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Lot Essay
These remarkable landscapes are unique in Lawrence's oeuvre, being his only pure landscapes. Fresh and spontaneous, they feel astonishingly modern, yet were painted early in the artist's career, probably soon after 1790. In their free and confident handling of paint, they are fine examples of the precocious talent which saw Lawrence rapidly establish himself in London in the late 1780s; the character of the two can be paralleled to the background of the celebrated portrait of Queen Charlotte (London, National Gallery), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1790.
The late Sir Michael Levey noted a brooding quality in the pictures, commenting that the 'secluded tree-filled glades are painted with a passionately dramatic response to deep, lush countryside, away from all human habitation, giving an exciting, claustrophobic sense of foliage and terrain rising to shut out the sky.' The two pictures demonstrate an original talent for landscapes which Lawrence was to suppress in preference for the career as a portrait painter which alone would secure him the financial resources which his pattern of living--and later collecting--necessitated.
The title used by Lupton for each picture in 1834--'Study from Nature'--certainly expresses their character. The tradition that they were 'painted at Ilam Hall, Derbyshire, when Lawrence was painting the Watts Russell family there', is recorded in a letter of 1951 from Colonel Grant to Kenneth Garlick (Garlick, 1993, p. 15). Garlick suggested that the Mr. Watts from whom Lawrence received a half-payment of 15 guineas about 1790, was David Pike Watts, whose daughter Mary married Jesse Russell (1786-1875), second son of Jesse Russell (b. 1743), of London and Wolthamstow: the younger Jesse assumed the name of Watts Russell in 1817. Ilam Hall was rebuilt for him and his wife: it is now demolished, but the estate is owned by the National Trust.
In the 1861 and 1884 sale catalogues it is implied that the figures in both pictures are by Thomas Stothard. There is in fact little reason to suppose that the pictures are not entirely by Lawrence himself, although Garlick considered it possible that the figures and animals in View of Dovedale might be by Stothard; he observed that 'it may well be that on [Lawrence's] return [to London] he employed Stothard to complete [the picture] and put in the animals and figures' (Garlick, 1993, p. 16). Whether the younger painter would have been in a position to employ Stothard, who became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1791, is uncertain, and it may be that the reference to Stothard represents no more than a confused memory of the latter painter's recorded visit to Ilam in 1825, long after the present pictures were executed. It is perhaps significant that the View of Dovedale, by nineteenth-century standards the more 'complete' of the two compositions, was copied at an early date. The copy in question is now at Tabley House, Cheshire, University of Manchester (Catalogue of Pictures at Tabley House, 1899, no. 8; Garlick, 1964, as a repetition; 1993, p. 17, fig. 3 as a copy).
The late Sir Michael Levey noted a brooding quality in the pictures, commenting that the 'secluded tree-filled glades are painted with a passionately dramatic response to deep, lush countryside, away from all human habitation, giving an exciting, claustrophobic sense of foliage and terrain rising to shut out the sky.' The two pictures demonstrate an original talent for landscapes which Lawrence was to suppress in preference for the career as a portrait painter which alone would secure him the financial resources which his pattern of living--and later collecting--necessitated.
The title used by Lupton for each picture in 1834--'Study from Nature'--certainly expresses their character. The tradition that they were 'painted at Ilam Hall, Derbyshire, when Lawrence was painting the Watts Russell family there', is recorded in a letter of 1951 from Colonel Grant to Kenneth Garlick (Garlick, 1993, p. 15). Garlick suggested that the Mr. Watts from whom Lawrence received a half-payment of 15 guineas about 1790, was David Pike Watts, whose daughter Mary married Jesse Russell (1786-1875), second son of Jesse Russell (b. 1743), of London and Wolthamstow: the younger Jesse assumed the name of Watts Russell in 1817. Ilam Hall was rebuilt for him and his wife: it is now demolished, but the estate is owned by the National Trust.
In the 1861 and 1884 sale catalogues it is implied that the figures in both pictures are by Thomas Stothard. There is in fact little reason to suppose that the pictures are not entirely by Lawrence himself, although Garlick considered it possible that the figures and animals in View of Dovedale might be by Stothard; he observed that 'it may well be that on [Lawrence's] return [to London] he employed Stothard to complete [the picture] and put in the animals and figures' (Garlick, 1993, p. 16). Whether the younger painter would have been in a position to employ Stothard, who became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1791, is uncertain, and it may be that the reference to Stothard represents no more than a confused memory of the latter painter's recorded visit to Ilam in 1825, long after the present pictures were executed. It is perhaps significant that the View of Dovedale, by nineteenth-century standards the more 'complete' of the two compositions, was copied at an early date. The copy in question is now at Tabley House, Cheshire, University of Manchester (Catalogue of Pictures at Tabley House, 1899, no. 8; Garlick, 1964, as a repetition; 1993, p. 17, fig. 3 as a copy).