioned in a letter to Ozias Humphry hand who was dramatically christened by that he had seen a drawing by the young Roland, Browse and Delbanco ‘The Master artist, which ‘had infinite merit.’ Jefferys of the Giants’ on account of the colossal, name appears sporadically in the standard heroic figures with attenuated limbs which Grand Tour sources, for example, he was characterise the majority of the sheets. listed as an ‘Old London Acquaintance’ by Comprising some twenty large sheets and Thomas Jones, who met him in the Caffè a similar number of smaller sheets, they degli Inglese in November 1776. As William were first exhibited in London in 1949. Pressly has pointed out ‘Jefferys’ mental Clearly made in Rome and demonstrat- state may well have been precarious.’2 In ing a close interest in sculpture as well as 1779 Elizabeth Banks, wife of the sculptor, Italian printmaking, they were identified Thomas Banks recorded an anecdote of as having emanated from the international Jefferys’ extreme behaviour. Jefferys and the circle of artists who worked close to the Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel had James Jefferys Swiss painter Henry Fuseli. It was Nancy been in competition for the same woman, Incantation scene (recto), 1779 Pen and black ink · 7 ½ x 9 ¼ inches · 191 x 235 mm Pressly – the previous owner of this sheet Jefferys followed her and confronted her Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester – who first noted the similarity of some in the street: ‘having a brace of Pistols in

[ 58 ] James Jefferys his pocket, he gave her one, & after some made into a number of popular engravings. notes Apollo and Daphne altercation, told her she must kill him, or he The vocabulary of cloaked figure, flaming 1 Nancy L Pressly, ‘James Jefferys and the Pen and black ink with grey washes and pencil ‘Master of the Giants’, Burlington Magazine, x x would her.’3 burner on an animal-headed tripod, billow- 14 ⅛ 21 inches · 359 533 mm vol.119, no.889, April 1977, p.280, 282–285. Dated ‘June 79’ Jefferys’ surviving Roman drawings show ing smoke, screaming hag and prostrate 2 William L. Pressly, The Artist as Original Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection a similar volatility. Whilst highly indebted to male figure found in Rosa’s composition, Genius: Shakespeare’s ‘Fine Frenzy’ in late Henry Fuseli, the sheets from the Roland, all reappear in Mortimer’s Sextus Pompeius eighteenth-century British art, Delaware, 2007, Browse and Delbanco album are, as William and Jefferys’ drawing. William Pressly has p.112. Pressly has noted: ‘extreme in their distor- identified many of the subjects depicted in 3 Elizabeth Banks to Ozias Humphry, March 18 1779, quoted in: William L. Pressly, The Artist tions, going beyond even Fuseli’s boldest the Roland, Browse and Delbanco album as Original Genius: Shakespeare’s ‘Fine Frenzy’ work.’4 Fuseli had arrived in Rome in 1770 as being Shakespearean in origin.5 But in late eighteenth-century British art, Delaware, and shortly afterwards he began to produce whilst Macbeth and the Witches was a subject 2007, p.112. highly inventive interpretations of literary explored by artists such as Alexander 4 William L. Pressly, The Artist as Original Genius: Shakespeare’s ‘Fine Frenzy’ in late subjects, particularly Shakespearean. Along Runciman, the iconography does not fit eighteenth-century British art, Delaware, 2007, with the sculptors Sergel and Banks, Fuseli the present sheet. It seems more likely to p.112. found in the prescribed diet of Raphael illustrate a generic Incantation rather than a 5 William L. Pressly, The Artist as Original and Michelangelo, not classical harmony specific literary text. Genius: Shakespeare’s ‘Fine Frenzy’ in late but vast, swollen heroic bodies engaged Exquisitely wrought in black ink, the eighteenth-century British art, Delaware, 2007, p.112. in violent actions, ingredients he recast to drawing shows Jefferys versatility as a form a distinctive visual language. It was draughtsman. The restless and disturbing a language developed and embellished by composition shows the boldly foreshort- Jefferys: a language perfectly illustrated by ened central figure recoiling at the ghostly John Dixon, after John Hamilton An Incantation. apparition; the supporting figures are Mortimer The sheet shows four male figures modelled with distinctive parallel ink An Incantation, 1773 arranged around a tripod which emits a lines. Many of his surviving Roman sheets Mezzotint · 23 ¾ x 19 inches · 604 x 481 mm flame and the screaming head of a woman. rely on areas of black wash to model the © The Trustees of the British Museum Incantations were an important subject- figures, in the present sheet, by contrast, Jean Audran and Andrew Lawrence, matter for artists in the period and interest closely hatched black lines create areas after Salvator Rosa in the supernatural in literature was a of shadow in a technique reminiscent of Saul and witch of Endor, 1730–54 major component in the works of artists printmaking. It is possible that Jefferys Etching from Fuseli to Blake. Even before travelling was deliberately evoking the early Italian 18 ½ x 11 ¾ inches · 471 x 298 mm © The Trustees of the British Museum to Rome Jefferys would have known John woodcuts of the Pollaiolo and Mantegna. Hamilton Mortimer’s painting of the subject It was a technique Jefferys specifically used exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1770 and for scenes of Incantation. A drawing in published as a mezzotint by John Dixon in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester 1773. Mortimer also produced an engraving by Jefferys shows an identical technique of: Sextus Pompeius Applying to Erictho to Know and may be considered a pendant to the Fate of the Battle of Pharsalia a similar the present, identically sized sheet. The composition. Both these pictures are indebt- drawing seems to show the same cast of ed to Salvator Rosa’s Saul and the Witch of characters and may ultimately hold the Endor a painting which was accessible in answer to the obscure iconography of the Britain during the eighteenth century and present drawing.

[ 61 ] JAMES JEFFERYS 1751–1784 The Three Ages of Man

Pen and black ink over pencil The present sheet is one of a number 5 ⅞ x 8 ¼ inches · 149 x 209 mm of smaller sheets from the album. The Drawn 1779 technique is typical of Jefferys at this period. Collections His pen and ink drawings tend to be richly Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London, hatched with short pen lines, the forms 1949; described in a calligraphic mesh, with only Nancy and William Pressly, USA, to 2015. the major areas of shadow being worked in wash.2 The subject-matter is less easily This small, intense drawing, was made by categorised. It seems likely that the sheet James Jefferys in 1779 and formed part of an depicts the three ages of man. The figure album of drawings which was exhibited by on the left, reminiscent of figures from Roland, Browse and Delbanco in London Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, represents old in 1949, which is more fully discussed in the age; the lovers in the centre of the composi- previous entry. The drawings were made in tion represent maturity and the baby on Rome and form one of the most fascinating the left, childhood. The theme is one that expressions of European Neoclassicism. would have been familiar to Jefferys from a Drawn in the international environment number of famous visual sources, including of Grand Tour Italy, Jefferys’ compositions Titian’s great painting of the same title now James Jefferys Detail from a double-sided sheet show evidence of a range of sources both in Edinburgh, which Jefferys could have showing Studies of figures wrestling and embracing, 1779 Pen and ink and wash · 13 ¾ x 22 inches · 350 x 560 mm artistic and literary. seen in Paris. The literary source may have Metropolitan Museum of Art In 1774 Jefferys and the sculptor Charles been any number of classical or medieval (formerly with Lowell Libson Ltd) Banks (brother of Thomas Banks) were put texts, but could possibly be Shakespeare. forward by Sir Joshua Reynolds for the travel William Pressly has observed that a number scholarships offered to two students of the of the more obscure sheets from the Roland, Royal Academy by the Society of Dilettanti. Browse and Delbanco album are in fact In the event the society sent only Jefferys, illustrations to Shakespeare.3 Coming in together with an artist of their own choice, a passage from As You Like It, the speech William Pars. Jefferys left England in July describes seven ages of man, but may well notes 1775, and arrived in Rome on 7 October. be the source for Jefferys’ iconography, 1 Nancy L Pressly, ‘James Jefferys and the He is not known to have produced finished particularly the: ‘lover, Sighing like furnace, ‘Master of the Giants’, Burlington Magazine, paintings during his time abroad, but his with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ vol.119, no.889, April 1977, p.280, 282–285. drawings of often violent classical scenes eyebrow.’ The sheet is close in technique and 2 See Nancy L. Pressly, The Fuseli Circle in Rome: were seen and admired by fellow artists. form to a larger double-sided sheet from the Early Romantic Art of the 1770s, exh. cat., New Haven (Yale Center for British Art), 1979, Their emphatically linear style and heroic same album which showed both lovers and pp.90–94. conception show a continuing debt to the wrestlers, now in the Metropolitan Museum 3 William L. Pressly, The Artist as Original example of Mortimer and the draughtsman- of Art, New York. These drawings are now Genius: Shakespeare’s ‘Fine Frenzy’ in late ship of James Barry. Nancy Pressly was the recognized as exemplary of the violently eighteenth-century British art, Delaware, 2007, first to identify Jefferys as the ‘Master of the imaginative mannerism typical of a group p.112–132. 4 See the ground breaking exhibition: Nancy Giants’, the artist responsible for a group of of European artists working in Rome in the L. Pressly, The Fuseli Circle in Rome: Early magnificently claustrophobic and concen- 1770s which included: Henry Fuseli, Johan Romantic Art of the 1770s, exh. cat., New Haven trated figure studies, some dated 1779.1 Tobias Sergel and Nicolai Abildgaard.4 (Yale Center for British Art), 1979.

[ 62 ] EDWARD BURCH After Michael Henry Spang 1730–1814 Écorché figure

Bronze This bronze statuette became the essential 9 ⅜ inches · 238 mm high, excluding the base apparatus for artists in the eighteenth Cast c.1767 ­century and as Joseph Nollekens noted it Collections was: ‘so well known to every draughts- Possibly, George Greville, 2nd Earl of man who assiduously studies his art.’1 It Warwick, (1746–1816); is a reduced model of the great anatomist Francis, 5th Earl of Warwick, Warwick William Hunter’s first plaster écorché, which Castle, by 1900 (listed in the 1900 Heirlooms he cast from a dead criminal for teaching at schedule as in the Armoury Passage as: the Society of Artists in about 1750. Cast by ‘Antique bronze of skeleton’); the gem engraver, Edward Burch, this statu- Guy, 9th Earl of Warwick, sale, Sotheby’s, ette was made from a wax model commis- Syon Park, 14 May 1997, lot 9; sioned by Hunter from the Anglo-Danish Private collection, UK. sculptor Michael Henry Spang which had been exhibited at the Society of Arts in 1761. William Hunter was the most significant anatomist in eighteenth-century London. From the 1750s Hunter was associated with the teaching of anatomy to artists and became the Royal Academy’s first professor of anatomy in 1768. Hunter’s first docu- mented écorché was made for the Society of Arts.2 William Hunter’s brother, John, recalled the circumstances of its production: ‘About this time he read lectures on Anatomy to the Incorporated Society of Painters at their rooms in St Martin’s Lane, upon a subject executed at Tyburn. His brother who had the management of the dissections had eight men at once from Tyburn in the month of April. The Society was acquainted with it and they desired to come and chuse the best subject for such a purpose. When they had fix’d upon one, he was immediately sent to their apartments. As all this was done in a few hours after death, and as they had not become stif, Dr Hunter conceived he might first be put into an attitude and allowed to stiffen it, which was done, and when he became sitf we all set to work by the next morning we Michael Henry Spang Anatomical figure had the external muscles all well exposed ready Wax, on wooden support and base Height: 9 ⅞ inches · 250mm for making a mold from him, the cast of which is © The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2015 now in the Royal Academy.’3

