James Ward, R.A.

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

James Ward, R.A.
Portrait of Cossack Tamorfait Carnborlof
Pencil;
inscribed in pen and brown ink, lower right: Cossack / Tamorfait Carnborlof / King Street Barracks / July. 1814 - / JW. RA.; further inscribed in pen and brown ink, lower centre: It was stated that this man killed / 14 frenchmen one morn.g [sic] before breakfast. -

Provenance

Sale, London, Christie's, 6 February 1968, lot 23, to Christopher Powney;
with Christopher Powney, London, by whom sold in 1968 to Walter Brandt

Catalogue Note

The present drawing dates to July 1814. It is a study for a figure in an oil painting, commissioned by the Duke of Northumberland, entitled Portraits of Prince Platoff's favourite charger, and of Four of his Cossacks (Alnwick Castle). This oil was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1815 (no. 148).

Following Napoleon's defeat in April 1814 a temporary peace ensued in Europe. As a result, the Prince Regent invited Emperor Alexander I of Russia and King Frederick IV of Prussia to a conference in London. Along with the Emperor came members of his retinue who were housed in King Street Barracks, to the north of Portman Square. Ward depicted this particular soldier on at least two other occasions. There is a drawing of him in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and another in the collection of the Duke of Wellington.

More than a hundred years ago what is now the Baker Street Carriage Bazaar formed the barracks and stabling of the Royal Life Guards. The place was then known as the King Street Barracks. Old in-habitants of the neighbourhood used to tell me that a regiment of the Guards marched from these quarters on their way to the field of Waterloo.