PAINTINGS AND WATERCOLOURS BY ARTISTS OF THE BRISTOL SCHOOL 1820 TO 1860 - GUY PEPPIATT FINE ART
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Paintings and Watercolours
by artists of the Bristol School
1820 to 1860
GUY PEPPIATT FINE ART
Paintings and Watercolours
by artists of the Bristol School
1820 to 1860
2021
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Guy Peppiatt started his working life at Dulwich Picture Gallery before joining Sotheby’s British Pictures
Department in 1993. He soon specialised in early British drawings and watercolours and took over the
running of Sotheby’s Topographical sales. Guy left Sotheby’s in 2004 to work as a dealer in early British
watercolours and since 2006 he has shared a gallery on the ground floor of 6 Mason’s Yard off Duke
St., St. James’s with the Old Master and European Drawings dealer Stephen Ongpin. He advises clients
and museums on their collections, buys and sells on their behalf and can provide insurance valuations.
He exhibits as part of Master Drawings New York every January as well as London Art Week in July
and December.
Email: guy@peppiattfineart.co.uk
Tel: 020 7930 3839 or 07956 968 284
Sarah Hobrough has spent nearly 25 years in the field of British drawings and watercolours. She started
her career at Spink and Son in 1995, where she began to develop a specialism in British watercolours
of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 2002, she helped set up Lowell Libson Ltd, serving as co-
director of the gallery. In 2007, Sarah decided to pursue her other passion, gardens and plants, and
undertook a post graduate diploma in landscape design. She established a landscape design company,
which she continues to run, alongside her art consultancy practise. She has consulted for dealers and
auction houses, helping Christie’s watercolour department for a number of years, as well private clients,
helping them research and develop their collections.
Email: sarah@peppiattfineart.co.uk
Tel: 07798 611 017
2
Paintings and Watercolours
by artists of the Bristol School
1820 to 1860
September 2021
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
guy@peppiattfineart.co.uk
www.peppiattfineart.co.uk
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INTRODUCTION
By Francis Greenacre
“The contention of this exhibition is that Bristol, in the early 19th century, possessed a coherent school of artists of considerable
quality and originality and great attractiveness”. Those were the tentative opening words of the foreword to the 1973 exhibition at
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery: The Bristol School of Artists, Francis Danby and painting in Bristol, 1810-1840. It was a considerable
success, establishing that Bristol, notably in the 1820s, made a distinct and significant contribution to the history of British art.
Today, for the first time in nearly half a century, another large exhibition once again celebrates the Bristol School and it is not here
in London, nor in Bristol, but in Bordeaux at the Musée des Beaux Arts until October 17th. The works have been very judiciously
selected and come mostly from Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, but also from the Louvre and Tate London. It has been splendidly
displayed and has a magnificent catalogue, as sumptuous as it is scholarly. But for its bewildering title, Absolutely Bizarre! Les drôles
d’histoire de l’école de Bristol (1800-1840), it is akin to an apotheosis for the reputation of the Bristol School.
The Bordeaux catalogue illustrates Samuel Jackson’s Study in Leigh Woods, a watercolour bought by Bristol Museum and Art
Gallery from Guy Peppiatt in 2015. The observation of the geology of the cliff face, probably in Nightingale Valley, confirms the
close intellectual links between the artists and early geologists in Bristol. And that purchase alone reminds us of the perspicacity of
dealers and of their vital role in the growth, improvement and appreciation of museum collections. Nearly a third of the paintings
and drawings currently on loan from Bristol to Bordeaux have been acquired in the last few decades.
The late Andrew Wyld, a diligent visitor to the 1973 exhibition, became a major promoter of Bristol School artists, and especially
of Francis Danby, Samuel Jackson and James Johnson. In the summer of 1986 he and David Dallas transferred the large exhibition
of Samuel Jackson’s work, which Bristol Museum and Art Gallery had just held, to their London gallery. Both dealers were to
be closely involved in the exhibition of Francis Danby’s work at Bristol and the Tate Gallery in 1988/9. Similarly, Bill Thomson
assisted with the substantial W.J.Müller exhibition in Bristol in 1991. Two years later the Royal Academy’s triumphant The Great
Age of British Watercolours, selected by Andrew Wilton and Anne Lyles, took due advantage of these exhibitions. Danby, Jackson,
Johnson and Müller were well represented and Bristol now had the stature once conferred only upon the Norwich School.
