John Frederick Lewis, R.A.

Study of a Neapolitan girl

Lot Closed

February 2, 06:52 PM GMT

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property from the estate of Martin R. Davis, Bristol

John Frederick Lewis, R.A.

1804 - 1876

Study of a Neapolitan girl

Watercolor and bodycolor over black chalk

354 by 277 mm; 14 by 10⅞ in.

Sir Bruce Ingram, O.B.E., M.C. (1877-1963), London (L.1405a);
sale, London, Christie's, 17 June 1955, lot 163, 10 gns. (bt Walker Galleries),
with Walker Galleries, London;
sale, London, Sotheby's, 19 November 1992, lot 130,
where acquired by the late owner

Leicester Museums, The Victorian Vision of Italy 1825-1875, 1968, no. 48;
Newcastle upon Tyne, Laing Art Gallery, John Frederick Lewis, 1971, no. 38

H. Stokes, 'John Frederick Lewis, R.A. (1805-1876)', Walker's Quarterly, 1929, ill. opp. p. 48;
L. Herrmann, 'Victorian Vision of Italy', Country Life, vol. CXLIV, 1968, p. 969,
Maj-Gen. M. Lewis, C.B.E., John Frederick Lewis, R.A. (1805-1876), 1978, no. 321

This work is a preparatory study for a figure that appears in Lewis' large-scale watercolor, Easter Day at Rome - Pilgrims and Peasants of the Neapolitan States Awaiting the Benediction of the Pope at St Peter's.

Lewis executed two versions of this subject. They each date to 1840 and he exhibited one of them at the 1841 Old Water Color Society Exhibition.¹Lewis was in Rome from late 1838 to 1840, before travelling on to Greece and Istanbul.

Another study of the same girl, also made in connection with the same watercolor, was sold in these rooms on 12 November 2013 (lot 56).

A previous owner of this work was Sir Bruce Ingram, a newspaper editor and important collector of early British drawings.

1. The first of these works is now held in the Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery, England while the second, which only shows the middle section of the composition, is now in the Northampton Art Gallery, England.