William Henry Hunt, An Old Sea Dog, dated 1828

An Old Sea Dog

Currently untraced

Watercolor and bodycolor with scratching out

15 1/2 X 10 5/8 in., 39.5 X 27 cm.

Signed and dated, l.l., W. HUNT 1828

 

Provenance:

 

 

Estate of William Leaf (S) Christie's London, 6 May 1875, Lot 452 [Portrait of an Old Sailor Who Made the Voyage Round the World with Captain Cook, 15 3/4 X 10 3/4, dated 1836? (P) £168 Quilter;

William Quilter (S) Christie's London,

(S) Christie's South Kensington, 28 June 1988, Lot 4 [as An Old Sea Dog, 15 1/2 x 10 5/8 in.] (P) £1,500*, $2,419*

 

Hunt may have painted a significant number of gardeners, gamekeepers, and other rural workers, but he painted far more fishermen, smugglers, and fisher boys during the late 1820s and first half of the 1830s. While there was some overlapping of these two basic subject matters, the artist's choice of subjects was due to changes in his living situations and locations where he was physically located when painting his watercolors "from nature." Hunt obviously continued to visit the Bushey area until at least 1829, and probably didn't abandon his Bushey visits until the time of Dr. Monro's death in early 1833. While working around Bushey, Hunt painted the churches in the area (Bushey and Aldenham - see fig. ) and searched out subjects at Cashiobury Park. When he began to move away from Bushey and to spend more of his time at Hastings, around 1830, he started painting those elements of lower class society which he saw at the coastal town. It's not that he was particularly attached to those engaged in certain occupations; he merely painted what he saw at the various locations which circumstances lead him to visit. When he bagan to spend more of his time at Bramley in the late 1830s, we see yet another change in the artist's subect matter, with barns and sheds/woodhouses becoming the most prominent settings for his figure painting, as in Slumber, and more farm-related themes appearing among his SPWC submissions (including The Young Gleaner and The Pet) and supplanting the fisherfolk subjects which chronologically preceded them. As he and his family aged, Hunt seems to have spent most of his time in London, so, in the 1840s, he began to exhibit more middle-class domestic interiors, often painted at his own home, and still lifes set against banks of earth which were dug up and brought into his small studio, began to increasingly occupy the artist's time. But It cannot be said that Hunt had any great preference for any particular genre of painting, as such -- he certainly showed no long-term affection for gamekeepers and gardeners. He painted what sold best and thereby generated the greatest income, even if it meant that he was forced by economic considerations to eventually abandon figure painting to a great extent in favor of painting, almost exclusively, the highly detailed still lifes of fruit and birds' nests with flowers which became so popular and highly marketable in the last two decades of his life.

 

 

For several years, I have considered this to be the watercolor which William Henry Hunt painted in 1828 and which was exhibited that year under the title A Study from Nature, of an Old Man who sailed with Captain Cook on his first Voyage. There is another watercolor, which was purchased in 2006 by the Captain Cook Museum [with substantial assistance from the British Art Fund], which is also claimed to be the watercolor of Captain Cook's crew member by Hunt. This painting is much more characteristic in every way of William Henry Hunt's work in the late 1820s than the watercolor now in the Captain Cook Museum, which I believe is misattributed to the artist. While I still believe that this could be the actual 1828 watercolor, I recently came across an article from 28 March 1861 issue of the Illustrated Times which contained an engraving of a watercolor by Hunt which would seem to be a painting of Captain Cook's crew member. This image, which I have posted, is similar to the watercolor shown here, but, since the article was published in Hunt's lifetime, it seems very likely that the engraved image is based on an actual painting of the crew member.

 

I was convinced that this was the painting of Capt. Cook's crew member, in part because it is dated 1828, the year Hunt exhibited the painting of that sailor. And my belief was also strongly based on the fact that this watercolor includes an image of the famous broadsheet depicting Captain Cook, which the artist painted in the upper right corner of this picture. When Hunt went to the trouble to reproduce paintings or popular images in the backgrounds of his watercolors, he often was making an association with that image and the subject of his own work, as we can be see in The Barber, painted nine years later. While it now seems that I might have been wrong in associating this watercolor with the work exhibited in 1828, I am now even more aware of the dangers inherent in associating images with certain watercolors (or any paintings) which are recorded as having been exhibited or sold in the distant past. No matter how much evidence may be available for any such association, better evidence can prove one's theories wrong. In any event, there is now even more compelling evidence that, in my opinion, conclusively proves that the watercolor sold to the Captain Cook Museum is not the painting Hunt exhibited in 1828 and which indicates that it is very unlikely that the museum's water color has any relationship to any member of Captain Cook's crew. I am also more sure than ever that the museum's watercolor was not painted by Hunt.

Done