Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602-1660) and Angeluccio (1620-1650)

We have Lot 29, this colourful landscape by Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602-1660) and Angeluccio (1620-1650). This is an interesting example of a collaborative work between two painters based in Rome in the mid-17th century.

Michelangelo Cerquozzi was a leading member of the Bamboccianti: a group of predominantly foreign artists active in the Eternal City, who worked in the manner of Pieter van Laer (1599-1642), called il Bamboccio, producing small works that focused on contemporary Italian street-life. Cerquozzi's most accomplished pictures blend the naturalism of the Bamboccianti with strong narrative or anecdotal characteristics, exemplified here by the comedic element of the dog crouching in the foreground.

Angeluccio is a more enigmatic artist by comparison, whose real name, nationality, and dates are unknown to us today. He is recorded, however, as a student of Claude Lorrain (1600-1682). The staffage in his pictures was usually executed by Cerquozzi, as in the present example, or else by Jan Miel (1599-1664). Interestingly, Angeluccio was also known as a draughtsman of plant studies. One of his sheets in the Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, may have been used as a preliminary study for the lower left quadrant of this painting.

Julius Caesar Ibbetson (1759-1817)

Continuing through the sale, we then have Lot 56, two landscapes by British artist Julius Caesar Ibbetson (1759-1817). The first depicts Castle Campbell in Clackmannanshire, while the other is a castle thought to be Hawthornden, Midlothian. 

Castle Campbell is situated near the town of Dollar in central Scotland and from the 15th-19th centuries it was the Lowland seat of the Dukes of Argyll, Chiefs of the Clan Campbell. Ibbetson's view is somewhat embellished and romanticised, as was his habit, but the figures of the washerwomen act as a human foil to the grandeur of the castle and its dramatic setting.

Ibbetson painted several views of Hawthornden Castle, largely when staying with the Balcarres family at nearby Roslyn in 1800. The romantic situation of the castle, on cliffs over the river Esk, was typical of the sort of scene which appealed to him and which he made all the more interesting and attractive by the inclusion of the beautifully observed milkmaid with her cows. While Ibbetson has added substantially to the fortifications in this view, the setting and basic structure make it highly likely that this was indeed intended as a representation of Hawthornden rather than any other fortified house. Indeed, it was almost certainly painted as a pair to the view of Castle Campbell also listed here.

Robert Home (1752-1834)

Here we have Lot 79, a portrait by Robert Home (British 1752-1834). It shows Lieutenant-Colonel William Sydenham and his wife. It comes to auction from a private collection.

William Sydenham (1752-1801), the son of Samuel Sydenham and Alice (née Chapman) of Minehead, came from a distinguished Devonshire family. He joined the East India Company's Madras Artillery as a Cadet in 1768. In 1776 he married Amelia Prime, niece of General Horne, who had also served with the Artillery in India. In 1786, at the time of the war with Tipu Sultan of Mysore, Sydenham was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in command of the First Battalion at St Thomas's Mount near Fort St George, Madras, which can be seen in the background of this painting. Home was a fine landscape painter and detailed landscape backgrounds give extra vividness to his portraits. William Sydenham was promoted to Major-General, Commandant of Artillery and Auditor General of Fort St George in January 1801, but died in June of that year.

Robert Home was an important recorder of British India in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. He studied with Angelica Kauffmann and between 1773 and 1778 worked in Italy. He exhibited twenty paintings at the Royal Academy between 1770 and 1789. His wife died in 1790 and the following year travelled to Madras to seek his fortune, just as General Cornwallis was setting off with the Grand Army for the Third Mysore War against Tipu Sultan. Home accompanied the campaign, making sketches of the forts and engagements; he later produced prints of Select Views in Mysore (1794) and paintings of Lord Cornwallis receiving the sons of Tipu Sultan as hostages and The death of Colonel Moorhouse (both c.1793-4; National Army Museum, London). Influenced by Thomas and William Daniell, who visited Madras in 1792, Home produced a number of landscapes which show exquisite attention to architecture and Indian life. In 1795 Home moved to Calcutta; he made a happy second marriage and his children joined him in India, all four sons becoming members of the East India Company's army. Home, a punctual, amiable and hardworking man, became the chief portrait painter in Calcutta. He painted the Governor-General of India, Marquis Wellesley, and his brother Major-General the Hon. Sir Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington), as well as other generals and judges. He made a short visit to Dacca in 1799 to paint the Nawab Nasrat Jang. Home's successful portrait practice was threatened by competition from Thomas Hickey, who arrived in Calcutta in 1807, and by the dashing and eccentric George Chinnery, who arrived in 1811. In 1814 Home took up the post of Court Painter to the Nawab of Oudh at Lucknow. He worked for the Anglophile Nawab Ghazi-ud-din Haidar for thirteen years, painting portraits and court life, and designing Ghazi's crown when he was made King of Oudh in 1819, as well as carriages, boats, furniture, even an elephant goad. Home retired to a 'handsome establishment' at Cawnpore after Ghazi-ud-din's death in 1827, dispensing 'extensive hospitality to the residents of the station' until his own death at the age of eighty-two in 1834.

