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Lot Essay
The present work is one of the most outstanding watercolours of the artist’s early career. It was exhibited at the Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1830. Lewis eschewed a conventional title, supplying instead a quotations from the famous seventeenth-century fishing manual, Izaak Walton’s, The Compleat Angler, 'Piscator.- Look you now, you see him plain, bring hither the landing net a good one, sixteen inches long'. It is an early example of the disguised portrait-cum-genre subject that was to be so distinctive a feature of Lewis’s career.
The Water-Colour Society’s rules prohibited the exhibition of portraits. Contemporary reviews referred to the picture simply as The Fisherman, but the association with Landseer must have been recognised, as by the turn of the century it had acquired the title, Sir Edwin Landseer R.A., in the Act of Angling. Indeed, the angler’s features, with side-whiskers and fairish curly hair, seem to accord with contemporary portraits of the young Landseer. Fly-fishing was one of several gentlemanly sporting activities that Landseer pursued, and his ability to employ a beat keeper, a man of lower social standing, to land his fish, is an additional pointer to the elevated status in society that he had already achieved through his success as an artist. It is possible that the figure standing next to Landseer may be a member of the Calmady family of Langdon Court, near Holne in Devon, or Lewis's father.
Lewis and Landseer had known each other since boyhood, exhibiting similar sporting and animal subjects at the Royal Academy and British Institution. This watercolour, one of a series of anonymous portraits of friends and patrons that Lewis exhibited at the S.P.W.C., celebrates this relationship. By branching out into a different style of sporting subject to those for which Landseer was known, Lewis set clear water between their artistic endeavours and carves out a new direction for his own career.
We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for her help in preparing this catalogue entry, and to Ian Cook, Director of the River Exe Foundation for suggesting the location.
The Water-Colour Society’s rules prohibited the exhibition of portraits. Contemporary reviews referred to the picture simply as The Fisherman, but the association with Landseer must have been recognised, as by the turn of the century it had acquired the title, Sir Edwin Landseer R.A., in the Act of Angling. Indeed, the angler’s features, with side-whiskers and fairish curly hair, seem to accord with contemporary portraits of the young Landseer. Fly-fishing was one of several gentlemanly sporting activities that Landseer pursued, and his ability to employ a beat keeper, a man of lower social standing, to land his fish, is an additional pointer to the elevated status in society that he had already achieved through his success as an artist. It is possible that the figure standing next to Landseer may be a member of the Calmady family of Langdon Court, near Holne in Devon, or Lewis's father.
Lewis and Landseer had known each other since boyhood, exhibiting similar sporting and animal subjects at the Royal Academy and British Institution. This watercolour, one of a series of anonymous portraits of friends and patrons that Lewis exhibited at the S.P.W.C., celebrates this relationship. By branching out into a different style of sporting subject to those for which Landseer was known, Lewis set clear water between their artistic endeavours and carves out a new direction for his own career.
We are grateful to Briony Llewellyn for her help in preparing this catalogue entry, and to Ian Cook, Director of the River Exe Foundation for suggesting the location.