Radnorshire Fine Arts Ltd

Description

Pencil and watercolour heightened with bodycolour and scratching out on wove paper. Displayed (floated) in a new mount and protected with a clear polyester cover.

Although unsigned the the watercolour is characteristic of the works Hunt produced during the first period of his career. Until about 1830, Hunt spent many winter months of each year at Hastings. He occupied lodgings in the Old Town adjacent to the fishing quarter where he did innumerable drawings, many simple slight pencil sketches of fishing boats being loaded or unloaded on the beach. Other pencil sketches provided material for his numerous watercolours of seascapes, shore scenes, sunsets and fisher folk which he made over a number of years. The watercolour we are offering is likely to have been exhibited at the O.W.S., in 1829, under the title "A Fisherman Mending Nets"., a watercolour with the same title was sold at Christie’s sale of Hunt’s works, 16/17 May 1864. Lot 181.

Re: William Henry Hunt (1790-1864) Life and Work, with a Catalogue. John Witt, see pages 43. 220. 239.

Hunt was born in 1790 in London, the son of a manufacturer, and was apprenticed at the age of 15 to the artist John Varley, with whom, and his fellow apprentice, John Linnell, he painted en plein air. He also attended the Royal Academy Schools and Dr Monro’s academy. Hunt had deformed legs, so his sketching expeditions around Monro’s house in Bushey were made on a barrow pulled by a man or a donkey. By the time he was 17, he had had three oil paintings accepted by the R.A. however, he was innately drawn to watercolour painting, in which he became a technical master.

As a mature artist he produced genre scenes and interiors which exhibit the same compositional and technical skill as his still life paintings, and for which his wife and his daughter Emma often modelled. He lived in Hastings, where a local family of three brothers, the Swains, also modelled for him for many years. His approach was consistently experimental and innovative he used a stippling technique to apply colour and tone – particularly in his portraits and figure studies – and raised highlights by scratching down into the paper.
PAYMENT OPTIONS
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CONDITION AND PRESENTATION
In our description, if a picture is shown to be framed then the frame will be included with the sale of the picture. Unless stated otherwise all unframed watercolours, drawings and prints have been mounted onto acid-free conservation board using either Japanese hinging paper or reversible wheat starch past. Unframed and mounted pictures are then wrapped in clear polyester film to protect both the picture and the mount. All conservation work has been carried out by accredited conservators.