It was the Revd. John Eagles (nos. 2-3) who first used the phrase ‘the Bristol School’ in 1826. Genial and gregarious, he had,
earlier still, been one of the chief enthusiasts for the artists’ and amateurs’ sketching expeditions to Leigh Woods: ‘those beautiful
woods opposite Clifton, separated from it by the muddy Avon…dividing…the cares and toils of a busy…world from the regions
of Elysium.’ Eagles also promoted the evening sketching meetings, where the artists’ monochrome watercolours of pure fantasy
seemed to follow his instructions ‘to set your imagination free, cut the strings of tight-laced formality, and walk elastic as if you
had just take a salad of nepenthe’ (a fictional drug of forgetfulness). Even Rowbotham (nos. 4-6) was tempted into flights of fancy
4
at these meetings, but his two observant and lively records of Bristol and Brislington are more typical of his work. They were
probably drawn for the antiquarian collector G.W.Braikenridge, who gave such vital support to many of the Bristol artists in the
1820s. Rowbotham’s view of 1829 over Hilhouse’s New Dockyard, built in 1820, is a remarkable contemporary record of the
yard immediately adjoining the dock where Brunel’s Great Britain was to be launched fourteen years later.
James Baker Pyne (nos. 13-18), on the other hand, seems to incorporate a dream-like quality, comparable to some of Francis
Danby’s imaginary landscapes, into his idyllic evening view from the Downs to the Bristol Channel. It is a viewpoint from which
we are today excluded by the growth of trees. Pyne’s oil studies of the Bristol Riots of 1831 have not received the attention of
the more numerous and better known series by the nineteen-year-old William James Müller. Guy Peppiatt’s two dramatic studies
by Pyne depict scenes not covered by Müller and both were to be lithographed by Samuel Jackson.
Jackson (nos. 7-11) and Müller (nos. 19-33) are the best represented of the artists in this exhibition and the only artists who were
to be born and to die in the city. Both exhibited extensively in London, where Müller also had lodgings and a studio. His drawing
of his Bloomsbury studio, in which large oil paintings of Cairo and Venice can be seen, remind us of the particular importance to
him of sociable company, whether in the studio, on sketching expeditions or when travelling abroad. It was Jackson who was to
be called ‘the father of the school’ of Bristol by J.L.Roget in his ‘History of the Old Water-Colour Society’. Certainly Jackson was
central to the social cohesion of the artists in the 1820s. Francis Danby, exiled in Switzerland, nostalgically remembered evening
meetings and sketching expeditions and wrote ‘I know Jackson is a man of genius by being with him in Leigh Woods’.
There is an extra to this show, a work by an artist with no stylistic links to the Bristol School (see no.38). But it is an unusual
record of the Avon Gorge in the mid-1840s, when it was blighted by I.K.Brunel’s abandoned piers for the Clifton Suspension
Bridge. This was a project that Eagles, in defence of his beloved Leigh Woods, had vehemently opposed. Only following Brunel’s
death in 1859 was the bridge to be completed as a memorial to the great engineer. Partly because of the fame that the Bristol
artists had brought to Leigh Woods, the south side of the Avon Gorge was later to be deliberately and generously saved from
the developments that Eagles had justly feared. More recently, many thousands of Bristolians have gratefully, if unwittingly, re-
discovered his Elysium.
Francis Greenacre was Curator of Fine Art at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery from 1969 to 1997. He is an art historian, fine art
consultant and valuer, lecturer and the author of several publications on the Bristol School of artists.
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FRANCIS DANBY, A.R.A. (1793-1861) 1
Francis Danby, A.R.A. (1793-1861)
Irish-born, Francis Danby is widely regarded as an integral member of the Bristol Cader Idris, North Wales
School of artists despite only spending a little more than a decade living in the city. He
moved to Bristol in 1813 and over the subsequent decade established a reputation as Watercolour over pencil
the leading landscape painter in the region and his dramatic use of both watercolour 18.6 by 29.7 cm., 7 ¼ by 11 ½ in.
and oil found wide appeal. In 1824, he was forced to flee Bristol, due to his levels of
debt and five years later, the breakdown of his marriage compelled the artist to leave Provenance:
England altogether and he remained in Europe for the next decade. He returned With Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd (no.47584), 1986;
to London in 1838, moving to Exmouth in 1847, where he remained. Although he Private Collection
never fully reasserted his early reputation, he enjoyed sufficient success to indulge his
passion for boat-building. Literature:
Francis Greenacre, Francis Danby 1793-1861, 1988, p.168
Francis Greenacre (op. cit.) dates this watercolour to circa 1820. An earlier view
of Cader Idris by Danby is in the Courtauld Institute (D.1952.RW.4553). Danby is
recorded as visiting Wales in 1813 but there is little firm evidence to support it.
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THE REV. JOHN EAGLES (1783-1855) – nos. 2-3 2
The Rev. John Eagles (1783-1855)
Born in Bristol, Eagles went to school at Winchester before taking holy orders at A Wooded Landscape
Wadham College, Oxford. He was Vicar of Halberton, Devon from 1822 until
1835, when he returned to Winford, Bristol, followed by a spell in Kinnersley, Watercolour and bodycolour on grey-blue paper
Herefordshire. In 1841 he returned once more to Bristol, where he remained. On 28.5 by 49.1 cm., 11 ¼ by 19 ¼ in.
his death in 1855, he was resident at King’s Parade in Clifton.
