She said her name was Miya and in perfect English – but with perhaps a Polish or Croat accent – she explained that she was from a group of young artists who were setting up a not-for-profit gallery in Liverpool.

They needed funds and were going door to door to try to raise capital by selling some of their art.

It got me to thinking how great it would be to have the ability – and spare cash – to be able to talent-spot up and coming young artists and buy their paintings?

Just think of the untold riches that might have fallen to the lucky punter who bought Picasso … or L.S. Lowry … or whoever, before their work rocketed in value.

Just think what you could achieve if you had the millions to go out and indulge yourself – Charles Saatchi-like – (perhaps that should be John Moores-like) in the Liverpool Biennial exhibitions and then watch the artists you backed become household names – with prices to match.

Or do you agree with me that that is the worst possible way to buy – and appreciate – art?

In my book you should buy from the heart, not from a head ruled by profit and loss. Buy because you fall in love with a painting or work or art, because you cannot live without it, not because you see it as a “good investment” (or worse still because someone says it is a good investment).

If what you buy goes up in value, fine. If it doesn’t, so what? If you love the piece, what it’s worth (or what it cost) is meaningless.

So, climbing down from my soapbox, I ask you to direct your attention to the pictures illustrated here.

Not all of them are to everyone’s taste and not all of them are out of the reach of collectors like me, with champagne taste and beer pocket money.

But what they have in common is that they and pictures like them are being snapped up by investors who have little regard for their artistic merit.

The paintings were among the star lots in an auction of Welsh fine art on Saturday September 25 at the Colwyn Bay saleroom of Rogers Jones & Co. According to auctioneer David Rogers Jones, there is no end in sight to the price spiral such works have been enjoying.

The sale was the third of its type to concentrate solely on the work of Welsh artists or Welsh subjects, but the search for quality pieces gets ever harder.

“We’ve hunted high and low for flagship lots,” Mr Rogers Jones said, “and as before, the pictures everyone wants are by Sir Kyffin Williams.”

The auctioneer is not the only one searching out Royal Academician’s work. “People are scouring the country looking for his pictures, but they are being bought as commodities like investors would buy stocks and shares,” Mr Rogers Jones said.

Oil paintings that were fetching £6,000-7,000 two or three years ago are now twice that and the auctioneer said he had seen one work, fresh to the market from the easel of the living artist, priced at £20,000 in a North Wales gallery.

The latest area to see big price rises at Williams’ watercolours. “Their value has shot up,” Mr Rogers Jones said.

“They were selling for £1,500-2,000. Now people who can’t afford his oils are buying his watercolours and the prices have doubled.”

Mr Rogers Jones said it was Williams’ work from the 1970s and 80s that he most admired. At first sight, a landscape of a Welsh coastline, for example, looked to be painted in black and white.

On closer inspection, the picture was made up of a dozen different tones. “Put you nose up to one off his pictures and you see a merging of subtle tones. There’s three greens, three greys, three different blacks. Stand a yard away from the picture and the effect is three-dimensional.”

Such an example was on the cover of the sale catalogue (and illustrated here). The oil on canvas was titled Caernarfonshire coastalscape with the Rivals and at 35.5 by 35.5 inches, it had great wall power. Buyers agreed – it sold for a mid-estimate £18,000.

The other Williams oil in the sale was always ikely to be dearer still. Showing a farmer and his sheepdog on a mountain path above Llithfaen, the work fetched £19,000.

Watercolours are less stratospheric. A view of Welsh cottages with farmer and dog on a path at Cilgwyn sold for £3,500-4,500 and “Slate Tip, Bethesda” sold for £4,900.

Representing good value is a pencil and colourwash picture of a farmer and his dog at an above top estimate £2,900, while buyers like me were attracted to artist’s proof linocuts: an interesting self-portrait sold for £340 and a Farmer John Jones sold for £390.

Another artist whose work is becoming increasingly sought after is Charles Wyatt Warren, who painted for pocket money – and probably light relief from his job in the finance department of Caernarfonshire County Council.

David Rogers Jones recalled that Warren was particularly adept at painting silver birch trees. He also had a unique production line in an outhouse at his home.

All his oils are painted on hardboard panels. Using a thick ball of string, the artist would rig up a “washing line” and suspend five sheets of hardboard from it using clothes pegs.