[ 64 ] The cast remained at the Royal Academy in 1811 Abraham Ross praised Dr Hunter’s for most of the eighteenth century and écorché figure for ‘every attention’ having appears in Zoffany’s two paintings of the been paid ‘both by him and the artists who Academy.4 Hunter appreciated the impor- assisted in placing the figure in a graceful tance of producing a reduced replica of the attitude.’ Ross concluded by noting that: ‘Mr écorché figure for easier use by artists. He Sprong, made a small model of this figure, commissioned the Danish sculptor, Michael the bronze casts of which, for their size are Henry Spang, to make a reduced wax model excellent.’8A number of examples survive in which was exhibited at the Society of Arts museum collections including the Hunterian in 1761. The wax model survives in Hunter’s in Glasgow, Victoria & Albert Museum and collection at Glasgow University. Spang died British Museum. in 1767 and Hunter turned to other sculptors This statuette was one of the most to cast bronzes from his model. Albert Pars important and widely celebrated écorché was awarded a premium for a ‘Cast of an models produced during the eighteenth Anatomy figure, after Spang’ in 1767 by the century. Made under the supervision of Dr Society of Artists. But the present bronze is William Hunter, it is an important work by the gem engraver Edward Burch. Martin in the evolution of art teaching in Britain. Kemp suggests that Burch exhibited his Finely executed, this bronze cast is by one of bronze version at the Royal Academy in 1775 the leading gem-engravers and sculptors of Mason Chamberlin, RA as two casts: ‘from a wax model.’5 Burch had late eighteenth-century, Edward Burch. Dr William Hunter, 1769 a long standing relationship with Hunter. In Oil on canvas · 50 x 40 inches 1270 x 1016 mm Photo: © Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1774 Hunter commissioned a medal portrait notes Photographer: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd of himself from Burch. After Hunter’s 1 J. T. Smith, Nollekens and His Times, London, death Burch noted in the introduction to 1828, p.273. his Catalogue of one hundred proofs from gems: 2 Eds. E. Geoffrey Hancock, Nick Pearce and Mungo Campbell, William Hunter’s World: ‘Gratitude will not permit me to suffer the The Art and Science of Eighteenth-Century friendship and benefit I have received from Collecting, Ashgate, 2015. my late worthy friend, Dr Hunter, to pass 3 Quoted in Martin Postle, ‘Flayed for art: unnoticed. It is to this gentleman I princi- écorché figure in the English art academy’, The British Art Journal, 5, no.1., 2004, p.57. pally owe my practice of studying all my 4 See Ed. Martin Postle, Johan Zoffany RA: Society specimens anatomically.’6 Observed, New Haven and London, 2011, The finished models were hugely popular. pp.222–223. Hunter was immensely proud of the 5 See Martin Kemp, ‘Review: Bicentenary sculpture and is shown holding a version Celebrations of Dr William Hunter (1718– 1983)’, The Burlington Magazine, 125, no.963, in his portrait by Mason Chamberlin in the 1983, p.383. Royal Academy. Thomas Paine the younger 6 Edward Burch, A Catalogue of one hundred proofs recorded that he carried with him on his from gems, London, 1795, p.xiii. journey to Italy in 1768: ‘a little Anatomycal 7 The painting had traditionally been called Robert, 9th Baron Petre and his son, but figure in bronze, by Spang, from a model Alex Kidson has argued that it is possibly an he made in wax …’, and he reported that idealised self-portrait with his younger brother it was: ‘much admired at Paris, Rome etc. Peter. Alex Kidson, George Romney: A Complete for its excellence, and portability.’ George Catalogue of his Paintings, New Haven and Romney made a number of studies from his London, 2015, III, pp.809–9. George Romney 8 See Martin Kemp, ‘Review: Bicentenary bronze écorché and included it in a remark- The Anatomy Lesson Celebrations of Dr William Hunter (1718– Oil on canvas · 23 ⅝ x 24 ⅞ inches · 760 x 632 mm able double-portrait at McMaster Museum 1983)’, The Burlington Magazine, 125, no.963, McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Ontario, Levy of Art entitled: The Anatomy Lesson.7 Writing 1983, p.383. Bequest Purchase

[ 66 ] [ 67 ] RICHARD COSWAY ra 1742–1821 A seated muse

Pen and ink on the artist’s original mount Romano, producing a seated classical figure. Image: 4 ⅝ x 7 ¼ inches · 118 x 186 mm The seated pose, with hand raised recalls Signed and inscribed: Ricdus Cosway. R.A. et the figure of Sappho in Raphael’s fresco of Primarius Pictor Serenifisimi Walliae Principis. Parnassus from the Stanza della Segnatura, Delint as well as the seated figure ofJurisprudence Drawn c.1790 from the same scheme. Cosway never visited Collections Rome, but the sale of his collection demon- Maria Cosway (1760–1838), the artist’s wife; strates that he owned 44 sheets attributed By descent until sold, Christie’s, 1st June, to ‘Raphael & School’ and a further 26 1896, lot. 147; called ‘Giulio Romano’. Stephen Lloyd has Reginald Humphris; pointed out that the portfolios of Cosway’s And by descent to 2015. own drawings were intended to be seen – by himself and his close artist and collector Richard Cosway Study of drapery friends – in concert with his famous collec- Pen and brown ink over pencil · 4 ⅞ x 6 ⅞ inches · 124 x 174 mm tion of old master drawings.1 Certainly this © The Trustees of the British Museum was how the two collections of drawings This exceptionally refined pen and ink were appreciated by Sir Thomas Lawrence. saw so beautiful & new a Style, All Coreggio’s, drawing was made by the portrait painter, After seeing these works in 1811, Lawrence Parmigiano’s grave with MichelAngiolo[‘s] miniaturist and collector Richard Cosway in wrote revealingly to his friend the artist knowledge. Poor Mr Cosway! how happy and about 1790. Loosely based on Renaissance Joseph Farington, reappraising Cosway: gratified I feel to make his great talent known precedents, the drawing perfectly distils ‘What are Mr. Phillips, and Mr Owen, and Sir where the fine Arts had their birth.’3 Cosway’s twin interests as an art collector William Beechey, and Mr Shee’s in mere colour- In the end most of Cosway’s subject and painter. Made after 1785 when George, ing, when compar’d to the knowledge – the famil- drawings, such as the present example, Prince of Wales allowed Cosway to sign iar acquaintance with, study; and often happy remained with Maria Cosway. A number his work with the extravagant Latin title appropriation and even liberal imitation of the appeared at auction in 1896, including the Primarius pictor serenissimi Walliae principis Old Masters, the fix’d Landmark of Art, of this present sheet, whilst a substantial body of (‘Principal painter to his royal highness the little Being which we have been accustom’d never designs remain in Maria Cosway’s educa- prince of Wales’), this drawing is typical of to think or speak of but with contempt?’2 tional foundation at Lodi. the beautifully rendered drawings he was The present drawing was possibly making in the manner of old master draw- designed to be engraved. A number of ings in his later years. Cosway’s ink drawings were made into notes Whilst Cosway is most celebrated as a prints around 1800, but many also remained 1 Stephen Lloyd, Richard & Maria Cosway: portraitist, he was also an influential collec- with Maria Cosway after the artist’s death in Regency Artists of Taste and Fashion, exh. cat., Edinburgh (Scottish National Portrait tor, amassing a major group of old master 1821. Conscious of preserving and promoting Gallery), 1995, p.81. paintings and drawings. He also advised his her husband’s posthumous reputation, Maria 2 Quoted in: Stephen Lloyd, Richard & Maria major patron, George, Prince of Wales, later Cosway wrote to a friend from Paris in 1822: Cosway: Regency Artists of Taste and Fashion, George IV, on his acquisitions. Cosway’s ‘I had the pleasure of showing Mr Cosway’s exh. cat., Edinburgh (Scottish National Portrait collection of old master drawings became Drawings to the few artists & connoisseurs who Gallery), 1995, p.80. 3 Quoted in: Stephen Lloyd, Richard & Maria increasingly important as a source of inspira- remained in Town. At Turin, Milan, Parma &c Cosway: Regency Artists of Taste and Fashion, tion for his work. In this sheet Cosway has … they have been very much admired to a degree exh. cat., Edinburgh (Scottish National Portrait drawn on his interest in Raphael and Giulio of Astonishment, they all say that they never Gallery), 1995, p.82.

[ 68 ] BENJAMIN WEST pra 1738–1820 Daniel in the Lion’s Den

Chalk and ink on paper This unusually carefully finished drawing From 1779 to 1801 West was engaged in 8 ¾ x 7 ¼ inches · 223 x 186 mm by Benjamin West relates to the painting decorative schemes at Windsor Castle which Signed and dated: B. West 98 he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799: were part of a renovation to make Windsor Collections A Head Representing Daniel in the Lion’s Den the chief royal residence. In the most ambi- Iolo Williams until 1962; (571). The composition was engraved by R. tious undertaking of his life, West eventually Private collection, USA to 2015. Hunt and also published in 1799 and this completed eighteen large canvases for the beautifully executed drawing may well have royal chapel at Windsor on the biblical Literature served as the model for Hunt’s engraving. theme of revealed religion. It is because of Helmut von Erffa and Allen Staley, Drawn with brown ink on buff coloured the royal chapel and a second commission The Paintings of Benjamin West, New Haven paper, the figure of Daniel is boldly in 1796 (also never completed) from the and London, under no.289, p.320. modelled in wash, the highlights picked writer and art collector William Beckford to Engraved out in white gouache. This was a technique provide scenes from the book of Revelation Subject engraved by R. Hunt, published 1799 West frequently adopted and one described for Fonthill Abbey, Wiltshire, that West as: ‘Daniel in the Lion’s Den.’ by his friend, the diarist, Joseph Farington. became known as the premier painter of Writing about a visit to West’s studio, religious subjects in England. West’s late oil Farington noticed West adding highlights sketches were often justifiably preferred to to a completed drawing: ‘West in His little the resultant large-scale works which, espe- room. He was touching, with White Chalk, cially during the 1790s, were rather strongly upon His design of ‘the discovery of the outlined for the benefit of engravers. Daniel virtues of the Bath waters by King Bladud’ in the Lion’s Den fits into this group of biblical … His power seeming in no respect to have subjects, made for exhibition at the Royal diminished.’1 Academy and subsequent publication. The Benjamin West was one of the preemi- present drawing, with its bold articulation nent history painters of the second half of lights and dark and explicit indication of the eighteenth century, he was born of highlights may well have been made in in Pennsylvania, the tenth and youngest preparation for the engraving rather than child of John West an innkeeper. West the painting. Given its clear and distinctive travelled to Rome in 1760 where he met an signature, the drawing may in fact have been international circle of painters including made for Hunt from which to produce his Anton Raphael Mengs and Gavin Hamilton. stipple engraving. Following Mengs’s advice, he copied antique sculptures before touring in northern Italy further completing his artistic education by copying old master paintings. West arrived in London in 1763 and rapidly made his reputation as both a portraitist and history painter. West was to enjoy royal favour becoming Historical Painter to the King in note R. Hunt, after Benjamin West 1772, Surveyor of the King’s Pictures in 1791, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, 1799 1 Ed. Kathryn Cave, The Diary of Joseph Stipple engraving · 10 x 6 ½ inches · 253 x 167 mm and second President of the Royal Academy Farington, New Haven and London, 1982, © The Trustees of the British Museum in 1792, after the death of Joshua Reynolds. p.3144.

