James Ward, R.A.

The Artist;

Gifted to his granddaughter, Henrietta Ward (1832-1924);

Sale, Christie’s, London, 20 November 1981, lot 33 (as A Spaniel in a Landscape);

With Richard Green, Ltd., London (by 1995);

From whom acquired by the present owner.

London, Royal Academy, 1837, no. 319 (as Dash, Ward’s Spaniel)

London, Newman Street, 1841, no. 130

London, Whitechapel, 1907, no. 151

New Sporting Magazine, June 1837, p. 419.

J. Frankau, William Ward, A.R.A., James Ward, R.A.: Their Lives and Works, London 1904, pp. 130, 306, 160, plate XVI (as Favourite Dog of James Ward, from the collection of Mrs. E. M. Ward).

C. Reginald Grundy, "James Ward, R.A., His Life and Works," Connoisseur Extra Number, London 1909, pp. lii, 43, no. 264.

H. Ward, Mrs E. M. Ward's Reminiscences, London 1911, pp. 45, 280.

J. Farington, The Farington Diary, United Kingdom 1923, p. 64.

O. Beckett, The Life and Work of James Ward: A Forgotten Genius, Margate 1995, pp. 133, 192, no. 85, illustrated.

E. Nygren, "James Ward, RA (1769–1859): Papers and Patrons" in The Volume of the Walpole Society, Oxford 2013, p. 352, no. 437.

This darling portrait of a brown and white spotted spaniel in a wooded landscape features Dash, the artist’s own beloved canine companion. Signed with a monogram and dated 1836, the close-to-life-size composition was first exhibited at the 1837 Royal Academy Exhibition as “Dash, Ward’s Spaniel” and gifted by the artist to his granddaughter, Henrietta Ward, also an artist, for her birthday.

According to the art historian and James Ward biographer Cecil Reginald Grundy, of all the artist’s pets, it was “little Dash” who “won his master's heart completely.”¹ A letter written by the artist to his son George in 1853 substantiates Grundy’s assertion: Ward reveals that when Dash passed away after suffering from a serious illness Ward buried him in an unmarked grave “so that he should not learn where his favourite lay” and gifted the present work “for the sight of Dash’s picture is still too much for me if I dwell on it.”²

Dash’s portrait seems to have held equal significance for Henrietta Ward, who wrote in her autobiographical memoir, Mrs E. M. Ward's Reminiscences, first published in 1911, that Dash’s portrait “now hangs in my dining-room, and nothing would ever tempt me to part with it."³ Henrietta welcomed visitors into her home on 59, Sydney Street, Chelsea between the hours of 2 and 4 pm to view her grandfather’s treasured work.⁴

_{1. Reginald Grundy, "James Ward, R.A., His Life and Works," Connoisseur Extra Number, London 1909, p. lii.}

_{2. For more on Dash's illness, see: C. Reginald Grundy, "James Ward, R.A., His Life and Works," p. lii.}

_{3. H. Ward, Mrs E. M. Ward's Reminiscences, London 1911, p. 45 & p. 280: "Among my most treasured pictures of animals are a portrait of Dash, my grandfather's brown-and-white spaniel, and a portrait of my guinea-pig, both pictures having been painted by James Ward, R.A., and given to me on my birthdays.”}

 _{4. J. Farington, The Farington Diary, United Kingdom 1923, p. 64.}