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THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN THOMAS SIDNEY COOPER lots 114-7 Cooper was trained in the Royal Academy Schools, in 1827 he became a teacher in Brussels and friend of the Belgium animal painter Verboeckhoven, who influenced his style as did the Dutch, seventeenth-century painters. He returned to London in 1831 and he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy from 1833, showing continuously, 266 pictures in total, until his death in 1902, a record for continuous exhibiting at the Royal Academy. It has often been overlooked that a percentage of these exhibits were watercolours, many on a similar scale to lot 114. Lot 114 displays his photographic attention to detail, characteristic of his work of this period and lots 115-117 show his developing technique from the 1830s through to the 1880s. We are grateful to Kenneth J. Westwood for his help in preparing the catalogue entries for lots 114-117.

Thomas Sidney Cooper, R.A. (1803-1902)

Cattle watering on the River Stour below Fordwith, Kent

Details

Thomas Sidney Cooper, R.A. (1803-1902)
Cattle watering on the River Stour below Fordwith, Kent
signed and dated 'T. Sidney. Cooper. RA/1873' (lower right), signed again, inscribed and dated '... 1873/No 5/... Stour below [Ford]with/Kent./T.S. Cooper RA/Holme. Canter... .../...stow Villas/...ter' (on the artist's fragmentary label, attached to the back board)
pencil and watercolour with scratching out
26½ x 40½ in. (67.4 x 102.9 cm.)

Provenance

with Thomas McLean, London. Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 13 February 1963, lot 7, (£30 to the present owner).
with William Rodman, Belfast.

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, 1873, no. 759 as 'On the Stour below Fordwith, East Kent'.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

The present watercolour was painted in the same year that he produced The Monarch of the Meadows, an oil painting of monumental proportions that earned him the highest fee of his career.

The landscape details, like the cattle are based on sketches made from nature and are accurate topographical records of the area. The present scene is set on the north bank of the river stour, 2½ miles east of Canterbury. On the far bank the tower of the church of St Mary the Virgin can be seen. This church and the banks of the Stour featured in numerous paintings by Cooper.

Among the work chosen to represent the artist at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878, was a large upright watercolour of similar size to the present work, also entitled like the oil of 1873, The Monarch of the Meadows.

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