[ 70 ] MATTHEW COTES WYATT 1777–1862 The design for the ceiling of the King’s Closet at Windsor Castle

Ink and wash with white heightening appointed, to the exculsion of Artists of known George defeating the dragon, being crowned 16 x 10 ¾ inches; 405 x 276 mm ability.’1 with laurels by trumpeting Fame, is presented Drawn 1807 Wyatt himself visited Farington in 1812 as a quadro riportato panel being supported by Collections when he was a candidate to be elected a boarder of ignudi. The ignudi, which recall The Fine Art Society, 1972; an Associate Academician at the Royal Annibale Carracci’s figures from the ceiling Reginald Humphris, acquired from the Academy. He stated: of the Galleria Farnese, also support medal- above; ‘that for Seven years past He had been employed lions depicting ancillary episodes from the By descent to 2015. in painting ceilings at Windsor Castle having life of St George. The brown wash drawing been appointed by the King’s command. The demonstrates Wyatt’s debt to contemporary This important design was completed by King, He sd. at the same [time] discriminated designers such as John Flaxman and Thomas Matthew Cotes Wyatt in preparation for between Him and Rigaud. To the latter He Stothard. Wyatt was paid £787 10s for his the painted ceiling he was commissioned assigned the painting a part of [the] ceiling of work in the King’s Closet and a surviving to execute in the King’s Closet at Windsor which the other part was painted by Verrio. “To view of the room from W.H. Pye’s The Castle for George III in 1807. This study is match that suitably will be proper to Rigaud who History of the Royal Residences shows how the only surviving drawing related to the has much experience in manners of painting; richly coloured and gilded the scheme was. commission. Wyatt’s finished scheme was you on the contrary not having such experience Wyatt’s frieze of ignudi were against a gilt removed by William IV in the early 1830s, it will be best employed in inventing & painting background.3 The decoration was short lived is therefore also the most complete evidence in such manner as you are best prepared for.” as it was removed by William IV in the 1830s. of the ceiling as it was executed. This being [so] M. Wyatt began and said He had Matthew Cotes Wyatt was the son of completed the whole of the ceilings except one notes James Wyatt, the architect, he studied at the of an apartment which is over that in which the 1 Ed. Kathryn Cave, The Diary of Joseph Farington, Royal Academy Schools from 1800. It was King now lives.’2 New Haven and London, 1982, X, p.3695. 2 Kathryn Cave, The Diary of Joseph Farington, under his father’s influence that he received The present drawing was made by Wyatt New Haven and London, 1983, p.4247. significant commissions for decorative paint- in 1807 for the ceiling of the King’s Closet. 3 See Edward Croft-Murray, Decorative Painting in ing, the first of which was the ceiling of the The King’s Closet lies at the western end England 1537–1837, London, 1970, II, p.295. Concert Room in Hanover Square, London, of the King’s State Apartment, rebuilt by in 1803. In 1805 he began work restoring and Hugh May for Charles II in 1675–8 as part extending Antonio Verrio’s ceilings in the of the overall modernisation of Windsor. remodelled state rooms at Windsor Castle The ceiling of the King’s Closet was for George III. He became a favourite of the originally painted with scenes of Jupiter king and queen but aroused the jealousy of and Leda. When George III embarked on other painters. The painter and diarist Joseph a programme of modernisation of the Farington recorded the surprise of the State Apartments in the early nineteenth landscape painter and Academician Francis century under the direction of James Wyatt, Bourgeois at the commission: the Closet was enlarged by the addition of ‘Now said Bourgeois Wyatt’s conduct since has an ante-room to the south and Wyatt was been this. In the alterations which have been commissioned to paint a ceiling depicting St made in Windsor Castle, ceilings were to be George and the Dragon. painted. The History of St. George occupied The design demonstrates Wyatt’s sympa- William James Bennett, after Charles Wild one of them. For this purpose He and His son thy with the surviving Baroque interiors at The King’s Closet, Windsor Castle from ‘Royal Residences’, Matthew Wyatt, a young inexperienced artist Windsor. The central allegorical scene of St Published by William Henry Pyne, 1816 · Private collection

[ 72 ] BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON 1786–1846 Study for the head of Uriel

Pencil and black chalk heightened with This impressive, boldly executed drawing touches of white was made by Benjamin Robert Haydon 16 ⅛ x 12 ⅛ inches · 410 x 306 mm in preparation for one of his final Royal Indistinctly signed and inscribed: Study from Academy exhibits: Uriel Revealing himself Antique /for Satan /to guide Nature /& then to Satan shown in 1845. Haydon was one of invent & execute your own composition / the most ambitious history painters of the B.R. Haydon first half of the nineteenth century and also Drawn 1844 one of the most unsuccessful, eventually Collections committing suicide shortly after completion Leonard G. Duke (1890–1971); of Uriel Revealing himself to Satan in 1846. Private collection, UK, to 2015. Haydon’s vision for grand manner history painting was articulated in his published lectures, ambitious plans for an art academy and private, anguished, diary. The present compelling study is a powerful demonstra- tion of Haydon’s academic method. The Apollo di Belvedere, detail inscription – ‘Study from Antique for Satan Marble · Holy See, Vatican Museum to guide nature & then invent & execute By courtesy of Conway Library, your own composition’ – suggests the The Courtauld Institute of Art complex process Haydon undertook to achieve his grand historical compositions. successful conclusion, and bless it with sale and The drawing is, in fact, a vivid study of the success. Let no necessity or difficulty deter, nor head of the Apollo Belvedere, strongly lit to ill-health injure or delay me.’1 show the antique head’s ability to serve as The subject was derived from Book 3 of the model for Uriel in his painting. Milton’s Paradise Lost, when Satan, disguised By the 1840s Haydon’s career had suffered as a cherub, convinced Uriel to tell him the a number of setbacks and he had spent a whereabouts of Adam and Eve. The subject number of periods in prison for debt. In 1842 matter had long been in Haydon’s mind. Haydon finished one of his masterpieces, In his Lectures on Painting, Haydon recalled Marcus Curtius Leaping into the Gulf, which meeting Fuseli as a young man: ‘Imagine was not critically well received, the same a young man of nineteen, fresh from year he submitted a number of cartoons for Devonshire, who had relished and brooded the competition to redecorate the Houses over the works of this wild genius from eight of Parliament, which were all rejected. On years old; hour after hour had he dwelled 10th May 1844 Haydon began work on Uriel on his sublime conception of Uriel and Satan Revealing himself to Satan. He noted in his … and now he was actually in his room, diary: and actually heard his footsteps!’2 The print ‘O God! Bless the conception, execution and Haydon was referring to was an impression conclusion of my new work begun this day. of the engraving by Charles Warren after Let me bring it to a successful conclusion of my Fuseli’s painting for Du Roveray’s edition of new work begun this day. Let me bring it to a Paradise Lost.3

[ 74 ] GEORGE RICHMOND ra 1809–1896 Study of Comus carrying his cup

Haydon’s diary records work on the notes Pen and ink and pencil on laid paper draughtsmanship at this date, whilst he was death, which Richmond sent to his friend painting throughout the summer of 1844. 1 Ed. Tom Taylor, The Autobiography and Memoirs 13 x 8 ⅜ inches · 330 x 212 mm under the influence of William Blake and Samuel Palmer, described how: ‘His coun- One particular diary entry seems likely of Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846), London, Inscribed recto, Paris 1829 a 30, and l Comus; exploring the works of Michelangelo. tenance became fair – his eyes brightened 1926, vol.I, p.769. to refer either to the present drawing, or also inscribed verso J77[.]850, and first sketch George Richmond was the son of a and he burst out singing of the things he 2 R. B. Haydon, Lectures on Painting and Design, for picture of Woman of Samaria 1828. another, unrecorded study. On September London, 1846, p.11. miniaturist, Thomas Richmond, and began saw in Heaven. In truth he Died like a Saint’1 2nd, Haydon reported: 3 D.H. Weinglass, Prints and Engraved Collections drawing antique sculpture in the British Blake had been the mentor to a group of ‘Made a study of Uriel from nature. Always Illustrations by and after Henry Fuseli, Aldershot, George Richmond; Museum when he was only 12 years old. young artists and friends which came to make an actual study from a head – never mind 1994, no.167, p.204. He entered the Royal Academy Schools at include Richmond. Samuel Palmer was the 4 Ed. Tom Taylor, The Autobiography and Memoirs Mrs Miriam Hartley, by descent; how ugly – to get the look of nature; then adapt, of Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846), London, With Colnaghi, 1979; Somerset House on 23 December 1824, and pivotal figure; the other members of the but always actual nature as the base.’4 1926, vol.I, p.775. Private collection until 2015. exhibited his first academy work, in tempera, circle were Edward Calvert, Palmer’s cousin Haydon had modelled the head of the 5 Ed. Tom Taylor, The Autobiography and Memoirs in 1825: Abel the Shepherd. At the Academy John Giles, and two sons of the architect Exhibited archangel Uriel after the head of the Apollo of Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786–1846), London, Richmond made a number of life studies Charles Heathcote Tatham. The Ancients, as 1926, vol.I, p.775. London, Colnaghi, English Drawings and Belvedere. Whilst Haydon never travelled and studies after antiquities, including the they called themselves, met regularly, and Watercolour, 1979, no.5 (repr. plate V). to Italy, he knew the sculpture in the form remarkable sheet in the Ashmolean, Boswell’s frequently visited Shoreham in Kent, where of casts. The strongly lit study illustrated Thigh and the right arm of Michelangelo’s Palmer’s father lived and the painter himself the potential of the ideal antique head for This bold figure study was made by George David. The most profound early influence owned a cottage. depicting the archangel. Haydon’s drawing Richmond whilst he was training in Paris on Richmond was that of William Blake, to In August 1828 Richmond went to France also demonstrates the level of preparation in 1828 and contains the first compositional whom he was introduced by John Linnell to broaden his study of art, he stayed some Charles Warren, after Henry Fuseli Uriel observing Satan’s flight he was willing to pursue to achieve the study for Comus, a work Richmond would when he was sixteen; Richmond said that nine months, returning to England in May Engraving, published 1802 by E. J. Du Roveray desired effects in his historical compositions. eventually exhibit at the Royal Academy in a conversation with Blake was like talking 1829. At Paris Richmond worked extensively 9 x 6 inches · 229 x 151 mm On September 10th, shortly after he began 1864, as well as an early study for Christ and with the prophet Isaiah. He was at Blake’s in the Louvre noting in 1844: ‘I carefully © The Trustees of British Museum the painting itself, he noted in his diary: ‘My the Woman of Samaria a picture completed in home, 12 Fountain Court, the Strand, on studied the fine works in the Louvre both Uriel is making a sensation already; I am 1828 and now in the Tate. The sinuous line 12 August 1827, when Blake died, and he pictures and sculptures and earned what very proud of it. I think the head of Uriel drawing is entirely typical of Richmond’s closed his eyes. A moving account of Blake’s I could by drawing a few portraits.’2 The the finest thing I ever did, except the head of preparatory sheet for Comus shows evidence Lazarus.’5 of Richmond’s work in the Louvre. The The finished oil painting was exhibited at figure ofComus Carrying his Cup is techni- the Royal Academy in 1845 and although it is cally close to sheets by Michelangelo, now lost, the composition is known from an particularly a study of a Male Nude of engraving published in the Illustrated London c.1502, Richmond emulated Michelangelo’s News. The painting was an unusual success; hatching to model the legs using a similar it was purchased from the exhibition by the matrix of brown pen lines. The pose of the rich cotton spinner, Edward Dennys. figure itself is reminiscent of Michelangelo’s sculpture of Bacchus, casts of which were available in both London and Paris.