Working on the sheets consecutively, he would paint mountains on each in turn, then go back to the beginning and add a lake and then the prerequisite silver birches.

The results were sold in local galleries and cafes at prices ranging from £10-15.

Today, they fetch anything from £300-600 and six featured in the Rogers Jones sale. The one illustrated here shows a disused Anglesey windmill and millpond, which fetched £450, despite the lack of silverbirches!

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Pictures show:

Above Llithfaen, the most expensive lot in the sale at £19,000

Caernarfonshire coastalscape with the Rivals by Sir Kyffin Williams, sold for £18,000

Charles Wyatt Warren’s Anglesey windmill landscape, sold for £450
(Pictures Rogers Jones Co)

First, I heard I talk by a museum and art gallery curator about the life and work of the Herdman family of painters and second, an auction catalogue dropped through my letterbox with one of the most amusing front cover illustrations I’ve seen in a long time.

It showed a watercolour by Birkenhead artist Harry B. Neilson and it’s illustrated here, so you can see for yourself. I know very little about either — and neither do many other people!

The talk was by Colin Simpson, curator of the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead, who had been invited by Chester auctioneers Byrne’s to speak at a private view for potential buyers on the eve of their sale of a single-owner collection of paintings by Herdman and his son, also called William.

The Williamson has a large collection of the Herdmans’ work of its own, prompting one lady in the audience to recommend a visit, which I fully endorse.

But what intrigued me is how little we know about such a prolific artist. Colin Simpson admitted that more research was needed and even he went home having learnt something he was previously unaware of.

He told me later: “I’ve heard tonight from a man who told me that his sister was taught to paint by one of W.G. Herdman’s daughters. I was not previously aware that the Herdman girls were artists and I certainly didn’t know that one of them taught art.”

W. G. Herdman was prolific in more ways than one – he had 11 sons and five daughters – but until the other evening, it was believed that only William, William Patrick, John Innes and Stanley had become artists in their own right.

No other artist has done more to document Liverpool than William Gawin Herdman (1805-82). As a boy of 13 he started making notes about how the city and its buildings were changing around him and later, entirely self-taught, he produced dozens of unrivalled watercolour views of the city and surrounding districts at a time of unprecedented economic growth.

Mr Simpson said Herdman was known to take the Mersey ferry, walk as far as he could in half an hour or so and then sketch what he saw. Views of New Brighton and Eastham were favourites, as was one particular hostelry in Rock Ferry of which the Williamson has about 10 versions!

Herdman’s historical views dating from before his birth were done by talking to local historians or by copying the work of others. There is a sketch by Herdman of Woodside Ferry dated 1807. The artist was aged two at the time!

Herdman quickly built a successful career as a commercial artist, executing commissions and completing a series of Liverpool views which were used to illustrate a book he published himself titled “Pictorial Relics of Ancient Liverpool”. With it came wealth and he took a grand house at 41 Domingo Vale, Everton, an affluent area of the city.

He also taught art and in 1836, was elected a member of the Liverpool Academy. Run along similar lines to the Royal Academy, it held exhibitions of the work of local artists alongside that of leading artists of the day including Landseer, Maddox Brown, Holman Hunt and Millais.

Herdman was subsequently appointed secretary, but found himself at odds with the membership. He painted from real life, not the imaginary world of the Pre-Raphaelites (Colin Simpson described them as “the Damien Hirsts of their day”) and he objected when they were continually awarded the Academy’s annual prizes.

He resigned in 1857 and the following year, he founded the Liverpool Society of Fine Arts, but rivalry between the two resulted in the closure of both, the Society in 1862 and the Academy in 1865.

Today’s collectors need not be concerned by attributions. Watercolours signed in full or with the initials WGH are by Herdman senior. Those signed “William Herdman” are by his son, arguably the best artist among them, while those by Stanley are probably least good of them all.

Other artists copied Herdman’s work and his name was sullied by reproduction prints, some of them of poor quality printing. Original prints of Herdman’s watercolours made in his lifetime were much better.

Liverpool City Library has possibly the finest collection of Herdman watercolours and there are plans to mark the centenary of his birth with an exhibition there next year. Perhaps by then we’ll have learned a little more about one of Liverpool’s most famous artists.

