Hubert Thornley

19th Century pair of seascape oil paintings of shipping on the Medway

C1880

Edward Henry Eugene Fletcher British, (1857-1945) Shipping in the Pool of London with Tower Bridge & St Paul’s Beyond Oil on canvas, signed Image size: 14.25 inches x 29.25 inches Size including frame: 19.25 inches x 34.25 inches A wonderful painting of a steamship and other boats in the Pool of London by Edward Henry Eugene Fletcher. A two funnelled steamship is shown in the foreground next to sailing boats and a dock. Tower Bridge can be seen in the distance with St Paul’s Cathedral beyond. The Pool of London is a stretch of the River Thames between Tower Bridge and Limehouse and is divided into two sections, the Upper Pool and the Lower Pool. Edward Henry Eugene Fletcher was a marine artist who was born in Marylebone, London on 23 July 1857 to Robert Henry Fletcher and Julia Pennell. His father worked for the Bengal Pilot Service guiding shipping along the Hooghly River between Calcutta and the Bay of Bengal. After the death of his father in 1862, his mother married the picture dealer Reuben Brooks. He attended the Bradmore House School in Chiswick Lane before enrolling at the Chelsea School of Art, where he became a close friend of the landscape artist Daniel Sherrin. Fletcher initially enlisted in the Army Hospital Corp, serving in Nova Scotia but was invalided out in 1882 at the age of 24 due to an eye condition. His records indicate he was 6ft tall with fair hair and grey eyes. He continued to paint in his spare time and undoubtedly his travels would have inspired his subject matter and given him a deeper knowledge of shipping and the sea. He married Annie Reed Moses in 1886 at Norwich and they lived in Margate before moving back to London to live in Blackheath around 1890. He is widely believed to have set up an auction business during this time to help support his growing family, however , perhaps due to the return of ill health he decided to give it up to focus on painting. Although he did not exhibit, he sold his work mainly through art galleries, possibly aided by his step father. He also used the pseudonym of John Hayes which was probably for contractual reasons. By 1901, he had established himself as a full time artist and was living at Georgette Place in Greenwich with his wife and their 5 children. He later moved to 99 Lee Road, Blackheath where he spent the rest of his life. He died at Blackheath on 23 June, 1945. Much of Fletcher’s work consisted of views of the river Thames or ships in harbours...

Edward Williams British, (1781-1855) The Old Abbey Ruins Oil on canvas Image size: 22.25 inches x 30.75 inches Size including frame: 28.25 inches x 36.75 in...

John Clayton Adams British, (1840-1906) Hay Making Oil on canvas, signed & indistinctly dated 187(5)? Image size: 19.5 inches x 31.5 inches Size including frame: 28.5 inches x 40.5 inches Provenance: SA Spenser, 16b Grafton Street, Old Bond Street, London A lovely landscape painting of hay...

Charles Jones British, (1836-1892) Sheep Resting Oil on canvas, signed with monogram & dated 1877, further inscribed verso Image size: 35 inches x 59 inches Size including frame: 47 inches x 71 inches Exhibition Size Painting A fantastic exhibition sized landscape painting of sheep on a cliff top by the coast by Charles ‘Sheep’ Jones. At the time he produced this painting, Jones was living at Heathercroft, Balham Hill in London. Given the size and quality of the work it was most likely an exhibition piece. The topography and landscape suggest that this is the Dorset coast, one of his favourite places to paint. Charles Jones was an animal painter who was born in Stepney, London in 1836. He was the son of the artist Samuel John Egbert Jones (1797-1861) and Dinah Jones. He lived with his parents and 9 siblings in Mile End and was a pupil of his father. In September 1859, he married Frances Rosalinda Downe, who was born in America. His son Arthur Bertram Loud (1863-1930) also became an artist. They lived at 12 Hayes Place, Lisson Grove from where he made his debut in London at the Royal Academy in 1861. He also exhibited at the British Institution, Suffolk Street, New Watercolour Society, Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours. By 1867, he had become a successful artist and they had moved to 7 Paragon Place, Brixton Hill. From 1874 he lived at Heathercroft, Balham Hill where he spent the rest of his life. Jones became well known for specialising in paintings of sheep, cattle and deer in landscape settings. He spent his time travelling around visiting areas such as Devon, Dorset, Kent, Sussex and the Highlands. However, it is for his skilful painting of sheep that he is perhaps best known, and for which earned him the nickname of ‘Sheep’ Jones. As well as the major London galleries, he also exhibited provincially at various locations including: the Royal Cambrian Academy where he was elected a member in 1886, the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, Manchester City Art Gallery, Royal Hibernian Academy, Royal Society of British Artists, Birmingham and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. Some of the smaller more intimate galleries he exhibited at were Arthur Tooth & Sons and Thomas...

