BRITISH DRAWINGS AND 2016 WATERCOLOURS BRITISH DRAWINGS AND WATERCOLOURS 2016 GUY PEPPIATT FINE ART FINE PEPPIATT GUY GUY PEPPIATT FINE ART LTD Riverwide House, 6 Mason’s Yard Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BU GUY PEPPIATT FINE ART BRITISH DRAWINGS AND WATERCOLOURS 2016 1 Guy Peppiatt started his working life at Dulwich Picture Gallery before joining Sotheby’s British Pictures department in 1993. He soon specialised in early British drawings and watercolours and took over the running of Sotheby’s Topographical sales. Topographical views whether they be of Britain or worldwide have remained an abiding passion. Guy left Sotheby’s in early 2004 and has worked as a dealer since then, first based at home, and now in his gallery on Mason’s Yard, St James’s, shared with the Old Master and European Drawings dealer Stephen Ongpin. He advises clients and museums on their collections, buys and sells on their behalf and can provide insurance valuations. Guy Peppiatt Fine Art exhibit at a number of London fairs and are also part of Master Drawings New York every January. Guy also vets a number of art fairs and is Chairman of the Vetting Committee for the Works on Paper Fair. 2 BRITISH DRAWINGS AND WATERCOLOURS 2016 Monday to Friday 10am to 6pm Weekends and evenings by appointment Guy Peppiatt Fine Art Ltd Riverwide House, 6 Mason’s Yard Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BU Tel: +44 (0) 20 7930 3839 Mobile: +44 (0) 7956 968284 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7839 1504 [email protected] www.peppiattfineart.co.uk 3 1 Paul Sandby, R.A. (1730-1809) The Eagle Tower, Caernarvon Castle, North Wales Pen and grey ink and watercolour over pencil on laid paper Stylistically this watercolour dates from the 1770s and this has been confirmed by Professor Luke 36.3 by 51.6 cm., 14 ½ by 20 ½ in. Herrmann. Sandby visited Wales three times in the early 1770s. His first visit was in the summer of 1770 when he was invited to stay at the family seat of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn at Wynnstay, Denbighshire, Provenance: about four miles east of Llangollen, and he returned for six weeks the following summer. In 1771 he went With Walker Galleries, London, by 1955; on an extended tour of the estate at Wynnstay and produced drawings, some of which were engraved as By descent from 1955 until 2015 part of Views in North Wales published in 1776. He also toured Wales with Joseph Banks from 25th June to 16th August 1773. Exhibited: Possibly London, Royal Academy, 1775, no. 275 A slightly smaller view of Caernarvon Castle by Sandby dated 1773, taken from across the river Seiont is in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. 4 2 Thomas Robins the Elder (1715-1770) Sudeley Castle and St Mary’s Church, Gloucestershire showing the effects of the Cromwellian Demolition of 1649 first half of the fifteenth century. He built the gateway, Portmare and Garderobe Gouache over traces of pencil Towers, the church and the great barn. Edward IV gave the castle to his brother 27 by 37.4 cm., 10 ¾ by 14 ¾ in. Richard and it was later the home of Katherine Parr, the last and surviving wife of Henry VIII. During the Civil War, Sudeley was a base for Charles I’s nephew Prince Provenance: Rupert, and, because of this, the Council of State in April 1649 ordered that the castle Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven (1900-1973) be ‘slighted’ or rendered unusable for military purposes. Accordingly, in August and September 1649, Sudeley was effectively demolished, roofs were removed and the This view is taken from the east looking over Sudeley Castle with the village of buildings exposed to the elements. Much of the effects of the Cromwellian demolition Winchcombe beyond. The earliest part of the castle was built by Ralph Boteler in the can still be seen in Robins’s view of more than a century later. Architectural fragments 5 strew the ground, and the tall windows of the ruined Banqueting Hall (never in fact 3 rebuilt) can clearly be seen in the centre of the composition. On the right, St Mary’s Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. (1727-1788) Church is obviously roofless and in ruins. During the nineteenth century, some parts of the Castle were rebuilt for the Dent family, who had purchased it in 1837, and, Open Landscape with Figures on Horseback and Packhorse thanks largely to George Gilbert Scott’s work from 1854, Sudeley now presents a very different appearance from that recorded by Thomas Robins in the eighteenth Black, sepia and white chalk and grey washes on buff paper century. In addition to the rebuilding of the outer