Picture shows: A view of Liverpool’s Hanover Street looking towards Canning Dock and the Seaman’s Home Herdman’s son, also named William. It sold for £2,530 (Photo: Byrne’s Auctioneers, Chester)

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

When Harry met tally-ho

In addition to an impressive selection of works by the Herdman family of artists, the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead also exhibits a group of enchanting watercolours by the intriguing Edwardian artist Harry B. Neilson. And if we don’t know much about Herdman, we know even less about Harry.

My interest was aroused by a catalogue from Beeston, Tarporley auctioneers Wright Manley which contained these two charming examples of Neilson’s work, painted in 1920 as book illustrations.

As examples of anthropomorphism — animals dressed in humans’ clothes and adopting human traits — they are without equal. But what today’s anti-hunt lobby would say about them is anybody’s guess!

From a series entitled “A Day with the Reynardshire Hunt”, each picture includes a lengthy caption, the subtle wit and role reversal of which adds immensely to their charm. “Going To The Meet” reads as follows: Old Sourgrapes, the huntsfox, having reported that men were plentiful in Chivvyboys Spinney, everybody who was anybody in Reynardshire turned out in the highest spirits anticipating a rattling day’s run. The meet was at Gander’s End, half a mile from Brush Hall where Lord and Lady De Mask were entertaining a large party. The De Masks’ youngest son the Hon. Younge Cubbe, saw the beginning of the sport from the governess-cart.

The other, “In The First Flight” reads: The first find was, as expected, in Chivvyboys Spinney and the man gave the field a capital 20 minutes until the kill at Kilmanquick. Lady De Mask watched with evident pride the plucky riding of her the eldest son young, Lord Mountcanine. One or two unfortunate accidents were reported. Dr Rob Hencoop was thrown early, and spent most of the day hunting his mount while Mr Vulpy, K.C. exchanged a saddle for quickset hedge.

But who was Harry Neilson? According to a cutting from the Daily Telegraph, being sold with the watercolours, Neilson was born in Birkenhead. A renowned eccentric noted for his offbeat sense of humour, he illustrated many children’s books including Mr McGee’s Menagerie (1897) and also contributed to publications such as The Sketch. An ornithologist and local historian, he lived in Bidston Village and died in 1942.

Colin Simpson, curator of the Williamson, is quoted as saying: “(Neilson’s) role reversal is a constant theme. It’s quirky and amusing and possesses a novelty value that sticks in people’s minds, although no one seems to know anything about the artist.”

I intend to learn more about him and would appreciate hearing from any reader who can help. Sadly, I couldn’t afford the Wright Manley watercolours which had each been estimated at £500-800 in the sale on Tuesday this week. In the event, Going to the Meet sold for £2,600 and The First Flight fetched £1,600, much to the delight of the private collector who sold them.

Picture shows: Harry B. Neilson’s Going to the Meet – role reversal at its most wickedly witty (Photo: Wright Manley Auctioneers, Beetson)

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

by Christopher Proudlove©
Charles Tunnicliffe looked for all the world like a farmer … big and burly, with hands like cornbin lids, more likely to be swinging a pitchfork than holding a paintbrush. In fact, he was a deeply sensitive craftsman of delicate, artistic skill who became arguably Britain’s finest wildlife artist of his time.

He drew birds mostly … with such scientific precision and painstaking care that it cost him his sight. He was born a farmer but died in 1979 a Royal Academician leaving behind him a legacy of wonderful art; only now has his work gained widespread recognition and acclaim.

The first hint of the artist’s future importance was in May, 1981, when a
collection of several hundred drawings, sketchbooks and manuscripts that had been found in his studio at Shorelands overlooking the Malltraeth Estuary on Anglesey, North Wales, were sent for sale at Christie’s.

The remarkable collection was Tunnicliffe’s private reference library: a painted and sketched record of plummage, beaks, feet and eyes of every species of bird imaginable, birds in flight, birds feeding, swimming, perching, all captured in exact, measured detail.

These pictures were the tools of his trade, his catalogue for his commission customers, but apart from a brief exhibition in 1974, the world was unaware of them. However, publicity surrounding the auction dispersal of the collection alerted the authorities.