William Linton, after Benjamin Robert Haydon Uriel and Satan, from the Exhibition of the Royal George Richmond Academy, 1845 Comus – The Measure, c.1864 Engraving after Haydon’s painting (now lost). Oil on canvas · 45 ¼ x 82 ¼ inches · 1150 x 2090 mm Private collection, Photo © Liszt collection Image by Public Catalogue Foundation, courtesy Bridgeman Images National Museums Liverpool.

[ 76 ] [ 77 ] The sheet is a full compositional study for matter and shows that his first idea for the Michelangelo Buonarroti Male nude, 1501–2 a treatment of Milton’s Comus. Richmond’s composition was far closer to the tempera Pen and brown ink · 13 ¼ x 6 ⅜ inches; 337 x 162 mm Musée du Louvre, Paris completed painting Comus – The Measure is works he was producing in the 1820s. Indeed now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Richmond noted himself that the fragmen- George Richmond ‘Boswood’s Thigh’ and the right A work many years in gestation: it was tary studies on the verso of the sheet are arm of Michelangelo’s ‘David’, 1828 exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1864 the initial ideas for his tempera picture of Red chalk, pencil and pen and brown ink 10 ⅝ x 7 ⅜ inches; 269 x 187 mm and appeared in Richmond’s studio sale at for Christ and the Woman of Samaria. The © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford Christie’s, 1 May 1897 (lot 90). It illustrates a female figure on the left turning away from passage from John Milton’s poem: Comus recalls the seated female figure inThe Verso of the present drawing, showing a first Break off, Break off, I feel the different pace Blessed Valley of the same year whilst the sketch for Christ and the Woman of Samaria. Of some chaste footing near about this ground. single, monumental figure of Comus recalls Run to your shrouds, within the breaks and trees; Richmonds’s other work at this moment, Our number may affright. such as Abel and the Shepherd of 1826 and Comus was a masque presented at Ludlow Samson Carrying the Gates of Gaza, The Sower Castle in 1634. The story is of a young lady from 1830. The sheet also demonstrates the separated from her two brothers, guided influence of Samuel Palmer and ultimately by an Attendant Spirit in the form of their William Blake. father’s faithful shepherd Thrysis, rush in to rescue her. The moment Richmond has illustrated is when Comus senses the notes approach of the rescuers and calls his 1 G. E. Bentley, Blake Records, Oxford, 1969, followers to run to hiding places in the pp.346–7. wood. The present drawing is the first 2 Quoted in Raymond Lister, George Richmond: record of Richmond’s interest in the subject A Critical Biography, London, 1981, pp.21–22.

[ 78 ] AGOSTINO AGLIO 1777–1857 Stone pines near Tivoli

Gouache with traces of black chalk This striking gouache study of stone ‘In 1802 early in the spring and on my return from On paper laid down on canvas on a stretcher pines was made by the Cremonese painter Egypt, I received a letter from Cambridge with the 18 ⅛ x 23 ⅞ inches · 464 x 607 mm Agostino Aglio shortly after his arrival offer of an engagement to come to England at a Signed and dated: A. Aglio. F. 1805. (recto) in London at the end of 1804. Aglio was pension of £150 per annum. I and Wilkins had also inscribed: Veduta dissegnate dalla Villa first encouraged to travel to Britain by the been so happy travelling together, that I could not Adriana/ a Tivoli vergo la diana di Roma./ da neo-classical architect William Wilkins, and but rejoice at the offer … On the 13th December A. Aglio. (label on the stetcher) he was to remain in Britain for the remain- 1803 I landed in Gravesend and here I may say In the original English frame supplied by der of his career, establishing a successful commenced my life.’1 But Aglio did not enjoy ‘John Mason House, sign, furniture and practice as a decorative painter. The present, working in Cambridge. He parted company ornamental painter, guilder, japanner, and beautifully preserved view, housed in its with Wilkins and in 1804 moved to London to paper – hanger, Southwell.’ contemporary English gilt-gesso frame, establish himself as a landscape and decora- demonstrates the appeal of his work to a tive painter. He also began to produce work British audience. for Covent Garden and in 1808 succeeded Agostino Aglio studied at the Brera Gaetano Marinari as the scene-painter to the Academy under Giocondo Albertolli, and King’s Theatre in the Haymarket.2 then moved to Rome, to work under the Aglio arrived in England well supplied landscape painter Giovanni Campovecchio. with drawings, consisting principally of views Aglio first met William Wilkins in 1799 who of famous landmarks in Rome itself and its encouraged him to visit Britain. Arriving surrounding Campagna. He was evidently in 1803, Aglio was assisting Wilkins with well aware of the British love of Italy from his work at Gonville and Caius College, his time in Rome and with travel to the Cambridge. As Aglio recorded in his Continent effectively suspended during the memoir, later partially published by Federico Napoleonic Wars, Aglio realised the lucrative Sacchi: Grand Tour market could be supplied from

[ 80 ] Agostino Aglio View of the Falls at Tivoli, 1804 London. A view of the falls at Tivoli, simi- Aglio had a successful career in Britain Gouache · 17 ½ x 21 ⅞ inches · 405 x 557 mm larly executed in gouache and dated 1804, is teaching patrician clients and working © The Trustees of the British Museum in the British Museum and from 1807 Aglio as a decorative painter in the theatre and Aglio’s title page to Studies of various trees & forest exhibited Italian subjects regularly at the private houses. Aglio was responsible for scenery, drawn from nature by Agostino Aglio in his Royal Academy. In 1808 he showed a view decorating a pavilion in Pompeian style at travels in England and on the Continent, 1831 of Mount Etna and in 1813 Tivoli, near Rome. Buckingham Palace in 1843 which no longer Lithograph · 11 ¼ x 11 ⅛ inches · 286 x 283 mm © The Trustees of the British Museum The present, exceptionally finely executed survives. He also worked on a number of work perfectly represents this type of Grand important publishing projects illustrating Tour landscape. Painted in London, the Wilkins’s Antiquities of Magna Graecia in 1807 view shows a distinctive clump of Stone or and Atheniensia in 1816 and travelling across Umbrella Pines close to the ancient remains Europe to compile illustrations for the nine of Hadrian’s villa. The location had been volume Antiquities of Mexico published by a favourite amongst British painters since Viscount Kingsborough from 1830 to 1849. Richard Wilson and Aglio would have been He also continued to complete landscapes conscious of the popularity of such subjects. publishing a remarkable sequence of engrav- Aglio has included a number of rustic ings entitled Studies of Various Trees, & Forest figures, evoking the Arcadian aspect of the Scenery, Drawn from Nature in 1831. landscape, something which particularly appealed to an English audience aware that this was the setting of Horace’s Sabine villa. Aglio’s choice of gouache also points to his notes awareness of British tourist taste in Rome. 1 Federico Sacchi, Sunto Biografico Tratto dalle Since the mid-century British travellers Memorie inedite sulla vita e opera di Agostino had created a market for decorative land- Aglio, pittor cremonese raccolte e tradotte dall’Inglese, Rome, 1868, p.34, translated from scapes in this medium, avidly acquiring the Italian. works by Giovanni Battista Busiri and later 2 See Edward Croft-Murray, Decorative Painting Charles-Louis Clérisseau. in England 1537–1837, London, 1970, II,pp.159–161.

[ 83 ] JOHN CONSTABLE Ra 1776–1837 Sunset: a stormy evening

Oil on paper laid down on panel This beautiful, vigorously worked, sky study ‘three miles from door to door – can have 3 1/16 x 4 9/16 inches · 77 x 117 mm was almost certainly made at Hampstead; a message in an hour – & I can get always Painted c.1821–2 both Anne Lyles and Conal Shields have away from idle callers – and above all see Collections dated this previously unpublished work to nature.’1 Constable rented a number of Kinghorn family by about 1920; the early 1820s. Oil studies made on this very different houses over the years and, as Leslie Arthur Kinghorn; small size are rare in Constable’s oeuvre Parris noted, the location had a bearing on Lee Hetherington, daughter of the above, and its diminutive scale probably accounts his work. In 1821 and 1822 the house was 2004; for the meticulous but bold drawing with in Lower Terrace which overlooked West and by descent, 2008; the brush which is evident throughout the Heath. 2 Given the date of this study and Lowell Libson Ltd; composition. Before Constable moved to the location of the house it is probable Private collection, UK, 2008 to 2015. Hampstead permanently in 1827 he rented a that, as is the case of a number of studies house for the summer there almost annually of this moment, it shows a view looking from 1819. This move saw a radical shift in in the direction of Harrow. We know from his approach and a new fascination with Constable’s correspondence at this date that atmospheric oil studies recording differing he also converted an outbuilding in which meteorological conditions, this exquisite to work up and finish oil studies, although work should therefore be considered in the given the diminutive size of the present context of Constable’s major series of cloud work and its elevated viewpoint it seems studies made at the same date. likely that it was entirely made en plein air, It was during his residence in Hampstead from an upper window of the house in that the sky became the most crucial Lower Terrace. The size of the oil sketch determinant of the character of his is very close to sketchbooks Constable was landscape painting. He soon came to using in this period and it may be that the appreciate the elevated and picturesquely study was made on a page from a sketch- situated village for its artistic potential as book. Other rapidly executed landscape well as for its convenience to his house in studies from this period are also painted on Charlotte Street. As he noted in a letter to identifiable sketchbook pages, for example John Fisher in 1826, Hampstead was only: the View at Hampstead and Hampstead,

John Constable Lower Terrace, Hampstead, c.1822 Oil on canvas · 93 x 137/9 inches 248 x 352 mm © Victoria & Albert Museum, London

[ 84 ] Stormy Sunset both in the Victoria and Albert could pluck a flower on every hedge – yet notes Museum of Art and both inscribed and he was born to cast a steadfast eye on the 1 R.B.Beckett, John Constable’s Correspondence, dated 31 July 1822.3 bolder phenomena of nature”. We have had Suffolk, 1968, vol.VI, 1968, p.228. 2 Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Writing to his friend and correspondent, noble clouds & effects of light & dark & Constable, Tate Gallery exhibition catalogue, John Fisher, from Hampstead in October colour.’6 Constable was particularly suscep- 1991, p.213. 1821 Constable noted: tible to grand sunsets. He made studies of 3 See Ed. Edward Morris, Constable’s Clouds: ‘If the sky is obtrusive – (as mine are) it is the sunset from Hampstead Heath looking Paintings and Cloud Studies by John Constable, bad, but if they are evaded (as mine are not) it towards Harrow on a number of occasions exh. cat., Edinburgh (National Galleries of Scotland), October, 2000, nos. 49 & 50, p.80. is worse … It will be difficult to name a class including one, particularly bold example 4 R.B.Beckett, John Constable’s Correspondence, of Landscape, in which the sky is not the ‘key which is dated 9 August 1823 and is now in Suffolk, 1968, vol.VI, pp.76–77. note’, the standard of Scale, and chief ‘Organ of the Thomson collection, Toronto. 5 Michael Rosenthal, Constable: The Painter and Sentiment’ … The sky is the ‘source of Light’ in The feathery handling of the tree-line his Landscape, New Haven and London, 1983, p.167. nature – and governs every thing.’4 is a characteristic motif in his work at this 6 R.B.Beckett, John Constable’s Correspondence, As a ‘chief Organ of Sentiment’ period. Examples of this device are found Suffolk, 1968, vol.VI, 1968, p.74. Constable’s sky studies have long been in the oil study Cloud study with tree tops and recognised as congruent with the emerging buildings, dated 10 September 1821 in the Romantic ideas expressed in poetry. Michael Thomson collection, Toronto; Hampstead Rosenthal highlighted an analogous response Heath looking towards Harrow and Cloud in the work of William Wordsworth.5 In study with trees, 1821 both in the Yale Center 1821 Constable wrote to John Fisher on his for British Art. The palette, handling and responsiveness to rain and stormy weather composition all place this exquisite oil in in particular: ‘I have likewise made many the midst of Constable’s important time skies and effects – for I wish it could be said in Hampstead when he was developing his of me as Fuselli says of Rembrandt, “he distinctive and revolutionary approach to followed nature in her calmest abodes and capturing weather effects and shifting light.

