10. William Henry Hunt, A Gardener in His Potting Shed, c. 1825

A Gardener in his Potting Shed

London, The Courtauld Gallery, No. D.2011.XX.2

Ink, watercolor and gum arabic

11 3/4 X 13 5/8 in. ; 29.9 X 34.6 cm.

Signed, l.r., W. HUNT

The paper is extended at the top of the watercolor.

 

Provenance:

Perhaps Pryor (S) Christie's London, 9 May 1837, Lot 209 [A Fruiterer's Shop, with Pines and other Fruit (S) re-loted with a watercolor by Cousens [John Robert Cozens?] and both sold for £3 14s.'

(S) Christie's London, 21 March 1989, Lot 159 (P) £10,000, $16,540;

With Spink & Son Ltd. (London dealer), May 1991;

(S) Bonham's Bond Street, 7 July 1993, Lot 48 [as The Gardener] (P) £9.200, $15,220;

With Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd. (London dealer), Feb. - March, 1994;

With Spink Gallery (London Dealer), May 1994, for sale at £14,00;

Dorothy Scharf by 1998;

With Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., March 2000;

(S) Christie's London 6 June, 2002, Lot 63, (P) £20,315; $29,635;

With Lowell Libson (London dealer) by Sep 2006 (P) 2011, Courtauld Institute of Art, with £10,000 toward purchase being contributed by the Victoria & Albert Museum fund.

 

Exhibited:

1825, London, Society of Painters in Water-colours, No. 194 as The Gardener or 1830, No. as Interior of a Potter's Shed.

9 - 27 May, 1994, London, Spink, Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings, No. 33;

1 - 24 March 2000, London, Agnew's, 127th Annual Exhibition, English Drawings, Watercolours, and Small Paintings, No. 61;

23 Sep 2006 - 6 Oct 2007, New York, NY, Lowell Libson, Ltd at Trinity Fine Art, Of the Moment, British landscapes and figure studies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, No. 59 (for sale at $58,000).

 

 

Note: it took twelve years for this superior watercolor from Hunt's early career to find a permanent home. It first became known to modern viewers when offered at auction in 1989, but there might have been some irregularity with that sale. The watercolor was purchased by a London dealer, Spink, which Christie's had recently purchased. When it was again sold at auction in 2003, the catalogue for the sale noted that Christie's still held an interest in the watercolor. Unlike the many single figure watercolos from Hunt's middle period (c. 1830 - 1845) or the still life watercolors from the artist's later years, most of which easily sold and found new homes from the 1980s through the end of the century, even the best of Hunt's "Country People" from the 1820s were apparently not terribly appreciated by modern buyers. In some press releases the Courtauld Institute described this drawing as "celebrated," but that hyperbole is unjustified in connection with a watercolor that has not been publicly seen for almost 200 years and which has never before generated recorded praise or other comments by anyone.

Done