With three days to spare before the sale, Anglesey Borough Council stepped in with a £400,000 bid and bought the entire collection. It was the culmination of a national appeal, led by Tunnicliffe’s friend, Wales’s greatest 20th century artist the late Sir Kyffin Williams, backed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (of which Tunnicliffe had been a vice-president and benefactor) and the National Museum of Wales. The collection can be seen today at Oriel Ynys Môn, near Llangefni, which was built specifically to house it.

Charles Tunnicliffe (1901-1979) was born in 1901 in Langley, near Macclesfield, Cheshire, the son of William Tunnicliffe, and his wife, Margaret. The couple also had two daughters.

In 1903, the family moved to a small farm that took its name from the village of Sutton Lane Ends, again on the outskirts of Macclesfield, and it was there that Tunnicliffe found his first artistic inspiration.

From an early age he had surprised his family and teachers with his ability to draw animals. The boy’s schoolmaster realised his talents and arranged a scholarship for him at Macclesfield College of Art, where he fitted his studies around helping his father on the farm.

Under normal circumstances the young boy would have followed his father into farming, but the art bug had bitten deep. Some summer mornings Tunnicliffe would be up at four o’clock and harnessing the horse to cut the hayfield before starting his day’s work as a student.

However, an abrupt change of environment came a couple of years after the Armistice. Tunnicliffe’s art tutors suggested he try for a scholarship at the Royal College of Art and when he was accepted at the age of 19, he leapt at the chance to broaden his horizons.

There was great excitement on the auction circuit when a cache of drawings by Tunnicliffe, some of which were believed to be previously unseen and unpublished, were uncovered in the home of his late niece.
It appears that in addition to the measured drawings now on exhibition in Anglesey, Tunnicliffe made a number of bequests to family members, one of which was a group of about 18 works discovered in her home following his niece’s recent death. They were sold at Cheshire auctioneers Peter Wilson in July for a total of £14,382. They had been expected to fetch £10,000. Click here to see some of the works sold.

Again the young student impressed and he readily agreed when it was suggested he stay on for an extra year to study etching. It was during this time that he produced a now prized series of etchings showing mainly farming and rural scenes. He also met Winifred Wonnacott who later became his wife.

After living for seven years in London, latterly earning a living as a printmaker, he returned to Macclesfield, married Winifred and set about making a career for himself as a book illustrator and commercial artist.

His first commission was for wood engravings for Henry Williamson’s “Tarka the Otter”, followed by “The Lone Swallows”, “The Old Stag” and “A Peregrine’s Saga”, Tunnicliffe illustrated more than 80 books including ones by H.E. Bates and Ernest Hemingway.

Tunnicliffe was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1945, more than anything for the high standard of his engraving. He was elected a full Academician 10 years later.

His ties with the Cheshire countryside were finally broken in 1947 when he and his wife found a house on Anglesey suitable for their studio. They had been regular visitors to the island on birdwatching trips and the house, Shorelands, at Malltraeth, with magnificent views to Snowdon and at the Water’s edge of the Cefni estuary, he described as his “escape”.

It was there that he produced his best work. Commissions flooded in and at the same time he toiled unremittingly on the measured drawings of wildlife. Word spread that Tunnicliffe wanted dead birds to measure and draw and friends would watch for fatalities at the roadside and bring them to his house. Rarer finds sometimes arrived by post but all had died by accident – Tunnicliffe refused to kill a bird in order to draw it.

This exact recording of wildlife was a gruelling task, drawing of a creature often taking up to four days to complete, and Tunnicliffe’s health began to suffer. The death of his wife in 1969 affected him badly and his eyesight began to fail. He died in 1979, in his chair by the fireside from a heart attack, a year after being awarded the OBE.

Picture shows a gouache study of Waxwings, sold for £200. Click here to see a slideshow of other works by Charles Tunnicliffe

16980-061010-869370-87

© 2006 All Rights Reserved.

by Christopher Proudlove©
It’s possible to pick up a Pablo Picasso print on an Internet site selling posters for £7.99. At the time of writing, a quick check on eBay revealed around 300 currently up for auction, some with a “Buy It Now” option for as little as £4.99. They were all probably printed yesterday. How then do you explain the fact that the print with the lady riding sidesaddle illustrated here sold for £1,650. Or indeed that the other two, at the foot of this page, fetched just £700 and £620 respectively. What makes the conundrum even more difficult to understand is that the auctioneer estimated the value of each of them before the sale at £200-300.

