Walter Dendy Sadler

Signed W. Dendy Sadler lower right 

Sale: Christie's, London, May 1, 1897, lot 137 
Lefevre (acquired at the above sale)
Sale: Christie's, New York, May 24, 1985, lot 235, illustrated
Edmond Safra (acquired at the above sale for the Republic National Bank)
HSBC's Corporate Art Collection (and sold, Sotheby’s, New York, October 26, 2004, lot 111, illustrated)
MacConnal-Mason, London
Acquired from the above

The Magazine of Art, vol. 14, June 1891, p. xxxv
Austin Chester, "The Art of Mr. W. Dendy Sadler, Painter and Humorist," The Windsor Magazine, vol. 23, December 1905 - May 1906, p. 20

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in remarkable condition. The canvas is unlined. The cracking is very slightly raised in the upper right, but the paint layer is stable. The work is undamaged. One can see numerous pentimenti in the paneled wall behind the figures, in the shelf above the fireplace, in the painting above the fireplace, and running across the top of the work in the boiserie. Slight pentimenti can also be seen around the hand of the figure in the center that is raised for a toast. These pentimenti are not unusual and merely indicate artist changes to the composition. No retouching is recommended at all, and the work should be hung as is.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Born in 1854, the son of a solicitor, Dendy Sadler grew up in Horsham, West Sussex, and while art training brought him to London at the age of sixteen, he fondly remembered a happy childhood in the “pleasant old town” of “behind-the-times people, and our surroundings in harmony with us. Substantial meals, with home-made wines and home-brewed beers… long sittings after dinner with nuts and wine set out on the beautifully polished table” (Chester, p. 3).  It is just this conviviality and delicious fare that the artist depicts in the present work with its plates full of walnuts and fruit, next to napkins set aside mid-toast to the “jolly good fellow.”  In retrospect, this lifestyle already felt charmingly “old-fashioned” in the artist’s youth.  As such, according to Dendy Sadler’s profile in The Windsor Magazine, his “store of quaint, old-time recollections, permanently marked in his memory” directly contributed to his choice “to represent the life and costume of the earlier part of the nineteenth century, broadly the 1820s to 1840s” (Chester, p. 8).  The artist’s keen eye for the picturesque and refined skill in painting costume and detail allowed the period to come alive in his paintings of  “old joys, old thrills, old laughter” (Chester, p. 8).  The present work, like so many of Dendy-Sadler’s paintings, is animated with the convincing gesture and varied expressions that slyly suggest the inherent humor of social rituals. The gentlemen’s flushed faces and mouths open in song charmingly convey the abandoned joy of this evening, the honored guest placed in a similar position to the viewer welcomed into a warm gathering.