Thomas Daniell (1749-1840) and William Daniell (1769-1837)

A particular highlight is Lot 83, Dusasumade Gaut, Bernares, Uttar Pradesh by British artist Thomas Daniell (1749-1840) and his nephew, William Daniell (1769-1837). The Dasasamadhi Ghat is one of the five most celebrated places of pilgrimage in Bernares. ⁠ ⁠

Thomas and William Daniell, spent seven years travelling around India, documenting the country and its scenery for their European audience. The series of aquatints of India were published by Thomas and William between 1795 and 1810. At the time, the aquatint technique was very new in Britain, being introduced by Paul Sandy in 1775. These prints were engraved by the Daniells themselves from their own drawings and watercolours. The present lot is one of the watercolour sketches for number sixteen in Part I of the 'Oriental Scenery' series.⁠

Arthur Hughes (1832-1915)

We are pleased to be offering a selection of works by Arthur Hughes from a private collection (Lots 143-155). The majority of the works offered in this collection come directly from the collection of the artist, inherited in turn by his daughter Agnes Hughes, and then by her daughter Agnes Cecily Nadézhda White, who gifted the works to a friend and Hughes scholar, connoisseur, and collector Leslie Cowan, in 1974-5.

Arthur Hughes (1832 - 1915) was one of the most consistent exhibitors at the Royal Academy within the Pre-Raphaelite circle. Despite not belonging to the inner circle of the Pre-Raphaelites, Hughes was converted to the movement in around 1850-1 after reading The Germ. It was at the same time that he met Dante Gabriel Rosetti, William Holman Hunt and Ford Madox Brown, and produced the self-portrait offered in our auction on 12 June (Lot 143). Another known version of this portrait from 1851, exists and is currently in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Two years later, in 1852, Hughes exhibited his first Pre-Raphaelite painting Ophelia (Manchester Art Gallery) and met John Everett Millais. It was during this decade that Hughes produced his most significant works.

Between 1852 and 1857, Hughes shared a studio with the sculptor Alexander Munro, and in 1855, married Tryphena Foord, the pair being the seated male figure in the shadows, and the female model for April Love respectively 3. A portrait of Foord is offered in Lot 144. Hughes and Foord went on to have five children including Agnes Huges, whose daughter (Hughes' granddaughter), Agnes Cecily Nadézhda White, is depicted in Lot 145.

The oil paintings produced after 1860, such as Home from Work (circa 1870, Russel Cotes Museum), a study for which is offered in Lot 146, were less well received. Nonetheless, Hughes produced several 'holiday pictures' of coastal paths in Cornwall and around the British coastline which were shown at two later exhibitions. A small group are offered here (lots 148-155). Later in his career, Hughes went on to enjoy a success as an illustrator, working with artists such as Christina Rosetti (Sing Song 1872) and George Macdonald (At the Back of the North Wind, 1871, and The Princess Goblin 1872).

Henry Herbert La Thangue (1859-1929)

Henry Herbert La Thangue was a founder member of the New English Art Club and like many of his fellow artists spent time painting in mainland Europe. Offered in this auction, we have Lot 203, titled A Spanish Mill. 

He is most associated with Provence and the Liguria coast of Italy. He also sailed down the coast of Spain a far as Andalusia and the Balearic Islands. He worked almost exclusively on the spot, and it is likely that he blocked in the present composition by the roadside in the Mallorcan hills, close to the village of Buger, where the fast-flowing Torrent de Buger irrigated the cereal crops produced in the area, giving rise to the construction of windmills hundreds of years earlier. At least one other work, the smaller Moonrise in Spain (Christie's, 16 December 2009), is known to have been completed at this location. The figure with the heavily laden donkey is a miller setting off for the coast or the local bake-house. Observers noted that the meagre wealth of small island population depended on corn production that fed the expansion of Barcelona, even later in the twenties when the islands were colonized by artists such as Robert Graves, the native Spanish reliant on an agrarian existence.

John Frederick Herring Senior (British 1795-1865)

Finally, we wanted to take a look at Lot 227, a study of Captain Powell by John Frederick Herring Senior for his celebrated painting The Steeplechase Cracks, 1846, which is in The Royal Collection and was formerly in the collection of the late Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. The picture shows a field of twelve taking a jump in a point-to-point. The 12th Earl of Strathmore is depicted on his horse Switcher. The collection also includes preparatory portrait sketches for the picture including The Earl and also Jem Mason, the winner of the 1839 Grand National. This study was originally owned by Captain Powell and later inherited by his descendants.

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Auction Details

Wednesday 12 June, 10.30am BST
Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2JE

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