Attributed to Samuel Wale, R.A. (Great Yarmouth 1721-1786 London)
Attributed to Samuel Wale, R.A. (Great Yarmouth 1721-1786 London)

The Radcliffe Infirmary: an Emblematical Representation with Dr John Radcliffe conducted from the Temple of Aesculapius by the Genius of Physic

Details
Attributed to Samuel Wale, R.A. (Great Yarmouth 1721-1786 London)
The Radcliffe Infirmary: an Emblematical Representation with Dr John Radcliffe conducted from the Temple of Aesculapius by the Genius of Physic
with inscription 'Wale' (on a fragment of the old mount attached to the backboard) and with inscription 'Guy's Hospital' (on the reverse)
pen and grey ink and grey wash, within the artist's pen and ink border, watermark 'CURTEIS & SONS/1794', on paper
14¾ x 18½ in. (37.5 x 47 cm.)
Provenance
Dr A.H.T. Robb-Smith, 1974.
Dr A. Gibson, Radcliffe Infirmary.
Literature
H. M. Petter, The Oxford Almanacks, Oxford, 1974, p. 70.
Engraved
Benjamin Green for The Oxford Almanack, 1760.
Sale room notice
Please note this drawing should be catalogued as After Samuel Wale and the estimate should read £800-1,200 and will be sold without reserve.

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Harriet West
Harriet West

Lot Essay

Samuel Wale created headpieces for The Oxford Almanacks of 1757, 1758, 1760, 1762 and 1766. A design by him for the 1761 Almanack, now in the Ashmolean Museum, is a much more highly finished drawing when compared with the present drawing, which appears to be a first idea for the 1760 composition and omits a number of details that are found in Green's engraving. In the print two dogs, for example, are added as attributes of Aesculapius, emerging from the door of the temple. Although the present drawing is less finished than many by Wale, there seems to be no good reason why it should not be by him; Hanns Hammelmann refers to Wale's 'rapid, flowing sketches made before fully working out his designs' (Book-Illustrators in Eighteenth-Century England, 1975, p. 90).

The Radcliffe Infirmary opened to patients on St Luke's day, 18 October 1770. John Radcliffe (1650-1714), the Yorkshire-born physician whose estate funded the hospital, had died half a century earlier. The building, designed by Stiff Leadbetter, was begun in 1759 on land given by Thomas Rowney in 1758. Wale must have had access to Leadbetter's proposed design for the façade of the Hospital in order to execute this drawing.

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