No, I don’t know either, but I have a theory. At the spring sale of Impressionist art at Sotheby’s in New York, Picasso’s portrait of his mistress Dora Maar with her black cat perched on her shoulder sold for £51.6 million. The price that was more than twice the estimate and made the work the second most expensive painting in auction history. The ripple effect spread across the entire art market and Picassos flooded onto the market, one dealer reportedly taking 25 of the artist’s works to Switzerland’s Art Basel fair last week and selling three of them on the first day.

London’s blockbuster Impressionist sales in June were awash with them as owners tried to cash in their investments. At Sotheby’s, two of the top 10 most valuable paintings in the sale were by Picasso: an oil on canvas titled The Painter and His Model, done in 1963, sold for £7.4 million, while an oil on board painted in 1901 and showing elegantly dressed racegoers, titled “Les Courses à Auteuil”, sold for £2.6 million.

Perhaps it was coincidence that the trio of Picasso prints appeared in a provincial sale when they did, but they were received enthusiastically and made the estimates look woefully inadequate. The three coloured lithographs came from the artist’s “Toros Y Toreros” (Bulls and Bullfighters” Series and were titled respectively: “The Bull Ring of Arles”; “The Bull Fight” and “Jacqueline on horseback”.

Picasso’s fascination with the bullfight started when he was a young boy in Malaga. His childhood notebooks from school are filled with sketches of matadors, bullrings, and picadors. Interestingly, the first oil ever created by the young artist was of a matador (1889-1890) and the bullfight remained an important theme that Picasso continued to explore throughout his creative years.

Naturally, a unique work by Picasso is out of the reach of all but the mega-rich, but prints remain affordable – at least for the time being. But there are prints and there are prints. The three illustrated dated from the 1950s and were early impressions of limited editions which in each case numbered just 125. And most importantly, they were signed by the artist himself. This fact alone confers huge significance on the value. Literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Picasso prints are in existence, but not all of them bear his signature which in effect, was his seal of approval.

The trio were originally retailed by the London dealers Templeton & Rawling, whose gallery was based in Kendal Street W2. Each print was accompanied by its authentication certificate, and all three were framed and ready to hang on the wall. Each was a potential prize for a Picasso aficionado with champagne taste but beer pocket money.

Most valuable of the three, “Jacqueline on Horseback” was an early number 27 in the edition. Another clue to its significance was the impressed the date on the plate which read 10.3.59. “The Bullfight”, also numbered 27 in the edition, was an altogether more dramatic image, showing the matador being tossed head over heels by the bull which stands on its hind legs. It sold for £700, while the altogether more childlike and sketchy “The Bullring of Arles”, again number 27 in the edition, was cheapest and £620.

Clearly, there is more to buying Picasso prints than it first might appear. Picasso was a prolific printmaker, using all the different techniques to master the art. His lithographs, etchings, drypoints, lino cuts, woodcuts and aquatints were all experiments aimed at pushing the boundaries further and further. Indeed, some of Picasso’s graphic works are combinations of several techniques, which really tested his printmaker’s skills.

A series of 15 drypoints and etchings called Les Saltimbanques (The street acrobats) were Picasso’s first venture into printmaking in 1905 and the results were published by the dealer Vollard in 1913. More followed in the early 1930s but it was not until after the Second World War that most of Picasso’s prints were created.

From 1945 to 1949 he produced a massive body of about 200 lithographs working in close co-operation with Henri Deschamps, a professional printmaker from the Mourlot studio, a renowned art publisher and print workshop in Paris.

Prices vary wildly. In May this year, Christie’s New York sold an etching and aquatint done in 1938 and titled “Girl with Tambourine” for £401,800. It was signed in pencil and numbered number 17 from an edition of 30, but as we have seen, 1950s signed Picasso prints can be purchased for a fraction of the price.

Prints from large editions, made after the artist’s death and obviously therefore unsigned, but still by skilled printmakers copying his drawings as their base material are still highly collectable though not necessarily good vehicles for investment. The ones to avoid are those that purport to have been signed by the master but whose signatures are also copies and engraved onto the plates from which the prints are produced.

