Lot 135
  • 135

Francis Wheatley, R.A. London 1747-1801

Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 USD
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Description

  • Francis Wheatley, R.A.
  • A young lady seated outside a cottage mending a net, with a young boy behind eating from a bowl, "The Industrious Cottager"
  • signed and dated lower left F: Wheatley pinxt/ 1786
  • oil on canvas

Provenance

Peter William Baker Esq., Ranston, Blandford (where he moved in 1779), possibly from the artist;
By inheritance to his wife, Jane Baker, on his death in 1815;
Mrs Peter William Baker, London and Ranston, and by inheritance to Edward Baker on her death in 1816;
Sir Edward Baker, 1st Bart., Ranston, and by inheritance to Edward Baker on his death in 1825;
Sir Edward Baker, 2nd Bart., Ranston, and by inheritance to Talbot Hastings Bendall Baker on his death in 1877;
Rev. Sir Talbot Hastings Bendall Baker, 3rd Bart., Ranston, and by inheritance to Randolf Littlehales Baker on his death in 1900;
Sir Randolf Littlehales Baker, 4th Bart., and by inheritance to Mrs. William Henry Gibson Fleming on his death in 1959;
Major and Mrs. W.H. Gibson Fleming;
Sale of their trustees, London, Sotheby's, March 23, 1960, lot 57, for 280 gns. to Agnew, probably on behalf of J. Paul Getty;
J. Paul Getty, Malibu, California; Sutton Place, Surrey, and donated by his estate to the J. Paul Getty Museum, California, in 1978, no. 78.PA.210.

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, 1786, no. 237.

Literature

W. Roberts, F. Wheatley R.A. His life and Works with a Catalogue of his Engraved Pictures, London 1910, p. 33;
M. Webster, Francis Wheatley RA 1747-1801, exhibition catalogue, London 1965, under no. 59;
M. Webster, Francis Wheatley, London 1970, p. 134, no. 53;
J. Barrell, The Dark Side of the Landscape, Cambridge 1980, p. 19, 166, note 35;
D. Jaffé, Summary Catalogue of European Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1997, p. 135, reproduced.

Catalogue Note

A version of this composition, in watercolor, was with the Fine Art Society in 1965 and last recorded with the Broomfield Museum, London.

This picture has enjoyed the same provenance, for probably the entire length of its existence, as lot 9 in this sale, Adriaen van de Velde's Landscape with Mercury, Argus and Io.  Both pictures spent the 19th century in the Baker collection at Ranston before being purchased by J. Paul Getty in the same sale in 1960 (see Provenance).