John Constable Hampstead Heath looking towards Harrow, c.1822 John Constable Cloud Study, 4 July 1822 Oil on paper laid on canvas · 11 ⅝ x 19 inches · 295 x 483 mm Oil on paper mounted on canvas · 12 ⅜ x 19 ½ inches · 321 x 495 mm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection Private collection

[ 86 ] [ 87 ] JOHN CONSTABLE ra 1776–1837 The Leaping Horse: a preparatory oil study

Oil on canvas on the original strainer, unlined This small, rapidly executed oil sketch, which he felt a deep personal attachment: 8 ⅜ x 10 ⅝ inches · 212 x 270 mm which relates to one of the most famous of ‘the sound of water escaping from Mill dams Painted c.1824–5 Constable’s ‘six-foot’ exhibition canvases, … . Willows, Old rotten Banks, slimy posts, & Collections The Leaping Horse in the Royal Academy is brickwork. I love such things … .’, he wrote to his Presumably the Constable family to c.1890; an exciting recent addition to the Constable close friend John Fisher in 1821. ‘So long as I do F. L. Wilder; literature. It charts the stage in the evolu- paint I shall never cease to paint such Places … and by descent, 2012; tion of the design between two preliminary Painting is but another word for feeling. I associ- Lowell Libson Ltd; drawings in the British Museum and the ate my “careless boyhood” to all that lies on the Private collection, UK, to 2015. full-scale compositional sketch in oils in the banks of the Stour. They made me a painter (& Victoria and Albert Museum I am gratefull) …’1 Literature By 1802 Constable had formed a resolu- Although based in London for his artistic Leslie Parris, The Tate Gallery Constable tion to devote himself to a more naturalistic training, Constable continued to regard his Collection, 1981, under no.46; form of landscape painting, that is to say one parents’ house in East Bergholt as home, Anne Lyles, ‘Sketch for The Leaping Horse’, based more closely on direct observation returning there every summer to paint the British paintings and works on paper, Lowell than on the imitation of previous artists’ familiar scenery. His practice was to make Libson Ltd, 2013, pp.100–3. work. The landscape in and around East small pencil drawings or rapidly painted oil Exhibited Bergholt on the Suffolk-Essex border was at sketches of the local landscape in the open London, Tate Gallery, Constable, The Art of the heart of his mission. For the new ‘truth air – and by about 1810 he had started to Nature, 7 June – 4 July 1971, ex-catalogue (and to nature’ which he aimed to capture could develop a particularly expressive and colour- before removal of additions by a later hand). in his view only be found in scenes with ful sketching style when working in oils.

John Constable The Leaping Horse, 1825 Oil on canvas · 56 x 74 inches · 1420 x 1873 mm © Royal Academy of Arts, London, Given by Mrs Dawkins, 1899

[ 88 ] John Constable The Leaping Horse (full-scale study) Oil on canvas · 51 x 74 inches · 1294 x 1880 mm © Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Bequeathed by Henry Vaughan

He would then use these sketches as inspira- also deliberately to rival – and to be judged tion for more elaborate pictures he would alongside – the achievements of the Old work up in his London ready for exhibition. Masters such as Rubens, Titian or Claude. At first this method seemed to work Given, however, he was now distanced from quite well. However by 1814, the critics were his native scenes, he needed to work out a beginning to complain that Constable’s way of recreating them synthetically in the exhibited pictures were ‘deficient in finish- studio. He had the option of turning to exist- ing’, meaning lacking in detail or displaying ing material, much as he had done at the an insufficiently smooth finish. To remedy beginning of his career. Before embarking this perceived weakness, for the next three on the canvas that would become the exhibi- or four years Constable then attempted the tion picture, Constable decided to paint a more radical practice of painting small to compositional sketch in oils on the equiva- medium sized pictures substantially in the lent scale – that is, also six-feet wide – to open air in Suffolk, of which the best known work out his ideas in advance. The full-scale examples are Boat Building,1815 ( Victoria Sketch for the Leaping Horse (above) is a strik- and Albert Museum) and the rather larger ing example of one of these large sketches. Flatford Mill,1817 ( Tate Britain). By the time Constable came to paint the However, the most significant change Leaping Horse late in 1824 and in the early in Constable’s working practice came in months of 1825, he had already produced 1816 when he finally married Maria Bicknell five other large paintings featuring views following a protracted courtship of seven on the River Stour, The White Horse, 1819 ( years, and settled more permanently in Frick Collection, New York), Stratford Mill, London. He formulated a plan to paint his 1820 ( National Gallery, London), The Hay Suffolk scenes on a much larger scale, about Wain 1821( National Gallery, London), View six feet wide, both to attract more atten- on the Stour 1822 ( Huntington Art Gallery, tion on the crowded Academy walls but San Marino) and The Lock 1824 ( private

[ 90 ] [ 91 ] The present sketch charts another albeit without a sail. The sail on the barge in to made the picture less saleable as Sarah interesting intermediary stage in the the small oil sketch is clearly introduced for Cove points out.4 These further changes development of the Leaping Horse composi- its colouristic interest. There is no indica- probably made the picture unexhibitable as tion. Although in both of the preliminary tion that this same barge was introduced well, as it was the only painting in the River drawings Constable has clearly indicated by Constable into the full-scale sketch. Yet Stour series that Constable failed to send the float jump itself and the way its timber X-radiographs, and other technical analysis on for subsequent exhibition at the British framework sits above a sluice in the south of the Royal Academy picture, reveal that Institution. Moreover, although he often sent bank of the Stour, he has left the rest of a similar barge was apparently once intro- his large pictures to venues outside London the foreground composition more or less duced into the final picture but subsequently in the latter years of his life, whether to blank. On the left he shows a broad mound painted out. When working on his six-foot Birmingham, Worcester, Dublin or Lille, of grassy river bank, with just a few touches landscapes, then, not only did Constable The Leaping Horse was never amongst of scratching out through the grey wash to take ideas from a sketch at any stage in the these candidates. indicate reeds or grasses. In the oil sketch, composition’s evolution, he also constantly, Today, however, The Leaping Horse is by contrast, Constable has inserted three almost obsessively, changed his mind over regarded as one of Constable’s greatest timber posts in this position to add pictorial any number of a picture’s details, as the paintings. Kenneth Clark drew attention to collection). The Leaping Horse is the last in towards the barge which the horse has been John Constable interest, a detail he took directly from a tiny numerous pentimenti found in the full-scale the element of heroic drama provided by the the sequence and also the most powerful. towing, perhaps about to dismount and Study for ‘The Leaping Horse’, 1825 pencil study made in a sketchbook he had sketch and ‘finished’ painting, reveal. inclusion of the leaping horse with rider. He Pencil and pen and grey ink and wash · 8 x 11 7 inches Indeed, it forms what has been described as untie the tow rope. In the second drawing 203 x 302 mm used in 1813. The same posts appear in the Shortly after sending The Leaping Horse suggested that Constable must instinctively the ‘pictorial and emotional climax’ of the (above right), the horse has now become © The Trustees of the British Museum full – scale sketch but are modified in the to the Academy in April 1825, Constable have known that this image, seen from a low whole series.2 more animated but as yet carries no rider. final picture. described it to John Fisher in highly emotive viewpoint on the timber framework on the Usually when coming up with an idea for It is only in the small, newly-discovered John Constable This oil sketch helps elaborate just how terms, referring to it as ‘a lovely subject, tow path forming a bridge over the sluice, Study for ‘The Leaping Horse’, 1825 a large River Stour subject, Constable would compositional oil sketch that Constable first Pencil and pen and grey ink and wash Constable operated when developing a large of the canal kind, lively – & soothing – would call to mind historical precedents turn to an existing sketch, however small, gave the horse a rider to urge it forward 8 x 11 7 inches · 203 x 302 mm composition like the Leaping Horse from a calm and exhilarating, fresh – & blowing’. such as the long line of equestrian monu- which would provide basis for the bigger over the jump, an idea he then carried © The Trustees of the British Museum variety of preliminary sketches. For details However in the same letter he also confessed ments with heroic mounted commanders picture. With the Leaping Horse, however, over into both the full-scale sketch and the which appear in nearly all the preparatory to Fisher that the picture ‘should have been viewed on high architectural bases. It was in this does not seem to have been the case. exhibition picture. studies might sometimes find their way into on my easil a few weeks longer.’ When this small compositional sketch in oils that Constable’s earliest preliminary thoughts for The small sketch is a remarkably confi- the final picture only to be suppressed at the it failed to find a buyer at the exhibition, Constable first imagined the idea, an idea the work can be found in two fairly elabo- dent piece of painting, combining work with very last moment. For example, Constable Constable took it back to his studio and Clark called a ‘stroke of genius’.5 rate, if spontaneously executed, drawings in both brush and palette knife, and was clearly included the prow of a second barge on the decided to make further changes to it to Anne Lyles pen, ink and wash. The drawings, together executed at speed. Indeed following x-radi- far left of the composition in his very first render it, in his own words, more ‘saleable’.3 with the newly-discovered oil sketch, show ography, Sarah Cove has discovered that drawing, and though it was dropped in the It was at this stage that Constable how he gradually developed the dramatic Constable painted it directly over an earlier second drawing, it then reappeared in both removed the willow tree from its position pictorial idea of a leaping horse on the portrait without even adding an intermedi- the small and the full – scale compositional immediately to the right of the horse – banks of the River Stour. ary priming layer. The rider’s right sleeve is sketches in oil. The second barge was then where it had appeared in all the preliminary The Leaping Horse is set on part of the indicative of the remarkable economy of carried over by Constable into the exhibi- studies – repositioning it to the animal’s notes tow path which runs along the river Stour Constable’s sketching style, achieved in a tion picture itself, only to be subsequently left. This served to allow the movement 1 Ed R.B.Beckett, John Constable’s Correspondence upstream from Flatford, close to a position single bravura stroke of the brush.This study painted out, as an X-radiograph has revealed. of horse and rider to lead the eye more VI: The Fishers, Ipswich, 1968, pp.77–8. known as the Float Jump. The jump was a is also particularly interesting in showing On the other hand, Constable might insistently to the right where the tower of 2 Graham Reynolds, Constable: the Natural wooden barrier built across the path at a two vertical marks towards the edge of the include other details only at an intermediary Dedham church closes the composition – Painter, London and New York, 1965, p.77. 3 Ed. R.B. Beckett, John Constable’s height of three feet, to prevent cattle from canvas evidently made by a frame whilst stage. For instance, a little barge with sail albeit anachronistically so, as in reality the Correspondence II, Early Friends and Maria straying. Suffolk barge horses were specially the paint was still wet. It seems to suggest makes its first appearance in the present church is located behind the viewer at this Bicknell (Mrs Constable), Ipswich, 1962, p.397. trained to leap over these jumps. In the first that Constable place the completed sketch picture, on the far right of the composition particular stretch of the river. However, 4 Sarah Cove, ‘The Painting Techniques of of the preparatory drawings (illustrated in a slightly oversized frame (there are no – or at least makes its first true appear- this and other changes Constable made Constable’s “Six-Footers”, in Ed. Anne Lyles, Constable: the Great Landscapes, exh. cat., above left) Constable shows the barge horse, horizontal framing marks) probably to ance here as there is a faint indication of to the composition at this time, including London (Tate Gallery), 2006, p.56 and 64. with rider, in a stationary position in front gauge what the completed six foot canvas something resembling a boat in the same mismatching passages of paint applied with 5 Kenneth Clark, Looking at Pictures, New York, of the jump. The rider leans backwards might look like from a distance. position in the two preliminary drawings, the palette knife, would actually have served 1960, p.120.