3
Eagles knew many of the Bristol School artists and was purportedly the first to use the The Rev. John Eagles (1783-1855)
phrase `Bristol School’ in 1826. His work is normally unashamedly old-fashioned and On the Olchon Brook, Longtown, Herefordshire
often in brown wash, however his later works, like nos. 2 and 3, feel more modern in
style and execution. Inscribed lower centre: Olchon/Longtown 4 Sep 1850
Watercolour and bodycolour
36.8 by 52.4 cm., 14 ½ by 20 ½ in.
Longtown is a small village on a ridge of high ground in south-west Herefordshire, on
the Welsh border, close to the Black Mountains, between the River Monnow (Afon
Mynwy) and Olchon Brook. It is the site of the oldest Baptist Chapel, built beside the
brook in the 13th Century, on the site of a much earlier church. It was from here that
Baptism spread through South Wales.
7
THOMAS LEESON ROWBOTHAM (1782-1853) – nos. 4-6 4
Thomas Leeson Rowbotham (1782-1853)
Rowbotham was born in Bath, the son of the owner of the Theatre Royal. He moved Hilhouse’s new dock, later the Albion Dockyard, with Clifton and Brandon Hill in the
to Dublin in about 1812, but by 1825 was back in Somerset and settled in Bristol. distance
He established himself as a drawing master and was employed by the topographical Signed on plank lower right: Rowbotham/1829 and signed again with initials lower left
collector and antiquarian George Weare Braikenridge (see cat. no. 5 for further Brown washes over pencil
information on the Braikenridge collection). Rowbotham collaborated with William 12.5 by 17.6 cm., 5 by 6 ¾ in.
Müller on producing a series of engravings of the 1831 Bristol Riots. In 1833, he
moved to London where he remained until his death and taught at the Royal Naval There is another earlier version of the present watercolour, with slight differences,
School, New Cross. dated 1826, formerly in George Braikenridge’s collection and now in Bristol Art
Gallery. Braikenridge’s catalogue entry carefully details the subject depicted here as
‘the large Ship outside the Dock Gates taking in her Mizzen Mast is the Middleton of
London – on the right the Vessel on the Stocks is [in] Tippett’s Yard.’ In the distance is
the rotunda at Goldney House, the tower of St Andrew’s parish church, Clifton and
Brandon Hill with Queen’s Parade beneath.
8
5
Thomas Leeson Rowbotham (1782-1853)
St Luke’s Church, Brislington near Bristol
Brown washes over pencil
21 by 26 cm., 8 ¼ by 10 in.
This drawing is likely to have been commissioned by
the great Bristol collector and antiquary George Weare
Braikenridge (1775-1856) who purchased Broomwell
House, Wick Road, Brislington in May 1823. Braikenridge’s
collection of 1,400 topographical views of Bristol and the
surrounding area was commissioned from a number of
local artists and included 258 drawings by Rowbotham, as
well as others by Samuel Jackson and James Johnson. The
majority of the collection was bequeathed by one of his
sons to Bristol City Art Gallery in 1908. Amongst the views
he commissioned, were over 100 drawings of Brislington
alone in the mid-1820s, mainly from Rowbotham.
Brislington is two miles south-east of Bristol city centre and
was described as one of the prettiest villages in Somerset
in the early 19th century. St Luke’s church with its distinctive
tower, is believed to have been founded by the 5th Baron
Thomas La Warr in circa 1420.
6
Thomas Leeson Rowbotham (1782-1853)
A Pier, Black Rock, Brighton
Signed lower right: Black Rock/at Brighton/Aug 2/’41/
Rowbotham
Watercolour over traces of pencil heightened with
bodycolour
16.4 by 34 cm., 6 ¼ by 13 ¼ in.
Black Rock traditionally marked the Eastern boundary of
Brighton. In 1818-19 the Brighton Gas Light and Coke
Company built their gasworks there and a decade later, the
Abergavenny Arms opened. In 1936, a large Art Deco lido
was opened.
9SAMUEL JACKSON (1794-1869) – nos. 7-11 7
Samuel Jackson (1794-1869)
One of the best known of the Bristol School of artists, Jackson spent his entire life in A Waterfall in a wooded Landscape
his native Bristol. However he travelled extensively through Britain, including to Wales,
Devon, northern England and Scotland, as well as further afield visiting the West Indies Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of bodycolour
in 1827 and later in life to Switzerland, in 1855 and again in 1858. His earliest dated 25 by 37.5 cm., 9 ¾ by 14 ¾ in.
watercolours are from 1822 and were produced for George Braikenridge (see cat.
no. 5). Primarily a landscape watercolourist, Jackson established himself as a successful This may be a view of the watercolour in Stephen’s Vale, a wooded valley a few miles
drawing master and was a central figure in the groups of artists working in the city. He south of Bristol. The surrounding woods were originally part of the Earl of Warwick’s
was employed by Brunel to draw the landscapes around the designs he submitted for hunting estate, and later in the 18th and 19th centuries, the area was mined for coal.
his entry into the Clifton Suspension Bridge competition. Stephen’s Vale is steeply sloping with rocky outcrops and the waterfall is regarded as
the highlight of the area.