Or you could just buy them anyway because they look great in any trendy minimalist setting when framed and hung together. And when you get bored with them you simply throw them away and replace them with new, cheap alternatives.

Pictures show, top: “Jacqueline on horseback”, which sold for £1,650

Above, left: “The Bull Ring of Arles”, which sold for £620 and “The Bull Fight”, which sold for £700

75955-060925-676689-46

© 2006 All Rights Reserved.

by Christopher Proudlove©
The exhibition marking the bicentenary of the death of George Stubbs – which opened at Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery earlier this month, prior to a spell at Tate Britain and subsequently at the Frick Collection – has been eagerly anticipated. Rarely does the public get to see paintings by the great artist from normally closed private collections, but cooperation between the Lady Lever Art Gallery and Tate Britain has reunited four unique works for the first time since Stubbs painted them in the 1770s.

Interestingly, however, they are not paintings in the accepted sense. Stubbs’ reputation as a painter of animals in general and horses in particular is unassailable. What is less well known is that in the 1770s, Stubbs began a series of experiments to perfect a technique of painting on pottery.

The catalyst was his friendship with Josiah Wedgwood, who had revolutionised the pottery manufacturing process at his Etruria works in the Staffordshire Potteries. Wedgwood invited Stubbs to stay with his family at Etruria in 1780 and together they worked on making large pottery plaques on which the process could be attempted.

In the first instance, Stubbs painted a number of wooden plaques as models for his pottery versions and he and Wedgwood subsequently worked to repeat the process using a ceramic “canvas” and enamels rather than oil-based paint. When the pot was fired, the enamel vitrified in the heat, much like a glaze, but with far more delicate and subtle results.

The work was successful, as could be seen in a self-portrait in enamels on an oval Wedgwood plaque that Stubbs painted in 1781, the same year that he was elected to membership of the Royal Academy. Regarded then as merely a sporting painter, Stubbs was looked down upon by the art establishment anyway and at a time when even watercolour paintings were regarded as somehow second class art, his fellow Academicians were not impressed.

To see how wrong they were, I recommend you visit the Walker exhibition. There, together again for the first time since they were painted are two of the Wedgwood earthenware plaques, on loan from the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, alongside the versions painted on wood, now in the Tate Britain collection. The plaques show haymakers at work and it is fascinating to compare the results.

One of five children of a comfortably off Liverpool leather worker, George Stubbs (1724-1806) started painting as a child drawing the animal bones from his father’s business. The boy had little formal art training, perhaps only for a few weeks in 1739, when he was briefly apprenticed to a Lancashire painter and engraver named Hamlet Winstanley. The tutelage ended after Stubbs objected to the amount of copying the was instructed to do, probably more for Winstanley’s benefit than his own.

By 1745 Stubbs had moved to York, and set himself up as a portrait painter. Interestingly, by the time he was 21, he also knew enough about anatomy to be able to instruct medical students studying at the hospital there.

George Stubbs: A Celebration runs at the Walker until July 30. Admission is free. From Liverpool it moves to Tate Britain from August 21 August to January 2007 and thereafter at the Frick Collection, New York, from February to May 2007.

He also won a commission from a Dr. John Burton in 1751 to draw engravings of foetuses to illustrate a book on midwifery, subsequently arranging for a local engraver to teach him how to etch the plates from which the book was printed.

In 1754, he went to Italy to study art and in the Palazzo di Conservatori, he saw an antique Roman statue of a lion clawing at a horse’s back. This was almost certainly the inspiration for a series of later pictures of a horse being frightened and subsequently attacked by a lion. One of them, from the Lady Lever, can be seen in the exhibition.

By then, Stubbs was living in London with his common law wife, Mary Spencer. The couple had a son, George Townley Stubbs (1756-1815) who also became an engraver and printmaker.

By now the commissions were rolling in and many of Stubbs’ great masterpieces featuring famous racehorses, hunters, their foals and their rich and important owners date from this period. He also produced a series of superb open-air portraits, so-called conversation pieces, of some of his clients and friends, notably the Wedgwood family.