Court and the western side of the 25.9 by 32.9 cm., 10 ¼ by 13 in. Inner Court, St. Mary’s Church and Katherine Parr’s elaborate tomb were magnificently restored by Scott between 1858 and 1863. Provenance: With Colnaghi and Obach, London 1916; Thomas Robins was born at Charlton Kings near Cheltenham, only six miles as the With F.R. Meatyard, London, 1939; crow flies from Sudeley Castle. Little is known of his early life but he was in Bath by Wayland Williams; 1760 where he established his reputation as a topographical artist producing views of With Leger Galleries, London, 1988 the city and local grand houses. He returned to his home county drawing at least two panoramic views of the city of Cheltenham in 1748. One is in Cheltenham Art Gallery Literature: and another was sold at Christie’s on 5th June 2007, lot 32 for a hammer price of John Hayes, The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough, London, 1970, no. 692 £26,000 (see John Harris, Gardens of Delight – The Rococo English Landscape of Thomas Robins the Elder, 1978, p.20, pls. 35 and 37). A view of Sandywell Park a few Exhibited: miles south of Sudeley, dated 30th September 1758 is in an album of drawings by London, F.R. Meatyard, Catalogue no. 19, 1939, no.44, reproduced Robins in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Works by Robins are rare – two views by him of Honington Hall were sold at Christie’s on 14th July 1987, lots 135 and 136 Landscape drawings account for over three-quarters of Gainsborough’s output as a for £45,000 and £26,000 respectively. draughtsman, and make up some of his finest works. These drawings were done for his own pleasure, in varying degrees of finish, and using a range of different techniques. Robins’s importance is as one of the earliest topographical artists working on paper William Jackson, a friend of the artist and early biographer, noted that ‘If I were to rest (or vellum), recording gardens and country houses from 1747 until the late 1760s his reputation upon one point; it should be on his Drawings.... No man ever when few others were doing so. His works are often drawn within a framework of possessed methods so various in producing effects, and all excellent.’ painted intertwining rococo flowers. John Harris describes him as ‘an artist who painted English houses and garden when they were most enchanting; whose eye This drawing dates from the early 1780s and is one of his most delicate drawings captured the rococo garden at its perfection and when it was most whimsical; whose drawn with great economy. John Hayes (op. cit.) compares it to a similar drawing in paintings are almost sensual in the sheer delight they give; such was Thomas Robins the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Hayes no.691) and a drawing of sheep and cows the Elder’ (op. cit. above, p.1). in the City Art Gallery, Bristol (Hayes no. 683). We are grateful to Hugh Belsey for his comments on this drawing. 6 7 4 Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) Madame Cigali the Famous Female Fencer from Rome at Henry Angelo’s Fencing Academy Pen and grey ink and watercolour Henry Charles William Angelo (1756-1835) was a close friend of Rowlandson for 14.4 by 23.8 cm., 5 ¾ by 9 ½ in. over fifty years and the artist depicted his Fencing Academy on a number of occasions. Angelo inherited the Academy from his father, the famous Italian swordsman Rowlandson was evidently intrigued by the idea of a man and woman fencing as he Domenico Angelo in 1785. They were located over the entrance to the pit door of drew at least five such studies. One in the Dent collection depicted Henry Angelo and the Opera House, Haymarket but were destroyed by fire on 17th June 1789 when ‘Madame Cain’. ‘Madame Culloni and Mons. Renault’ in Paris is recorded in the Dent Angelo moved the Academy to no.13 Bond St. It became more akin to a gentleman’s Collection with another version in the Yale Center for British Art. Another, of club and Charles James Fox, Sheridan and Byron were regular attendees. ‘Madame Kelu famous Fencer Native of Italy 1816’ was sold at Sotheby’s on 22nd March 1979, lot 57. 8 5 John Colley Nixon (1755-1818) A Feast of the Gods Signed lower left: John C. Nixon fecit et Inven.t 1778 and inscribed with title on a Nixon was a wealthy London merchant and secretary of the Beefsteak Club. He was cartouche on the border an accomplished amateur artist and friend of Thomas Rowlandson (see nos. 4 and 6) Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour on laid paper and under his influence his later work is of high quality. He is best known for his small Whole sheet 31.3 by 44.2 cm., 12 ½ by 17 ½ in.