Jackson regularly sent his work to the Old Watercolour Society in London, exhibiting
some forty-six works between 1823, when he was elected an associate, and his
resignation in 1848.
108
Samuel Jackson (1794-1869)
St Andrew’s Church, Backwell
Signed lower right: S Jackson 1851 Backwell lies about 7 miles south west of Bristol. The church of St Andrew’s dates
Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of white from the 12th century, with subsequent alterations. The elegant west tower depicted
22.3 by 32.2 cm., 8 ¾ by 12 ½ in. in the present watercolour, which rises over 100 feet above the surrounding
countryside was built in the 15th century. On first glance the watercolour looks like a
Literature: pastoral village landscape, with grazing cattle. However, on the left is a lime kiln and ‘in
Francis Greenacre and Sheena Stoddard, The Bristol Landscape - The Watercolours of the distance, below the ridge running to Clevedon, Nailsea is seen enveloped in the
Samuel Jackson, 1986, pp.76-77, ill. no.49 constant cloud of smoke from its glassworks.’ (ibid.).
119 Samuel Jackson (1794-1869) St Vincent’s Rocks from Nightingale Valley, Clifton, Bristol Black and white chalk on grey paper 27.4 by 24.9 cm., 10 ¾ by 9 ¾ in. Provenance: With Suzi Quadrat, Clifton, Bristol; Private Collection until 2014 This is a view looking down Nightingale Valley to St Vincent’s Rocks which stand over the Clifton Gorge. Above St. Vincent’s Rocks stands Clifton Observatory which from 1828 was used as a studio by Jackson’s friend the artist William West. Nightingale Valley was the part of Leigh Woods most favoured by the Bristol School artists. A watercolour of this view by Jackson is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (see Francis Greenacre and Sheena Stoddard, The Bristol Landscape – The Watercolours of Samuel Jackson, 1986, no. 26, ill. p.46). 10 Samuel Jackson (1794-1869) View of a Bridge in a Mountainous Landscape Brown washes heightened with stopping out 19 by 28 cm., 7 ½ by 11 in. Provenance: With the Gallery Downstairs, London, 1991 12
11
Samuel Jackson (1794-1869)
Looking North from Cadbury Camp to the Mouth of the Avon
Watercolour suggests that the site was of strategic importance for centuries before the Fort was
13.1 by 22 cm., 5 by 8 ½ in. constructed in the 6th Century BC and continued to be used until at least the 6th
Century AD.
Provenance:
Andrew Wyld; This watercolour is a sketch for a more finished watercolour, in the collection of the
Private collection to 2019 Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society, Taunton.
The present subject depicts the view from the Iron Age Hill fort, Cadbury Fort looking
across to the Avon River which lies about 5 miles away. Archaeological evidence
13JAMES JOHNSON (1803-1834) Johnson was a pupil of Francis Danby and his earliest known work is dated 1819. A highly accomplished draughtsman, the artist George Cumberland described him as ‘a very clever artist, a better mechanic perhaps than Danby’ (Francis Greenacre, op.cit, p. 165). He was part of the Bristol School of artists who met to sketch and socialise. In 1825, Johnson moved to London and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and the British Institution. His contemporaries described him as `melancholy’ and he appears to have suffered from mental illness which led to his confinement in Bath where he was teaching drawing and, in the summer of 1834, he threw himself out of a window and died. Fifty views drawn in and around Bristol are in the Braikenridge collection, now in Bristol Art Gallery. 12 James Johnson (1803-1834) Guard House Passage, Wine Street, Bristol Signed lower right: J.J. 1821 and signed verso: Entrance to the Guard House Wine S.t Bristol/James Johnson del. 1821 Watercolour and pencil 23.1 by 17.1 cm., 9 by 6 ¾ in. Guard House Passage was a centuries old passageway running off Wine Street, Bristol. It was used as a billet for the ‘Main Guard’ during the Civil War (1642-43). In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries it was used as a lock-up for criminals and between 1836 and 1844 it was the first Bristol police station. Another watercolour by Johnson of this subject dated 1820 is in Bristol Art Gallery (see Sheena Stoddard, Bristol before the Camera: The City in 1820-30, 2001, p.25, no.19, ill.). 14
JAMES BAKER PYNE (1800-1870) – nos. 13-18 13
James Baker Pyne (1800-1870)
Pyne, a self-taught artist, was initially intended for a career in law. Instead he Penmachno Mill, North Wales
established himself as an artist and drawing master and amongst his pupils were
George Arthur Fripp and William James Müller. In 1835, he moved to London where Signed lower right: JBPYNE 1842.
