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Peter de WintA sketch of children climbing a fence
About the Item
Peter de Wint OWS (1784-1849)
A sketch of children climbing a fence
Watercolour and graphite on paper
7 x 17.8 cm; (within frame) 26.7 x 36.5 cm.
Provenance:
Bequeathed by the artist to his wife, Harriet de Wint (1791-1866);
The artist’s daughter, Helen Tatlock (1811-1873);
The artist’s granddaughter, Harriet Helen Tatlock (1848-1921);
Gifted to Muriel Grace Bostock, her companion;
Acquired by Sir Geoffrey Harmsworth, 3rd Bt. (1904-1980), 1941;
Christie’s, London, 13 June 2002, lot 40;
Andrew Wyld, W/S Fine Art, 160 New Bond Street, London, 2005;
Private Collection, United Kingdom.
Exhibition history:
London, W/S Fine Art, Peter de Wint: Colourist and Countryman, 16 November-9 December 2005, no. 11 (illustrated; titled ‘Children climbing a fence’).
Literature:
Andrew Wyld, Peter de Wint: Colourist and Countryman (London: W/S Fine Art, 2005).
Archival:
Witt Library, Courtauld Institute: British School, 265768.
The broad handling and confident painterly manner identify this charming work as an early sketch by Peter de Wint, considered to be one of the finest British watercolourists. The work was likely completed spontaneously en plein air, in one of de Wint’s pocket sketchbooks of his preferred ivory-tinted Creswick paper. Unusually sparing dashes of watercolour over graphite apprehend the motion of six or seven children at play, climbing the fence boundary between two fields. With a looseness of form more instantaneous than his highly finished mature style, the sketch belongs to de Wint’s more intimate output. His greatest pleasure was sketching outdoors, setting down a nostalgic vision of the English landscape with a romantic serenity, unbounded by the rigours of classical composition which he so disdained. Children are a more infrequent feature of the artist’s oeuvre, and particularly in such ease of form and subject. The drawing passed through the de Wint family to friends until the mid-20th century, and was most recently exhibited in the 2005 exhibition by Andrew Wyld of W/S Fine Art, Peter de Wint: Colourist and Countryman.
Following the artist’s death in 1849, de Wint’s widow Harriet destroyed many of his sketches – which the poet John Clare had in 1820 likened in volume to the scraps of paper found littering a gentleman’s study. Though Harriet sold some 558 other works with Christie’s in 1850, she retained the present study for herself, most likely pasting the study into one of her albums. The work passed subsequently in 1866 to Peter and Harriet’s only daughter, later Helen Tatlock, who herself bequeathed it among others to her daughter, Harriet Helen Tatlock. In 1873 and 1913 Tatlock made substantial gifts to the British Museum of drawings by her grandfather, though left some works to her companion, Muriel Grace Bostock. The drawing was acquired from Bostock in 1941 by her friend, the collector Sir Arthur Geoffrey Annesley Harmsworth, 3rd Baronet. Born in 1904 and educated at Harrow, Harmsworth became a director of the Daily Mail and General Trust, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA). He was an impassioned collector of de Wint’s works in watercolour and oil, and was invited to organise the landmark 1937 exhibition at the Usher Gallery, Lincoln, loaning some forty-five works from his own collection. The Bostock-Harmsworth collection included many important works by de Wint now held at institutions including Yale University and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Peter de Wint was born in Stone, Staffordshire, in 1784, as the fourth of twelve children. His Dutch father, Henry de Wint, had been disinherited upon taking a Scottish wife, and became a surgeon practising in the Potteries. After early instruction from a local artist (Mr Rogers), the young de Wint was allowed to pursue an artistic career in London. At the age of eighteen, he became apprenticed to the mezzotinter John Raphael Smith, for whom Turner and Girtin had coloured prints in their youth. It was under Smith that de Wint met his fellow pupil William Hilton. Hilton’s sister Harriet would become de Wint’s wife after having met during a summer holiday at the Hilton’s Lincoln family home. De Wint took up the more precarious profession of landscapes during his indentureship, perhaps motivated by a lifelong thriftiness which inclined him to cheaper water-based pigments. In 1806 he was released from his indentures on the condition he provided Smith with eighteen landscapes in oil over the course of two years.
De Wint and Hilton soon took up residence on Broad Street, Golden Square, where de Wint was introduced to the neighbouring watercolourist John Varley, a founder of the Old Watercolour Society who instructed de Wint gratis, and introduced him to the patron and collector Dr Thomas Monro. The following year de Wint exhibited three drawings at the Royal Academy, and was admitted as a student to the RA in March 1809. He became an Associate of the OWS in 1810, was admitted to the Life School of the RA on 16 March 1811, and later became a full Member of the Society of Painters in Watercolour (OWCS).
De Wint married Harriet Hilton in 1810, and the couple lived together with William Hilton on Percy Street. The following year their only child, Helen, was born. De Wint worked primarily in the studio throughout the winter, teaching in London in the spring and early summer, and spending the warmer months travelling, particularly around Lincoln. Though he had painted in most counties in England and Wales, the artist only travelled abroad once, visiting Normandy in 1828. He was insistent that the landscape of England was all he needed – a sentimental reaction against the upturn of rural communities by farming machinery and enclosure laws.
De Wint earned a guinea an hour as a drawing master for the children of country estates, and Harriet often accompanied him on visits to Belton House, Castle Rising, Sudbrooke Holme, and Powis Castle, whose families received him as a good friend. De Wint was of equal standing within artistic and literary circles. John Ruskin wrote highly of the young artist, who noted that a parcel of his sketches had on occasion been exchanged for a Turner. He was highly admired by John Clare, and a friend (along with William Hilton) of John Keats, having helped to finance Keats’ visit to Italy in 1821. He corresponded regularly with John Constable, and Harriet was a frequent visitor to Maria Constable, especially during the illness which precipitated Maria’s early death. Harriet’s log book records that Constable purchased at least two works from her husband. When William Hilton became Keeper of the Royal Academy in 1927, and moved to Somerset House, the de Wints went to 40 Upper Gower Street where they remained. De Wint died from bronchitis in London, 1849.
Bibliography and further reading:
Gerald M. Norman Gallery, Peter de Wint’s ‘Sketches from Nature’, A Loan Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings, Presented by The Gerald M. Norman Gallery (London: White Brothers, 1974)
Usher Gallery, The Catalogue of the Works of Peter De Wint, A Loan Exhibition Organized by Geoffrey Harmsworth, with the Cooperation of the Committee of the Usher Gallery (Lincoln: Usher Gallery, 1937)
Scrase, David, Drawings & Watercolours by Peter De Wint, A Loan Exhibition Inaugurated at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Selected and Catalogued by David Scrase (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979)
Smith, Hammond, Peter de Wint, 1784-1849 (London: F. Lewis, 1982)
- Creator:Peter de Wint (1784-1849, British)
- Dimensions:Height: 10.52 in (26.7 cm)Width: 14.38 in (36.5 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:The work is in good and stable condition. Slight discolouration to the outer paper edge, perhaps from an old mount mat. A study of good condition for its age.
- Gallery Location:Maidenhead, GB
- Reference Number:Seller: Peter de Wint1stDibs: LU2820215584472
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