Stubbs’ knowledge of horse anatomy was gained from scientifically dissecting the animals and he even managed to obtain the carcass of a tiger, which he also dissected and studied in detail, making dozens of drawings which were snapped up by veterinary surgeons of the day.

Despite a growing reputation as a scientist, Stubbs executed many commissions for the gentry, either riding to hounds or with their favourite hunter, which helped finance publication of his magnificent 1766 treatise called Anatomy of the Horse. In it, horses are shown with layer after layer of flesh and muscle removed, culminating in the perfectly drafted skeleton.

Stubbs was also commissioned to paint the first kangaroo brought to England, while other wild animals in Stubbs’ pictures include a moose, rhinoceros, a baboon with a macaque monkey, a yak, and notable a commission commemorating the gift of a cheetah to George III by the Governor of Madras, Sir George Pigot.

Royal patronage followed, notably from the Prince of Wales, and all 18 paintings by Stubbs still hang at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace.

However, by now in his 70s and despite his artistic success, Stubbs found himself in financial difficulties. Nevertheless, he embarked on yet another project which he called “A Comparative Anatomical Exposition of the Human Body with that of a Tiger and a Common Fowl” for which he completed 100 drawings and 18 engravings. Stubbs died on July 10,1806, in poor financial circumstances.

Pictures show, top: Self-portrait on a White Hunter. This is one of the enamel paintings by Stubbs on Wedgwood pottery plaques in the exhibition
Below, left to right: Haycarting – one of the enamel paintings by Stubbs on Wedgwood pottery plaques in the exhibition
A Cheetah and a Stag, one of the most important works in the exhibition, with its theme of raw animal speed waiting to be unleashed. Copyright Manchester Art Gallery
A Lion and a Lioness. Stubbs had an understanding of the anatomy of such creatures at a time when few people had seen them in the flesh. Copyright Simon C Dickinson Ltd

By Christopher Proudlove©

One day, I’ll write about the fortunes of a forgotten artist who will suddenly be rediscovered and lauded by art historians far cleverer than I’ll ever be. I’m not holding my breath!

Longstanding readers will know how keen I am. In these pages I’ve already reminded both them and myself about Liverpool’s Herdman family of watercolourists; Birkenhead artist Harry B. Neilson, (1861-1941); Liverpudlian artist, George Haydock Dodgson (1811 – 1880) and Wallasey-born Frances Macdonald.

I thought I was on to something when the respected dealer and fine art agent in Old Master and British paintings, Ben Elwes, contacted me to tell me about a rare picture by a previously little known Welsh artist which he has for sale.

Clearly the work is important. Not only was the picture, illustrated here, the star piece in his new gallery at 45 Maddox Street, but Elwes also unveiled it at the International Fine Art Fair in New York last week at an asking price of £70,000. It went down well and sold shortly after the fair opened.

It was painted by Thomas Jones of Pencerrrig (1742-1803) of whom few had heard until major exhibitions were mounted at the National Museum and Gallery, Cardiff, the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, and the National Gallery in London, marking the bicentenary of his death.

If that wasn’t enough, a beautiful book titled “An Artist Rediscovered” was published to coincide with the exhibitions, co-edited by Ann Sumner, the curator of fine art at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, and Greg Smith.

Although Jones was a talented landscape artist, until then little had been written about his life and work and many of his paintings had never before been published.

That was quickly resolved. In addition to essays by leading Jones scholars the book was illustrated by more than 150 paintings from throughout the artist’s career, many of which were being seen by a wider audience for the first time. Curses – beaten to it again!

Actually, I was 50 years too late. It was about then that Jones’ memoirs were rediscovered and published (by the Walpole Society), leading eventually to him being recognised as a major artistic personality where previously he had been all but forgotten.

The memoirs were never written for publication. They were, as he wrote at the time, “from short hints and Memoranda of a Diary, which for many years I had been in the habit of keeping, the original Intention only for the Amusement of vacant hours and the Perusal of a Few”.

But they are the most comprehensive memoirs of any artist of the time and they make fascinating reading.

Jones was a “gentleman artist”. He was the second of 16 children (seven of whom died in childhood) whose parents, Thomas and Hannah Jones, were landowners in Trefonnen, Radnorshire.