he exhibited at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and the Society of British Oil on canvas
Artists, exhibiting exclusively with the latter from 1839. Early in his career, Pyne was 29.4 by 45.5 cm., 11 ½ by 17 ¾ in.
influenced by the work of Francis Danby, however, by the mid 1830s, he had become
fascinated by the work of J.M.W. Turner, as can be seen in the dramatic effects of Penmachno Mill was established in 1839, on part of the Penrhyn Estate. It was
light and the use of yellow tones in many of his works. He undertook various tours converted into a woollen mill by the leaseholder Hannah Jones and her sons. It
of Europe, travelling to France in the early 1830s, through Switzerland, Italy and became one of the most important mills in Wales and the cloth it produced was world
Germany in 1846. In 1851, following a commission from Thomas Agnew and Sons, famous, until it finally closed its doors in 1997. A lithograph of this subject after Pyne
he spent three years travelling through Southern Europe. was published in 1852 as part of ‘Landscapes by Eminent English Masters’ by Ernest
Gambart.
1514 James Baker Pyne (1800-1870) The Bristol Riots, October 1831: A Warehouse burning seen from Wapping Wharf Oil on canvas laid on card 12.7 by 9 cm., 5 by 3 ½ in. The Bristol Riots of October 1831 were caused by the voting down of the second Reform Bill in the House of Lords. The bill was intended to lead to electoral reform. The arrival of the anti-reform judge Charles Wetherell in Bristol on 29th October led to three days of protests and riots. Much of the city centre was burnt down and up to 250 citizens were killed. The third Reform Bill was eventually passed in 1832. Wapping Wharf was established in the early 18th Century when the shipyards were moved from Queen’s Square. The shipyard became one of the most important in the city, from which Brunel’s first steam ship, the SS Great Western, was built and launched in 1837. The New Gaol was commissioned in 1816 and took its first inmates in 1820. During the riots of 1831, the doors of the gaol were smashed open, prisoners released and the prison was then torched. However, unlike Lawford’s Gate (see no. 14), New Gaol, was rebuilt. Derelict for years, Wapping Wharf has been undergoing extensive development and regeneration, including being the site of the M Shed, part of Bristol Museums and the repository for the city’s history. 15 James Baker Pyne (1800-1870) The Bristol Riots, October 1831: The Burning of Lawford’s Gate Prison Oil on canvas laid on paper 8.9 by 13.2 cm., 3 ½ by 5 in. Lawford’s Gate prison was built in 1791, as part of a wider programme of prison reform in Gloucestershire, spearheaded by Sir George Onesiphorus Paul (1746-1820). It was built on the boundary of Bristol and neighbouring county of Gloucestershire, but as the city grew, became subsumed into Bristol. Like many of Bristol’s prisons, it was attacked during the riots and badly damaged by fire. It was little used again and fully abandoned by 1860, although it was not pulled down until 1926. Another version of this subject, in watercolour, is in the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery (Accession number M4117). A number of views of the riots, by Müller, are also in the museum. 16
16
James Baker Pyne (1800-1870)
A Salmon Trap on a River
Signed lower centre: PYNE 34.
watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and stopping out
29.3 by 19.1 cm., 11 ½ by 7 ½ in.
1717 James Baker Pyne (1800-1870) A Mother and Child with Cattle on a Wooded Lane Inscribed verso: Pyne Grey washes heightened with scratching out 22.3 by 17.7 cm., 8 ¾ by 7 in. Provenance: The Miles Family, Leigh Court near Bristol; R.E. Summerfield, until sold at Christie’s, 20th March 1990, lot 61a, where bought by the present owner This drawing is a typical product of the Bristol Sketching Society, an informal meeting of artists founded in 1799. They would meet in each other houses and produce sepia drawings of a poetic nature. The Miles family initially made their money in sugar, owning a plantation in Jamaica and then trading as sugar merchants before diversifying into banking. In 1817 they built Leigh Court on the site of an earlier house and employed Humphrey Repton, to undertake the landscaping. More recently this drawing belonged to the antique dealer and philanthropist Ronald Ernest Summerfield (1916-1989) who opened his first antiques shop in Derby in 1935. He moved to Cheltenham in the early 1950s and Summerfield continued to buy and sell antiques, although increasingly eccentric, his shop began to be run more for intellectual stimulation, rather than commercial gain. On his death in 1989, his collection numbered some 2 million items and was sold in a series of sales at various auction houses, to benefit the charitable trust that he had established. 18
18
James Baker Pyne (1800-1870)
Figures sketching near the Avon Gorge, Bristol
Signed lower left: PYNE 33 Exhibited:
Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour London, Agnew’s, 129th Annual Watercolour Exhibition, 2002, no.68;
20.3 by 28 cm., 8 by 11 in. Guy Peppiatt, British Drawings and Watercolours, summer catalogue, 2012, no.53
Provenance: This shows a painter and his companion sketching above the Avon Gorge looking
With Agnew’s, 2002; towards the Severn estuary with the sun setting behind Cook’s Folly. The Folly was a
Private collection, UK, until 2011; tower built by the Bristol City Chamberlain John Cook in the late seventeenth century
With Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, 2012; on his Sneyd Park estate.