[ 92 ] [ 93 ] WILLIAM TURNER OF OXFORD 1789–1862 Sun-Set: ‘Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden-haired son of the sky!’

Watercolour and gouache This dramatic, visionary landscape was Albert Museum, London) which are grand 20 ¾ x 29 ¼ inches · 530 x 750 mm made by William Turner of Oxford at a in conception showing the influence of Signed and dated 1837 particularly fertile point in his career and both his contemporaries and the dramatic Collections was exhibited at the Old Watercolour Society landscape tradition learnt from old masters. Fine Art Society, London, 1979; in 1837. In its scope of subject, execution and Turner’s Scottish sojourn had a significant West Foundation, Atlanta, by 1988 to 1999; technique, Sun-Set perfectly exemplifies the impact upon his working life. Up to this Private collection, UK, to 2015. ambitions for grand exhibition watercolours point Turner’s career had focused on the of the earlier part of the nineteenth century character and inherent drama of the sparsely Literature and stands as one of Tuner of Oxford’s bold- populated Oxfordshire lowlands. Although Kelly Morris, Amanda Woods & Donald est and best preserved works. his native county remained his primary Rosenthal, British Watercolors from the West William Turner was born near Burford focus, the new and dramatic scenery, Foundation, exh. cat. Atlanta (High Museum and was brought up by an uncle who was climactic conditions and fauna which he of Art), 1988. to purchase the Manor House and parish of encountered north of the border began to Exhibited Shipton-on-Cherwell in Oxfordshire in 1804. inflect his work. London, Old Water Colour Society, 1837, Turner first exhibited at theRoyal Academy The present, panoramic landscape, was no.235; in 1807 and in January 1808 he became the first Scottish work Turner exhibited at London, The Fine Art Society, October 1979; the youngest associate of the Society of the Watercolour Society. The 1830s witnessed Atlanta, High Museum of Art, British Painters in Water Colours and in November an outpouring of interest in Scotland, largely Watercolors from the West Collection, May 24, a full member. His precocity was further prompted by the writings of Walter Scott. 1988–March 5, 1989, no.46; recognized when he was chosen to preside The present epic watercolour was exhibited Moultrie, Colquitt Country Arts Center, at the inaugural meeting of the Society for at the Watercolour Society at the height British Watercolors from the West Collection, Epic and Pastoral Design, a reincarnation of of the interest in Scotland, Turner accom- May 6–31, 1999, no.52. the Sketching Society which earlier included panied it with lines, not from Scott, but an Thomas Girtin and John Sell Cotman as well earlier piece of Scottish literature, Ossian’s as John Varley among its members. This was Carric-thura: the moment when John Varley, ‘at Millar, ‘Hast thou left thy blue course in heaven, golden- the Booksellers evening Converzatione’, at haired son of the sky!’2 which leading artists were gathered: The epic poetry of Ossian had been ‘spoke violently of the merit of a young published in 1760 in Scotland, purporting to man who had been his pupil in learning to be by an ancient Celtic writer. The poetry draw in watercolour and Reinagle said ‘He prompted an important pan-European had never before seen drawings equal to outpouring of art, music and literature; them’. His name Turner.’1 In 1810 one critic Ossian was seen as the ‘Northern Homer’ voiced the opinion: ‘it is not flattery to say offering a powerful, romantic vision of that he has outstripped his master.’ This Celtic mythology. Ossian’s epic language must be on the basis of major works which offered the perfect foil for Turner’s are the climax of these early years such as exhibition watercolours. the bleak and Stormy Scene near Woodstock, In Sun-Set, Turner presents an epic exhibited in 1809 (Private collection, USA, Scottish landscape of a loch and rocky formerly with Lowell Libson Ltd) and shore at the close of day, neatly illustrating Whichwood Forest, Oxfordshire (Victoria and Ossian’s text: ‘The west has opened its gates;

[ 94 ] the bed of thy repose is there. The waves Sun-Set captures the romance of the achievement in his Sun-set which is a come to behold thy beauty. They lift their Scottish landscape for a nineteenth-century celebration of the grandeur of landscape trembling heads. They see thee lovely in thy audience. The rocky shore, covered in heath- and climate and rejection of the artificiality sleep; they shrink away with fear. Rest, in er and a clump of meticulously rendered of the picturesque. Although Turner of thy shady cave, O sun! let thy return be in thistles, the spare, tall pine trees framing Oxford is far less famous than his contem- joy.’ Two years later Turner exhibited a View the composition and the stag and doe in the porary namesake, J.M.W. Turner, both from Querang, Isle of Skye, the Mountains of foreground all suffused with the dramatic, shared a prodigious ability as watercolour- Garelock, Applecross, and Kintail, and Islands of crepuscular light invokes the Scotland of ists and their technical invention enabled Rona and Raasay in the Distance at the Royal Ossian and Scott. The watercolour is also a their compositions to transcend the purely Watercolour Society. He would continue technical tour de force, specifically designed topographical. In its subtlety, extraordinary to exhibit Scottish landscapes for the rest to command attention in the crowded technical virtuosity and profound beauty this of his career frequently with titles derived Watercolour Society exhibitions. Turner picture is both amongst the most impressive from poetry. has used a combination of watercolour and of Turner of Oxford’s work, and an example Presumably executed on his return to gouache to add depth to the composition of the innovative, imaginative and technical his native Oxfordshire, the present work is and strengthen his palette with the addition facility of British watercolourists in the first likely to be based on preliminary sketches of areas of vivid local colour, such as the half of the nineteenth century. and Turner’s memory, imparting a visionary touches of pure viridian on the foliage of the quality, heightened by the luminous palette, tree. Executed on a grand scale, the present minute handling and grand format. In this, it work was offered in the 1837 exhibition at the comes close to illustrating a line from Scott’s considerable price of 30 guineas. notes Lord of the Isles: ‘A Scene so rude, so wild The critic John Ruskin came late to 1 Ed, Kathryn Cave, The Diary of Joseph as this, Yet so sublime in barenness’, which Turner’s work, praising his landscapes in Farington, New Haven and London, 1982, vol. IX, p.3209. Turner appended to his painting of Loch Modern Painters in 1851, for their: 2 Ed. Malcolm Laing, The Poems of Ossian, &c. Coruisk, Isle of Skye which he exhibited it at ‘quiet and simple earnestness, and tender containing the poetical works of James Macpherson the Watercolour Society in 1839. feeling.’ A perfect summation of Turner’s Esg., Edinburgh, 1805, vol.I, p.413.

William Turner of Oxford William Turner of Oxford Stormy scene near Woodstock Stormy scene near Woodstock Watercolour over pencil heightened with scratching out Watercolour over pencil heightened with scratching out and gum arabic · 22 ½ x 29 inches · 570 x 735 mm and gum arabic · 22 ½ x 29 inches · 570 x 735 mm Private collection, USA (formerly with Lowell Libson Ltd) Private collection, USA (formerly with Lowell Libson Ltd)

[ 96 ] [ 97 ] SAMUEL PALMER 1805–1881 Box Hill, Surrey

Oil on paper Samuel Palmer made this bold, fluid study William Vaughan has noted that this 9 ½ x 16 ¼ inches · 240 x 401 mm at a key moment in his career in the decade statement correlates with a new sense Painted 1848 after his marriage and permanent move to of ‘drama and simplification’ in Palmer’s Collections London when he was searching to find a work, as he tried to find a commercial Agnew’s, London; commercial mode for his landscape paint- mode for his landscape painting. Palmer Sir John and Lady Witt; ing. The loosely painted study in oil was had recently been elected to the Old Witt sale, Sotheby’s, London, 19th February made at Box Hill in Surrey, twenty miles Watercolour Society (1843) and was intent 1987, lot 123; from London, and relates closely to a highly on using the forum of the annual exhibi- Jan Krugier, acquired at the above sale; finished watercolour now in the Victoria and tions to find a formula which would make and by descent, to 2015. Albert Museum, London. This unexpectedly his pictures financially successful. Palmer free study demonstrates how innovative continued to transform conventional Literature Palmer remained during his career; its subjects into visionary concepts. Seeking Raymond Lister, Samuel Palmer, His Life and relationship to a finished watercolour also subjects in many areas, especially Berkshire, Art, Cambridge 1987, p.163; raises important questions about his use Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Somerset, Raymond Lister, Catalogue Raisonné of the of medium. Devon, Cornwall, the Isle of Wight, the Works of Samuel Palmer, Cambridge 1988, Writing in 1847, the year before he made Lake District, and Wales, he used on the p.158, no.437. the present study, Samuel Palmer noted: spot sketched as the basis for his exhibition Exhibited ‘I must … strike out at once in a new style, works. Palmer’s son described his father’s London, Courtauld Institute Galleries, SIMPLE SUBJECT; BOLD EFFECT, BROAD RAPID general sketching apparatus on these The John Witt Collection, 1963, no.71. EXECUTION’1 expeditions: ‘There were no costly umbrellas, elaborate boxes, or well-filled portmanteaus. A narrow deal case, or, at other times, a capacious sketch- ing portfolio, slung round the shoulders with a strap, held a good supply of paper, with two large but very light wooden palettes, set with clots of colour a quarter of an inch thick, upon a coat of enamel formed of flake-white and copal. A light hand-basket held the remainder of the more bulky materials, with the lunch or dinner, and a veteran camp-stool which had survived the Italian campaign. A quantity of capacious pockets were filled with sharp knives,

Samuel Palmer Box Hill Watercolour · 10 ⅝ x 14 ⅞ inches · 270 x 377 mm © Victoria & Albert Museum, London Presented by Mrs J. Merrick Head

[ 98 ] chalks, charcoal, crayons, and sketch-books; and the spot sketch to help in the preparation of a pair of ancient neutral-tint spectacles carried, a finished watercolour; an unusual reversal with a little diminishing mirror, specially for of techniques. This may explain why Palmer sunsets, completed the equipment.’2 wrote dolefully to his father-in-law, the The present, highly energised study hugely successful landscape painter John appears to have been an on the spot sketch, Linnell, that his watercolours were like made by Palmer in preparation for a large finished watercolour. Palmer’s teaching apples which: ‘will not come ripe till a great commitments in the 1840s meant that he deal of time first and last has been spent on stayed in London longer into the summer them.’5 than he wanted. He was in Surrey in September 1844, staying in Guildford, when he reported to his eldest son, Thomas More Palmer: ‘I went so fast in the steam-coach! How you would like it! Here are high hill, and the birds sing in the trees.’3 Palmer seems to have visited Surrey throughout the 1840s attracted by the ‘high hills’ in particu- lar. The present study is handled in a surpris- ingly free and Turnerian manner, showing the sweep of Box Hill itself, rendered in a block of light green and the panoramic view beyond only hinted at. The purpose of Palmer’s study was to capture the silhouette of trees on the hill. Executed in rapid strokes of fluid oil, the study is a remarkably bold image demonstrating Palmer’s versatility of technique. Palmer used the oil study and a notes more finished watercolour of the same view 1 Quoted in William Vaughan, Samuel Palmer: Shadows on the Wall, New Haven and London, to produce an exhibition watercolour now 2015, p.274. in the Victoria & Albert Museum, Landscape 2 A. H. Palmer, ‘The Story of an Imaginative with a Woman Driving Sheep.4 As in his 1848 Painter’, The Portfolio: An Artistic Periodical, 15, treatment of Tintagel, Palmer injected 1884, pp.148–149. a degree of narrative into the finished 3 Ed. Raymond Lister, The Letters of Samuel Palmer, Oxford, 1974, vol.I, p.429. watercolour, converting the bold colouristic 4 Raymond Lister, Catalogue Raisonné 1988, p.157, approach of his on the spot oil sketch into nos. 435–6. a visionary composition of a drover in a 5 Quoted in Elizabeth E. Baker, ‘Sketches and sweeping landscape. Idylls (1840–c.1865)’ in eds. William Vaughan, Elizabeth E. Baker and Colin Harrison, Samuel The importance of the medium of Palmer 1805–1881: Vision and Landscape, exh.cat., watercolour to Palmer in the 1840s meant New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art), that he was prepared to produce a rapid on 2006, p.192.

