Lot Essay
Close framed with no upper margin visible, but with title and imprint preserved.
INTRODUCTION
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the M. C. C. Bicentenary Auction which was held by Christie's on 13th April, 1987. Following this inaugural cricket sale, Christie's South Kensington have held 17 sales under the "Traditional Sports" banner in which cricket has always been the main component. While a staple ingredient of these sales has been runs of Wisden (John Arlott's own set was sold in 1992) and the ranks of Vanity Fair cricketers, it is the extraordinary range of memorabilia coming onto the market in this period that has caught the imagination. Together with the perennial figure of W. G. Grace, memorabilia pertaining to Bob Willis, Robert Abel, Eddie Paynter, Jack Hobbs, Archie Maclaren, Wally Hammond, Arthur Shrewsbury, and -- among Australian cricketers -- Victor Trumper, Clarrie Grimmett and Don Bradman -- has provided the highlights. Of particularly fond memory is the silver pocket watch presented to Victor Trumper in 1898 (sold for £770 in October, 1987); the blue and white gilt Coalport plate commemorating Grace's century of centuries, one of only 18 made with his signature and the date 1895 in the central reserve (£4620 in June 1989); the ball which Eddie Paynter hit out of the ground in the fourth Test at Brisbane on 10 February 1933 to score the six that won the match and the series (£4,400 in June 1990); Don Bradman's 1934 Australian blazer and 1946-47 cap (£3,200 and £3,000 in September 1995). The Addington bat, dated 1743, the oldest bat ever to feature at auction was sold in October, 1987 for £1,760. Since the Lord's sale, two examples of the linen commemorative handkerchief of circa 1785, depicting a game of cricket at White Conduit Club and printed with the laws of cricket at the margins, have been sold together with many other rare handkerchiefs and early artefacts.
In contrast, the rarer forms of cricket art have not, until now, been so marked a feature, although there have also been some very impressive entries in this category. Albert Chevallier Tayler's chalk drawing of F. S. Jackson was sold for £2,640 in June, 1988; the same sale included a collection of Cobbett Anderson prints in exceptionally fine condition, including the very rare H. Royston of Harrow. The pencil and brown wash drawing by the porcelain painter, Thomas Baxter, entitled Portrait of Thomas Baxter of Surrey Cricket Club when a boy graced the cover of the October, 1989 catalogue selling for £2420. G. F. Watts' lithographs of Fuller Pilch, as the batsman, and Alfred Mynn, as the bowler, were in exceptional enough condition to realise £2200 and £1210 respectively in June, 1990. The sale of July 1994 included six original Corbet Anderson watercolours, an original charcoal drawing by Watts, and James Warren Childe's Two Young Cricketers, a charming miniature oil on ivory. Another of the highly esteemed Chevallier Tayler drawings was sold for £3850 in September, 1995.
In the present sale, there is a stronger emphasis on cricket art than in any sale since that at Lord's, with a choice of over 100 lots, spanning two hundred years of cricket history. The sale also includes the most extensive collection of score cards and Australian Test team photographs that has as yet been offered for sale in these rooms, and there is a selection of ceramics and metalware, including a complete set of six pottery figures by Kinsella, as a third element. Wisdens, and signed cricket bats have been retained for the Traditional Sports sale which follows on August 20th.
Prints, Drawings and Watercolours
After FRANCIS HAYMAN
Details
After FRANCIS HAYMAN
Playing at Cricket. Engraved after the original painting in Vauxhall Gardens
engraving by C. Benoist, London: printed for Thos. Bowles and Jn. Bowles and Son, [1743 or later], 235 x 354 (9¼ x 13¾in.), framed and glazed.
Playing at Cricket. Engraved after the original painting in Vauxhall Gardens
engraving by C. Benoist, London: printed for Thos. Bowles and Jn. Bowles and Son, [1743 or later], 235 x 354 (9¼ x 13¾in.), framed and glazed.
Provenance
From the collection of Alan C. McKay, inscription on back of frame.
Literature
Robin Simon and Alastair Smart John Player Art of Cricket (London, Secker & Warburg, 1983) 61; Neville Cardus and John Arlott The Noblest Game (London, George G. Harrap, 1969) 4; Richard Bouwman Glorious Innings (Melbourne, Hutchinson, 1987) reproduced as frontispiece; Lawrence Gowing, "Hogarth, Hayman, and the Vauxhall Decorations" in The Burlington Magazine XCV (1953), 4ff., 15 (No. 49). Although a painting after this early engraving is at Lord's, Hayman's original painting, which was hung in a supper box at Vauxhall Gardens, has been lost. Despite the lack of genuine resemblance, the wicket-keep has traditionally been identified with William Hogarth who planned the decoration of Vauxhall Gardens with Hayman. The engraving was first issued on 4 April 1743 with the title "Cricket" and two accompanying stanzas of verse. Simon & Smart question whether the game is being played on the Artillery Ground.