Private Collection
19WILLIAM JAMES MÜLLER (1812-1845) – nos. 19-34 Müller is probably the best known artist of the Bristol School and died tragically young. His German-born father was the Curator of the Bristol Institution and his mother was from a liberal, educated background and so from childhood, Müller was introduced to a broad cultural and artistic milieu. At the age of 15, he was apprenticed to James Baker Pyne (see cat. Nos. 13-18), but stayed with him for only two years. More importantly, he became close to the Rev. James Bulmer (1794-1879), curator of St Mary’s Redcliffe, who had received drawing lessons from John Sell Cotman, and had purchased some 300 of the Norwich artist’s drawings. These had a profound influenced on the young artist (see no.19). In 1833 Müller was one of the founders of the Bristol Sketching Club and the following year undertook his first overseas trip, visiting Holland, the Rhine and Venice with George Arthur Fripp. In autumn 1838-9, he spent seven months travelling to Athens and onto Egypt (see nos. 23-26) before returning and settling in London. In 1840 he travelled through France and three years later, he went to Turkey, as part of Sir Charles Fellowes’s Lycian expedition, accompanied by Harry John Johnson (see cat nos 35-6). Within 18 months of his return from Turkey, Müller died of a heart attack at the age of 43. Müller sketched constantly, almost compulsively, writing from Paris on his way back from his Lycian trip, he stated, ‘I want to paint…it’s oozing out of my fingers’. He was often highly experimental, playing with effects of bodycolour and tinted papers in order to achieve a depth of colour and tone and as a foil to the more delicate transparent washes of watercolour and he developed a deep understanding of his chosen media. 19 William James Müller (1812-1845) Marsh Street, Bristol Watercolour over pencil with touches of gum arabic 16.7 by 11.1 cm., 6 ½ by 4 ¼ in. Provenance: Rev. James Bulwer (1794-1879), by descent; The Palser Gallery, St James’s, London; Unidentified auction, 24 March 1981, lot 53; Christopher and Rosemary Warren until 2020 Marsh Street lies in the centre of Bristol, St Stephen’s church which lies on nearby Baldwin Street can be seen clearly from Marsh Street. The Rev. James Bulwer (1794-1879) was a pupil of John Sell Cotman and the owner of a fine collection of British watercolours (see introduction on Müller). This early work, dating from the early 1830s, shows the influence of Cotman on Müller’s watercolours of this period. 20
20
William James Müller (1812-1845)
Near Subiaco, Italy
Inscribed verso: Near Subeago, Italy 1834 and February 1835 with his fellow artist George Arthur Fripp. They spent
Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour, stopping out and gum arabic Christmas 1834 in Rome then travelled by horse and trap to Tivoli where they stayed
22 by 34 cm., 8 ½ by 13 in. for two weeks.
Provenance: Subiaco lies in Lazio, in central Italy, about 25 miles from Tivoli on the river Aniene. It
Norman D. Newall (1888-1952), his sale, Christie’s, 13th December 1979, lot 52 was where the first printing press was established in Italy in 1465.
Nos. 20 to 22 date from Müller’s seven month tour of the Continent between July
2121 22 William James Müller (1812-1845) William James Müller (1812-1845) Titian’s House, Venice The Grand Canal, Venice Signed lower right: Titians Palace/WMuller Inscribed lower right: Grand Canal Venice Pencil on Whatman paper dated 1833 Pencil 43.3 by 28.1 cm., 17 by 11 in. 28.2 by 44.3 cm., 11 by 17 ¼ in. In an early biography of the artist, Solly wrote that ‘To visit Venice had been the goal This is a view looking north up the Grand Canal from near the Accademia with of Müller’s ambition for months, if not years. Most thoroughly did he enter heart and the imposing façade of the Ca Rezzonico on the left. Müller stayed at the Albergo soul into the wondrous time-worn beauty of this floating city’ (N. Neal Solly, Memoir dell’Europa opposite the Dogana while he was in Venice. of the Life of William Müller, 1875, p.39). He and Fripp spent two months in Venice, continuing south to Florence on 22nd November. They visited many palazzos and galleries and Müller was particularly impressed by the work of Titian and Tintoretto. Titian lived near the Fondamenta Nuove in the north of Venice. 22
23
William James Müller (1812-1845)
Twilight, Egypt
Anonymous sale, Christie’s, 20th April 1896, lot 69;
Signed and inscribed verso: I sketched this by the Twilight Decmber 27th/not that the Albany Gallery, London
scene is anything more than…/I have regarded a hundred times in…/but because I saw
the figures in the (spot)/they strongly reminded me of two…./(Agar in the desert) or the Literature:
Good Sam(aritan)/The scene is application to either…/WM Francis Greenacre and Sheena Stoddard, W.J. Müller 1812-1845, 1991, p.116, no.
Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and gum arabic 102, ill.
16.8 by 27.3 cm., 6 ½ by 10 ¾ in.
Exhibited:
Provenance: Bristol Art Gallery, W.J. Müller, 7th September – 17th November 1991, no.102
James Orrock (1829-1913);
Sir James Dromgole Linton (1840-1916); See note to no. 24 for more on his trip to Egypt.
2324 William James Müller (1812-1845) Dhows on the Nile, Egypt Watercolour over pencil mystery still lingered around this land of the ancient East.’ (see Cyril Bunt, The Life and 13 by 36 cm., 5 by 14 in. Work of William James Müller of Bristol, 1948, p.37). Provenance: The crowded streets, exotic costumes and bazaars enthralled Müller, especially in Bill Thomson, his sale, Sotheby’s, 25th November 1999, lot 56; Cairo, and he subsequently sailed up the Nile as far as Luxor, Karnak and the Valley of Private collection, UK the Kings. He returned to Bristol in the Spring of 1839. Nos. 23 to 26 date from Müller’s tour of Greece and Egypt in 1838-39. He left Bristol Two other Nile views by Müller are in the British Museum (see Greenacre and in September 1838 and spent six weeks in Athens before continuing to Alexandria Stoddard, W.J. Müller 1812-1845, 1991, nos. 100 and 101, ill.). in early November. Müller was excited by the novelty of Egypt since … ‘a halo of 24
25
William James Müller (1812-1845)
Study of North African Figures
Watercolour
10.1 by 15.1 cm., 4 by 6 in.
Provenance:
Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 31st January 1990, lot 7 (part)
See note to no. 24 for more on his trip to Egypt.
26
William James Müller (1812-1845)
A North African Street Scene
Watercolour over pencil
28 by 18.2 cm., 11 by 7 in.
Provenance:
Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 31st January 1990, lot 7 (part)
See note to no. 24 for more on his trip to Egypt.
2526
27
William James Müller (1812-1845)
A Thatched Cottage in a Wood
Signed or inscribed lower right: Wm Muller 1838
Oil on board
30 by 38 cm., 11 ½ by 15 in.
Literature:
Francis Greenacre and Sheena Stoddard, W.J. Müller 1812-1845, 1991, p.102, no.
78, ill.
Exhibited:
Bristol Art Gallery, W.J. Müller, 7th September – 17th November 1991, no.78
Greenacre and Stoddart (op.cit.) suggest that this oil sketch was painted on the spot
which is unusual in Müller’s work. A later inscription on the reverse reads: ‘Bourton
near Gillingham.’ This is likely to be Flax Bourton or Bourton Combe which is about
five miles outside Bristol.
28
William James Müller (1812-1845)
A Bridge over a River in a Wooded Landscape
Signed lower right: WMüller/1836.
Oil on canvas
26.1 by 36.7 cm., 10 ¼ by 14 ½ in.
Provenance:
The Gyrn Castle House sale, Christie’s, 17th July 2006, lot 158, where bought by the
present owner
29
William James Müller (1812-1845)
Fisherman by a Lock
Oil on canvas
35 by 25.5 cm., 13 ½ by 10 in.
Provenance:
L.J. Cave, 75 Chester Square, London
2730 William James Müller (1812-1845) A Stream in a Sunlit Glade Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and scratching out, with arched top 35 by 53.3 cm., 13 ¾ by 21 in. 28
31
William James Müller (1812-1845)
On the river Lynn at Lynmouth, Devon
Signed with initials lower left: Lynmouth WM/’44 Gustavus, also an artist in Bristol. In July the two brothers, together with another
Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour and gum arabic Bristol artist William West, travelled down to Lynmouth in Devon where they stayed
34.7 by 52.9 cm., 13 ½ by 20 ¾ in. for two months. There he completed four or five oil paintings and a number of
watercolours, many of which, like the present work, are inscribed ‘Lynmouth.’
Müller returned from his journey to Lycia in Turkey with the archaeologist Sir
Charles Fellows in May 1844 and immediately went to stay with his brother Edmund
2932 William James Müller (1812-1845) Cascades on a river in a wooded Landscape, possibly Swallow Falls, Betws-y-Coed Watercolour over traces of pencil formed where the Afon Llugwy flows through a narrow chasm among a woodland of 37.5 by 54.8 cm., 14 ¾ by 21 ½ in. beech, conifer and birch trees. Müller visited Wales regularly throughout his short life, from his first visit to North Wales in 1833 onwards. Swallow Falls, or Rhaeadr Ewynnol, is a spectacular waterfall 30
33
William James Müller (1812-1845)
A River in a Wooded Landscape
Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil
29.4 by 45.6 cm., 11 ½ by 18 in.
