John Baptist Malchair 1731-1812

William Crotch;
Mrs Appleby;
L. G. Duke;
with Colnaghi's, London;
Ian Fleming-Williams; 
the late R.E. Alton M.C.

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, John Baptist Malchair of Oxford: Artist and Musician, 1998, no. 88;
Dove Cottage, Grasmere, The Solitude of Mountains, Constable and the Lake District, 2006, no. 25

The medium remains strong. The paper has not discolored however there are the occassional areas of surface dirt. There is evidence of some surface rubbing, only visible in a raking light. Around the edges of the sheet there are creases. There is a repaired tear located at the bottom edge of the sheet, this measures 5 cm. There are two further tears, one at the top hand hand corner and the other located at the extreme top edge of the sheet.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

John Baptiste Malchair was a professional musician and leader of the resident orchestra of the Holywell Music Room in Oxford. In 1759 he had begun taking on drawing pupils to supplement his income and by the 1770's he had a thriving practice among the university undergraduates.  In 1795 Malchair toured North Wales with the Reverend George Cooke, a fellow of Oriel College. The present drawing of Bwlch y Groes, a remote scarp north-east of Dolgelly, is one of fifty-one drawings he made on this trip. This series was brought in its entirety by William Crotch, a pupil of Malchair and a future Professor of Music at Christ Church. Ian Fleming-Williams has suggested that Crotch showed Malchair's Welsh drawings to John Constable in 1806; 'their immediacy and apparent freedom from convention may well have served as an important example to Constable' who subsequently embarked on a seven week tour of the Lake District in the late summer of that year, (Ian Fleming-William, Constable, 1994, pp. 64-5).