His mother inherited a house and estate in Pencerrig, near Builth Wells, and he was educated at Christ College, Brecon, and Jesus College, Oxford, destined for a career in the Church.

However, the death of his wealthy uncle, John Hope, who had been financing the young man’s education put paid to that ambition and rejecting the idea of going to sea — the other career for the younger sons of the landed gentry — he managed to persuade his parents to let him train to be an artist.

At the age of 19, he enrolled at William Shipley’s Drawing School in London, where he became a pupil of fellow Welsh artist Richard Wilson, but “copying drawings of Ears, Eyes, mouths & Noses” among “little boys of half my age” was humiliating for Jones.

But he was a quick learner. By 1766, he had been elected to the Society of Artists, the year after Gainsborough.

Although not really needing to make a living from painting, Jones became a professional artist, returning to Wales 10 years later.

However, like many other young artists of the period, he was desperate to travel abroad and like Wilson, Jones was determined to tour Italy. In those days it took a month to get there and he arrived in Rome towards the end of 1776.

In his memoirs Jones calls the city a “magickal land” and he remained there for almost two years before visiting Naples, socialising all the time with an expat British community of artists and patrons.

A series of small oil-sketches, painted during this time have been described as masterpieces of observation but after six years, Jones became homesick for his native land and returned in 1782 having heard that his father had died.

He took with him his lover, a Danish widow named Maria Moncke, and their two young daughters, a situation which must have caused raised eyebrows, despite her passing herself off as his housekeeper. They later married and settled in London with Jones receiving an annual income from his inheritance.

His elder brother, Major John Jones, a bachelor, died in 1787 and the artist found himself required to return to and take over the running of the family estate at Penkerigg near Builth Wells.

In addition to tracts of land, the family also owned Llandrindod Hall in Llandrindod Wells, which was let out as a hotel, as was his father’s family home, Trefonnen, all of which provided an annual income of £4,000 and a comfortable lifestyle for Jones and his family.

His anger at discovering that drawings he had left in London during his visit to Italy had been ruined was eventually forgotten and he busied himself making oil and watercolour sketches of the surrounding Radnorshire countryside.

Entering fully into the local society, he was appointed High Sheriff of Radnorshire in 1791 and a magistrate the following year. Maria died after a long illness in 1799, a loss which deeply affected Jones, who died at Pencerrig in 1803.

It is interesting to add that when 50 watercolours and oil views in both Wales and Italy by Jones were offered in an auction at Christie’s in London in 1954, they were described as “The property of a lady who had whose husband was a descendant of Thomas Jones, a pupil of Richard Wilson, RA”.

The sale excited the attention of two of London’s most important dealers — Colnaghi and Agnews — the most expensive lot selling for £33.12s (£33.60)! The National Museum of Wales was another buyer in the sale and their purchases can be seen there today.

Colnaghi was quickly able to find buyers for its purchases, their customers including the Ashmolean Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. They were no doubt somewhat cheaper than the work sold in New York last week!

Pictures show, top:
Thomas Jones (British, 1742-1803) A Neapolitan Coastal View from Pozzuoli, painted in 1781. The oil on canvas measures 38.5 X 29 inches (97.8 X 73.6 cm) and is signed and dated lower left: THO:JONES · Ft MDCCCLXXXI A NAPOLI. In a period Italian carved and gilded frame, the work is priced at £70,000
Below:

Family life at Pencerrig was captured in this conversation piece by Jones’ friend, the Italian artist Francesco Renaldi (1755-1798). The painting shows Jones with his palette and easel, his wife Maria spinning wool and their two daughters, one of whom is playing the harpsichord. The second man is as yet unidentified and could be one of Jones’ brothers or Renaldi himself. In 1797, when the piece was painted, Maria was probably already suffering ill health and Jones was deeply affected by her death two years later. The painting can be seen in the collection of the National Museums and Galleries of Wales in Cardiff

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by Christopher Proudlove©

De Heem had a masterful control of colour and contrast, enabling him to construct three-dimensional illusions that were breathtakingly convincing.

Pictures show above:
A magnificent oil on panel by Jan van Huysum, dated circa 1730. His paintings inspired generations of artists but cost today more than I earn a year

Below:
Orchid prints by John Nugent Fitch and worth £100-200 each