3134
William James Müller (1812-1845)
The artist’s studio, probably 22 Charlotte Street, London
Signed with the artist’s monogram lower right: WJM Exhibited:
Pencil on blue-grey laid paper, watermarked Snelgrove’s /1829 Bristol, Museum and Art Gallery, William James Muller 1812-1845, 1991, no. 179
19.1 by 30.4 cm., 7 ½ by 12 in.
Francis Greenacre and Sheena Stoddard have dated the present drawing to circa
Provenance: 1840. The painting on the easel is of an Egyptian scene and Müller only returned from
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby’s, 26 March 1975, lot 195, where acquired by Egypt in spring 1839 and moved to London. At Charlotte Street, the artist has rooms
Cyril and Shirley Fry; including the studio on the first floor. The figures depicted are likely to include Müller’s
By descent until 2021 pupil Edward Dighton and his friend James Chisholme Gooden.
32HARRY JOHN JOHNSON (1826-1884) – nos. 35-36
Although not strictly a Bristol artist, Johnson was a pupil of Müller
and accompanied him on Sir Charles Fellowes’s expedition to Lycia
in 1843. On his return he settled in London in 1843, where he
met and became friends with David Cox and accompanied him on
several trips to North Wales, including Cox’s first visit to Bettws-y-
Coed in 1844. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute in
1868 and a full member in 1870.
35
Harry John Johnson (1826-1884)
The Theatre at Xanthus, Turkey
Signed with initials lower left: Theatre of Xanthus/Nov 6 1843 HJJ
Watercolour over traces of pencil
34.7 by 26.2 cm., 13 ½ by 10 ¼ in.
Xanthus was the capital of ancient Lycia. Its strategic significance
was recognised by the Persians, Greeks and Romans, who in turn
all conquered the region. The temple was built in the mid-2nd
Century AD during Roman occupation and was so large, the layout
of the city had to be altered to accommodate it. The British traveller
and archaeologist, Sir Charles Fellowes first visited Xanthus in 1838
and returned several times including in 1843 with Johnson and
Müller, when the present watercolour was executed.
36
Harry John Johnson (1826-1884)
The Temple of Poseidon, Sounion, Greece
Watercolour over pencil on several sheets of joined paper
40.2 by 58.7 cm., 15 ¾ by 23 in.
Cape Sunion lies on the southern tip of the Attican peninsula about
40 miles south of Athens. The remains of the Temple are perched
on the headland, overlooking the Aegean Sea. It is reputedly
where Aegeus, King of Athens jumped off the cliffs to his death,
thinking his son Theseus had failed in his quest to slay the Minotaur.
The earliest literary reference to Sounion is in Homer’s Odyssey,
probably composed in the 8th century BC, although but the earliest
archaeological remains date to around 700 BC. The temple, whose
columns still stand today, was probably built circa 440 BC, during
the same period that the Parthenon was rebuilt.
3337 Charles Branwhite (1817-1880) A Waterfall Signed with initials lower right Waterfall over pencil heightened with bodycolour on buff paper 53.2 by 36.4 cm., 21 by 14 ¼ in. Branwhite initially trained as a sculptor before embarking on a career as a watercolourist. He trained under his father, the miniaturist and watercolour portrait painter Nathan Cooper Branwhite and then under Müller. He spent his entire life in Bristol, but regularly sent works to the Old Watercolour Society, of which he was elected an Associate in 1849. 34
38
Samuel Read (1816-1883)
The Avon Gorge looking South during the building of the Suspension bridge
Signed lower right: S. Read The present drawing depicts the bridge sometime between the construction of the
Watercolour over pencil heightened with touches of white towers and the work recommencing in 1860. Read’s architectural training is evident in
31.5 by 47.5 cm., 12 ¼ by 18 ¾ in. the accuracy of the depiction of the towers of the bridge and in the buildings on the far
side. Furthermore, the artist has placed an equal emphasis on the impressive power of
Provenance: the architecture of the man-made towers, as on the dramatic natural landscape. There
Anonymous sale Christie’s, 28th April 1987, lot 55 is an engraving by Read of the completed bridge seen from the south.
A scheme to bridge the Avon gorge was proposed as early as 1754, when Bristol Read initially trained as a lawyer and then architect, before moving to London in
wine merchant, William Vick left £1,000 in his will to put towards the construction of order to learn wood engraving. His early architectural training can, however, be
a bridge. By 1829, Vick’s investment had grown sufficiently to enable the project to seen in the careful, rather linear quality his work. He travelled extensively through
get underway and a competition was announced. This was eventually won by Brunel Britain and Europe and became the first artist special correspondent, being sent to
and by 1843, the bridge was partially completed with the abutments, towers, access Constantinople in 1853, just before the Crimean War.
roads, tunnels and chambers for anchoring the chains completed. However, costs
were escalating, and the project was shelved. It was only following Brunel’s death in
1859 that work recommenced as a tribute to the engineer. The bridge was finally
opened in 1864.
3536
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