[ 100 ] HENRY TONKS 1861–1937 The Conversation then Turned on Tonks

Pen and ink and watercolour over pencil was a gregarious and hugely sociable figure 14 ½ x 18 ⅛ inches · 268 x 460 mm who had a large network of influential Signed, dated and inscribed: To my friend, friends. The figures recorded in the present L.A. Harrison/Henry Tonks/Christmas 1929 watercolour are (from left to right) George Collections Moore, Henry Tonks, Laurence Harrison, Lawrence A. Harrison, a gift from the artist; Philip Wilson Steer and Nelson Ward. These By descent to 2004; men as well as Sickert, John Sargent and Lowell Libson Ltd; his sisters and William Rothenstein met Private collection, UK, 2004, to 2015. frequently to have dinner and to debate life, art and politics. One of his later dinners was Literature described by St. John Hutchinson in Tonks’s Joseph Hone, The Life of Henry Tonks, 1939, obituary in The Times: p.334, p.370 Henry Tonks A sole, a small saddle of mutton, little Sodales – Mr Steer and Mr Sickert, 1930 Exhibited white grapes, or Cox’s orange pippins; his Oil on canvas · 13 ¾ x 18 ⅛ inches · 350 x 460 mm London, Tate Gallery, Works by Professor wine was his great joy; abstemious himself, © Tate, London, 2015 Henry Tonks, 1936, no.53; when his friends came a bottle of La Fitte London, Lowell Libson Ltd, Watercolours and 1870 would be produced. The bottle had ‘disrespectful things to [Tonks] at dinner in Drawings 18th and 19th Centuries, 2004, no.40. been opened at the right moment, decanted, order to have the pleasure of watching his and his housekeeper, who was the great stay housekeeper’s face and her side looks at him’.2 Henry Tonks’s name is intimately bound and support of his life, would sip a small Tonks must have known this for it is surely up with the Slade (where he taught for glass, and pass her judgement on it. While one such incident that he has recorded in the thirty-eight years). He initially studied the great wine was being drunk, he would present work, a version of which was owned medicine and regarded painting as a hobby discourse on it with relish and wisdom. For by Ward.3 to be indulged in his spare time, however, many years when he sold a picture, part of Lawrence Harrison, the first owner of he began to become increasingly interested the proceeds would be invested at Berry’s this drawing, was also an artist and a fellow in painting and in 1888 he devoted his spare not for his own use, but for that of his member of the New English Art Club. His time to studying at Westminster Art School. friends. He had a belief that if you gave a brother Leonard became an important Shortly afterwards he gave up medicine to gift it must be something you would wish to patron of Tonks and first began collecting embark on a career as a professional artist. keep yourself; to this difficult precept he was his work in 1908. The brothers used to He first exhibited at the New English Art always faithful.1 invite Tonks fishing at their house on the Club in 1891 and the following year he was Tonks, Steer and Moore were particularly River Avon. Harrison lent this work to the appointed assistant Professor at the Slade close throughout their lives; confirmed important retrospective of Tonks’s work under his previous tutor Fred Brown. In bachelors they would meet at least once a held at the Tate Gallery in the autumn of 1918 he was appointed Slade Professor, a week, often at Moore’s house. They all lived 1936 shortly before the artist’s death. post he held until he retired in 1930. Tonks near each other; Moore was in Ebury Street, was consequently hugely influential on whilst Steer and Tonks were in Chelsea. In notes two generations of artists who studied at 1924, Moore published his recollections of 1 St John Hutchinson, The Times, 11th January, the Slade. several of these meetings as Conversations in 1937, p.8. 2 Joseph Hone, The Life of Henry Tonks, London, Tonks produced drawings such as the Ebury Street. 1939, p.88. present watercolour, for his own amuse- Nelson Ward was Tonks’s lawyer and 3 Joseph Hone, The Life of Henry Tonks, London, ment and for that of close friends. Tonks he apparently took great pleasure in saying 1939, repr. opposite p.335.

[ 102 ] REX WHISTLER 1905–1944 Victor Rothschild in his rooms at Trinity College, Cambridge

Oil on canvas completing numerous designs in conjunction 14 ½ x 18 ½ inches · 368 x 470 mm for theatrical productions in conjunction Painted c.1935 with Cecil Beaton and Edith Sitwell. Whistler had a particular interest in the nuances of This stylish interior view is a characteristi- interior design, particularly period rooms, it cally whimsical portrait by Rex Whistler. is an interest which is evident in the present The sitter, Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron portrait. Whistler has shown Rothschild Rothschild (1910–1990), was by profession seated, with his back to the viewer, at a an eminent zoologist and public servant but grand piano; the painting focussing more on is depicted here in more informal setting the contents of Rothschild’s rooms in Trinity indulging his passion as a jazz pianist and College’s Great Court, than on the sitter collector of both books and paintings. himself. Rothschild had been elected a fellow Whistler was a highly versatile painter and of Trinity in 1935 and it is likely that the designer, frequently working for the theatre present canvas dates from around that time. and as a painter of interior decoration, in Although a scientist by training, Rothschild this depiction of Victor Rothschild, Whistler had numerous artistic interests and friends; produced a portrait of the sitter through the Rothschild was elected to the fellowship at Man Ray Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild, room and its furniture. the same time as Anthony Blunt, whom he c.1930 Rex Whistler trained at the Slade, lent money to purchase Poussin’s Elizear and Vintage bromide print · 9 x 7 inches · 230 x 178 mm where he was tutored by Henry Tonks, Rebecca, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, National Portrait Gallery, London © Man Ray Trust/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2015. who perceived that Whistler’s talent lay in Cambridge. Rothschild was also an obsessive imaginative decoration and he encouraged collector. He began even as an undergradu- him to pursue this as a career. In 1926, Sir ate to assemble the finest library in private Joseph Duveen offered a new refreshment hands of English eighteenth-century first room to the Tate Gallery, Tonks recom- editions, manuscripts, and book bindings, mended Whistler as mural decorator. The some 3000 items which he later presented room was opened in November 1927 and the to Trinity. young artist’s murals, on the fanciful theme Whistler’s canvas shows Rothschild seated The Pursuit of Rare Meats, were at once at the piano, his Great Court room lined acclaimed by critics and public alike for their with books and filled with exotic blooms. decorative skill, their wit, and their resource- The improbably tall vase containing flow- fulness. Connoisseurs such as Captain David ers gives a fantastical quality to the quiet Euan Wallace and Sir Philip Sassoon were interior. Whistler was killed in action in 1944, quick to commission murals from Whistler, Rothschild went on to head-up a counter- but his most impressive wall decorations sabotage section of MI5 and did not return were done in 1937, for the Marquess of permanently to Cambridge. Beautifully Anglesey, at Plas Newydd, Anglesey, and for painted, in Whistler’s fluid manner, this Lady Louis Mountbatten at Brook House, interior is an unusual record of Cambridge in Rex Whistler Self-portrait in Welsh Guards Park Lane, London. the inter-war period it is also previously unre- uniform, May 1940 Oil on canvas · 27 x 22 inches · 686 x 559 mm Throughout Whistler also practiced as a corded and is therefore an important addition Courtesy of the Council of the National Army Museum, book illustrator and designer for the stage, to Whistler’s small oeuvre of oil portraits. London

[ 104 ] RICHARD EURICH 1903–1992 The Critics

Oil on canvas This savage satire was painted by Richard work: Christopher Wood. Eurich achieved 25 x 30 inches · 635 x 762 mm Eurich in 1956 as a critique of the post- public acclaim with his exhibition of the Signed war British art world. Eurich, a figurative Withdrawal from Dunkirk, a complex, detailed Painted 1956 landscape painter, was responding to the work of astonishing technical assurance, Collections celebration of abstract painters, particularly at the National Gallery’s war art exhibition Evelyn Waugh, purchased from the artist foreign abstract painters, by the established in August 1940, which led to him being in 1956; art world. The grotesque group – which appointed a full-time, salaried war artist to Harriet Waugh, daughter of the above, includes the director of the Tate, John the Admiralty in March 1941. In the post-war by descent to 2015. Rothenstein, the critic David Sylvester and years Eurich entered a period of decline, art dealer Philip Laski – shows them discuss- so that he was forced to take up teaching Literature ing a canvas of simple geometric forms, for the first time in his career; he worked Nicholas Usherwood (ed.), The Edge of ignoring the figurative painter – Eurich – at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts All the Land: Richard Eurich 1903 – 1992, with his model working in the back room. from 1949. Southampton, 1994, p.47, no.52; Exhibited at the Royal Academy the same In 1956 the Tate Gallery exhibition Edward Chaney and Christine Clearkin (ed.), year as Alfred Munnings’ Does the Subject ‘Modern Art in the United States’ signalled Richard Eurich (1903 – 1992) Visionary Artist, Matter?, a satire on the Tate Gallery’s acquisi- the arrival of Abstract Expressionism in exh. cat., Southampton, 2003, pp.68–9, repr.; Christine Clearkin, Richard Eurich, an interim tion policy, Eurich’s composition belongs London. The exhibition had an enormous catalogue raisonné, published on-line by to the same mood of dissatisfaction but is impact and was critically well received. Amazon. harsher in its execution and more disquiet- This success revived a sense, particularly ing in its implications. The Critics can be read amongst figurative painters, that the British Exhibited as a highly important intervention, made by art establishment was more interested in London, Redfern Gallery, Richard Eurich ra, a largely figurative British artist, in a debate promoting the formal progressiveness of Michael Wishart, Louis James, February 1956, about the value of formal innovation over international painters than contemporary no.3 (purchased by Evelyn Waugh); narrative and individual craft and talent. art by indigenous artists. The exhibition London, Royal Academy, 1956; Its contemporary power was immediately prompted Alfred Munnings’s Does the Subject Southampton, City Art Gallery, Manchester, understood and it was acquired in 1956 by Matter? a continuation of his attack on the City Art Gallery, Bradford, Cartwright Hall, Evelyn Waugh. veneration of international abstraction. and Ipswich, Christchurch Mansion, The Richard Eurich remains a comparatively The composition shows a group of figures, Edge of All the Land: Richard Eurich 1903 – 1992, under represented figure in narratives of including John Rothenstein the director 1994, no.52; twentieth century British art.1 Despite being of the Tate, admiring a sculptural lump, Southampton, Millais Gallery, Bournemouth, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & the subject of two monographic exhibitions intended to caricature the work of Barbara Museum, London, Fine Art Society, Richard since his death in 1992, Eurich’s reputation Hepworth.3 Eurich’s painting is both more Eurich (1903 – 1992) Visionary Artist, 2003, remains as ‘an isolated or eccentric figure.’2 subtle and more savage than the Munnings. no.34. Trained at the Slade School of Fine Art, The precise circumstances of the pictures 1924–7, under Henry Tonks, Eurich began production were described by Eurich in a his career as a draughtsman producing letter to Richard Dorment in 1987: large-scale drawings of figures in interiors. ‘it (the painting) was trigged off by the ‘critic’ Through Eric Gill, Eurich was offered an on the left. (I forget his name) he was at the exhibition at the Goupil gallery in 1929 and press view at the Royal Academy, and he told there he met the only contemporary artist me (drinking a glass of sherry) that he had just who ever exerted any major influence on his had some fun writing an Obituary notice for