Oil and acrylic on canvas Signed lower right Unique work 1 / Hélène DUCLOS, 2016 – Artist Statement “Questioning the human condition and the position of being alive – What is it to...

Oil paint on canvas Signed lower right

Oil and acrylic on canvas Signed lower right Unique work 1 / Hélène DUCLOS, 2016 – Artist Statement “Questioning the human condition and the position of being alive – What is it to...

Provenance: Robert Hollberton, Antigua, ca. 1841 Private Collection, New York The present painting depicts Old St. John’s Cathedral on the island of Antigua. The church was erected in the 1720s on the designs of the architect Robert Cullen. It measured 130 feet by 50 feet with north and south porches 23 x 20 ½ feet. The tower, 50 feet high with its cupola, was added in 1789. The church was elevated to the status of a cathedral, but disaster struck in the form of an earthquake that destroyed the building on 8 February 1843. A memorandum of that date relates the event: “On Wednesday, 8th February, 1843, this island was visited by a most terrific and destructive earthquake. At twenty minutes before eleven o’clock in the forenoon, while the bell was ringing for prayers, and the venerable Robert Holberton was in the vestry-room, awaiting the arrival of persons to have their marriage solemnized, before the commencement of the morning service, the whole edifice, from one end to the other, was suddenly and violently agitated. Every one within the church, after the first shock, was compelled to escape for his life. The tower was rent from the top to the bottom; the north dial of the clock precipitated to the ground with a dreadful crash; the east parapet wall of the tower thrown upon the roof of the church; almost the whole of the north-west wall by the north gallery fell out in a mass; the north-east wall was protruded beyond the perpendicular; the altar-piece, the public monument erected to the memory of lord Lavington, and the private monuments, hearing the names of Kelsick, Warner, Otley, and Atkinson, fell down piecemeal inside; a large portion of the top of the east wall fell, and the whole of the south-east wall was precipitated into the churchyard, carrying along with it two of the cast-iron windows, while the other six remained projecting from the walls in which they had been originally inserted; a large pile of heavy cut stones and masses of brick fell down at the south and at the north doors; seven of the large frontpipes of the organ were thrown out by the violence of the shock, and many of the metal and wooden pipes within displaced; the massive basin of the font was tossed from the pedestal on which it rested, and pitched upon the pavement beneath uninjured. Thus, within the space of three minutes, this church was reduced to a pile of crumbling ruins; the walls that were left standing being rent in every part, the main roof only remaining sound, being supported by the hard wood pillars.” The entrance from the southern side into the cathedral, which was erected in 1789, included two imposing statues, one of Saint John the Divine and the other of Saint John the Baptist in flowing robes. It is said that these statues were confiscated by the British Navy from the French ship HMS Temple in Martinique waters in 1756 during the Seven Years’ War and moved to the church. The statues are still in situ and can be seen today, much as they appeared in Bisbee’s painting, but with the new cathedral in the background (Fig. 1). Little is known of the career of Ezra Bisbee. He was born in Sag Harbor, New York in 1808 and appears to have had a career as a political cartoonist and a printmaker. His handsome Portrait of President Andrew Jackson is dated 1833, and several political lithographs...