[ 106 ] A.J. Munnings, who at the time was PRA and very much alive and kicking. I was disgusted, as A.J. could be very generous.’4 The ‘critic on the left’ of Eurich’s painting has been identified as the writer and critic Alan Clutton-Brock who worked for The Times. He wrote the introduction to the exhibition catalogue for the Duncan Grant retrospective, held at the Tate Gallery in 1959 and was a follower and admirer of Roger Fry. Next to Clutton-Brock, the figure with his hands thrust into his pocket has not been securely identified, it has been suggested that it is the critic David Sylvester.5 An attribu- tion rejected by Richard Dorment who has suggested instead that the figure maybe the art critic and writer Herbert Read.6 In the foreground is the figure of John Rothenstein, shown, hunched and with pronounced Semitic features. The seated figure on the right has been identified as Philip Laski, the to a realist tradition, Eurich was angered Alfred Munnings Does the Subject Matter? c.1956 brother Marghanita Laski, who during the by the perceived cabal which promoted Oil on canvas · 30 x 42 ¾ inches · 762 x 1086 mm © Estate of Sir Alfred Munnings, 1950s was a consultant to a London Gallery abstraction. Wyndham Lewis, writing in The All rights reserved, DACS 2015 located in George Street which specialised Demon of Progress in the Arts in 1954, noted in small scale Surrealist and Abstract works. that there were critics: ‘ready to plug to the As David McCann noted in 2003: ‘one art hilt, to trumpet, to expound, any move- critic remembered him as always having ment in painting … which was obviously greased back black hair, always wearing hurrying along a path as opposite as possible a pair of dark glasses and when his black from what had appealed to civilised man jacket was unbuttoned there was visible a through the ages.’8 But the situation Eurich canary yellow sweater.’7 The figure standing attacked was more subtle and complex with folded hands behind the group has than The Critics suggests. Rothenstein’s been tentatively identified as the art critic presence in particular is ambiguous. He and historian J.P. Hodin who was famous for had wide-ranging tastes and despite doing his association with Herbert Read’s Institute much to promote twentieth-century British of Contemporary Art which consciously figurative-art, his antagonism over the promoted abstraction. In 1957 Hodin Chantry Bequest meant that he was viewed published Ben Nicholson: The Meaning of his as an enemy of the Royal Academy and Art and Nicholson may have been the object its former President, Alfred Munnings in of criticism. The canvas on the easel recalls particular. Ironically his reputation is now as Nicholson’s abstract work of the 30s. someone who failed to secure great works The Critics is a Hogarthian satire on the of international modernism for the national middle men of the art world – journal- collections, rather than an avid promoter of ists, museum directors and dealers – who the type of art Eurich was critiquing. Howard Coster Sir John Rothenstein, 1939 shape public taste. As an artist who was It is particularly ironic as it was John Half-plate film negative conscious of his unfashionable adherence Rothenstein who had first recommended © National Portrait Gallery, London

[ 108 ] Eurich to Evelyn Waugh. In 1951 Waugh, notes a pioneering connoisseur of Victorian art, 1 Eurich has received four dedicated exhibitions owned two sardonic paintings by Thomas in the last forty years: Carolina Krzesinka, Musgrave Joy ironically entitled The Richard Eurich ra: A retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat. Bradford (Bradford City Art Gallery), Pleasures of Travel. The canvases depicted 1979; Nicholas Usherwood, Richard Eurich: From a highwayman holding up a stagecoach Dunkirk to D-Day, exh. cat., London (Imperial in 1751 and a ticket inspector inconven- War Museum), 1991; Nicholas Usherwood, iencing railway travellers in 1851; Waugh Richard Eurich 1903–1992, exh. cat, Southampton (Southampton City Art Gallery), 1994; Edward commissioned Eurich to paint a third Chaney and Christine Clearkin, Richard canvas illustrating the perils of travel in Eurich (1903–1992): Visionary Artist, exh. cat., 1951. The commission was highly specific, Southampton (Millais Gallery), 2003. Waugh asked Eurich to depict: ‘a Dakota 2 Alan Powers in his essay ‘Plotting Eurich’s crashing and the passengers being burnt.’9 Co-ordinates on the Map of Twentieth Century Art’ makes a powerful case for Eurich’s central Waugh was delighted with the finished place in an alternative narrative of British art. painting, writing to Eurich in 1953: ‘Your See Edward Chaney and Christine Clearkin, picture is framed & hung & looks very Richard Eurich (1903–1992): Visionary Artist, beautiful, but it does need varnish and also exh. cat., Southampton (Millais Gallery), 2003, pp.32–40. I would be grateful for a few flames in the 3 Brandon Taylor, Art for the Nation: Exhibitions foreground.’10 The three pictures hung and the London Public 1747–2001, Manchester, 1999, together at Evelyn Waugh’s Gloucestershire p.202. house, Piers Court. In 1956 Waugh acquired 4 Richard Eurich to Richard Dorment, Appletreewick, 22nd October 1987. The Critics directly from an exhibition at Richard Eurich The Mummers, 1952 5 Edward Chaney and Christine Clearkin, Richard Oil on board · 34 ⅝ x 36 ¼ inches · 880 x 920 mm the Redfern Gallery where it was shown Eurich (1903–1992): Visionary Artist, exh. cat., Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums, before the Royal Academy and his surviving Southampton (Millais Gallery), 2003, no.34, Brighton & Hove/Bridgeman Images correspondence at the University of Texas pp.68–69. details his instructions for its payment.11 6 Richard Dorment,’A Curse on Critics’, We have an international reputation as number of important exhibitions in recent opportunity to discuss and view pictures The Daily Telegraph, 12 March 2003, p.25. The Critics neatly articulates one of 7 Edward Chaney and Christine Clearkin, Richard the specialist dealer in British art with years including: Thomas Gainsborough’s in discreet and comfortable surroundings. the fault lines of British art in the 1950s. Eurich (1903–1992): Visionary Artist, exh. cat., an emphasis on paintings, watercolours, Landscapes at the Holburne Museum, Bath, We have a carefully selected stock of the Eurich’s respect for tradition – signalled by Southampton (Millais Gallery), 2003, no.34, drawings and sculpture of the seventeenth 2011; Constable, Gainsborough, Turner and the highest quality and interest within a wide the postcards of old masters on the wall p.69. Anthony Blond described Laski as being: to mid-nineteenth centuries. Lowell Libson Making of Landscape at the Royal Academy, price range and we act as both principals ‘dressed like a black sheep: a walking stick, a behind the central group and nude model fancy waistcoat, a buttonhole, and a velvet collar Ltd is recognised for handling works of 2012; Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond and agents in the purchase and sale of works seen through the open door – his respect covered with dandruff. He was full of deceit and outstanding quality backed with exceptional at the Holburne Museum, Bath, 2014; Great of art giving clients great flexibility and for the craft of painting – indicated by the extraordinary tales … He was a fixer.’ Anthony scholarship and as a result we count many British Drawings at the Ashmolean, Oxford, choice. We are able to offer advice on all prominent still life of artists materials in Blond, Jew Made in England, London, 2004, p.197. leading American, European and British 2015 and Jonathan Richardson By Himself at aspects of collecting pictures. This includes 8 Wyndham Lewis, The Demon of Progress in the the foreground – are contrasted with the museums and private collectors amongst our The Courtauld Gallery, 2015. We have also the purchase and sale of works of art as Arts, London, 1954, p.53. abstraction of the canvas being venerated 9 For Waugh’s commission to Eurich see: regular clients. The gallery exhibits at TEFAF, mounted several significant loan exhibitions well as conservation, restoration, framing, on the easel. Eurich’s painting is therefore Edward Chaney and Christine Clearkin, Richard Maastricht and Masterpiece, London, as well in Clifford Street including Masterpieces of lighting and hanging. We can also provide a an important essay in understanding the Eurich (1903–1992): Visionary Artist, exh. cat., as holding an annual exhibition in New York English Watercolours and Drawings from complete curatorial service for collections. conflicting narratives of British art in a Southampton (Millais Gallery), 2003, pp.21–22. every January. We produce a full scholarly the National Gallery of Scotland and of Visitors are always welcome at the gallery 10 Quoted in: Edward Chaney and Christine critical post-war moment, when American Clearkin, Richard Eurich (1903–1992): Visionary catalogue of recently acquired highlights works by Thomas Rowlandson drawn from which is located on the second floor of an Abstract Expressionism had emerged as Artist, exh. cat., Southampton (Millais Gallery), from our inventory annually, which can be British private collections. attractive building dating from the 1880s the dominant artistic influence. It also 2003, p.21. downloaded from the catalogues page. Lowell Libson and his colleagues believe situated between New Bond Street and Savile represents the continuation of a powerful 11 University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom We believe passionately in advancing that the process of acquiring a work of art Row. Although we are generally open on Center, Correspondence of Evelyn Waugh, artistic tradition of the artist attacking the scholarship in British art and actively should be an enjoyable and stimulating weekdays we operate on a ‘by appointment’ E919: Waugh to A.D. Peters, 14 February, 1956 tastemakers and critics, a visual tradition and Waugh to A.D. Peters, 3 September, 1956 support art historical research in both Britain experience and pride themselves on having basis, to ensure that we can give our visitors which sees Eurich as the heir to Hogarth. asking Peters to make payment to Eurich. and America. The gallery has sponsored a created a gallery that offers clients the our best attention.

[ 110 ] 3 Clifford Street · London w1s 2lf

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7734 8686 Email: [email protected] Website: www.lowell-libson.com

The gallery is open by appointment, Monday to Friday The entrance is in Old Burlington Street

Published by Lowell Libson Limited 2016 Text and publication © Lowell Libson Limited All rights reserved ISBN 978 0 9929096 1 1 Designed and typeset in Dante by Dalrymple Photography by Rodney Todd-White & Son Ltd Colour reproduction by Altaimage Ltd Printed in Belgium by Albe De Coker­ Cover: a sheet of 18th-century Italian paste paper (collection: Lowell Libson) Inside cover: Thomas Gainsborough detail from Figures and cattle beside a woodland pool see page 26 Frontispiece: James Jeffreys detail from An Incantation see page 58 Opposite introduction: Nathaniel Dance detail from Olive Craster see page 18 [ 114 ]