WILLIAM SAMUEL HENRY LLEWELLYN (1858-1941) Portrait de Sir Harold Huile sur toile Signée et datée 1913 en bas à gauche Titrée, contresignée et datée au revers 103 x 76 cm
Ⓐ SIR WILLIAM LLEWELLYN, GCVO, PRA, RBA, RI, NEAC (1858-1941) THE GOOD SAMARITAN signed & dated l.r. W H Llewellyn 17 oil on board 24.0 x 24.0 cm/9 1/2 x 9 1/2 in Part proceeds to benefit Westminster Abbey
Sir William Llewellyn PRA (1858-1941) Sir William Llewellyn PRA (1858-1941) Portrait of Sir Edward Smith JP, bust length, in a dark suit signed, inscribed and dated 1918 verso, oil on canvas 61 x 51cm
SIR WILLIAM LLEWELLYN^ G.C.V.O.^ P.R.A.^ R.B.A.^ R.I.^ N.E.A.C. (1858-1941) THE GOOD SAMARITAN signed & dated l.r. W H Llewellyn 17 oil on board 24.0 x 24.0 cm / 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 in
Sir William Samuel Henry Llewellyn, PRA, RBA, RI (British, 1858-1941) A summer's day on the coast signed 'W.Llewellyn' (lower left) oil on canvas 89 x 59cm (35 1/16 x 23 1/4in). For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
Sir William Samuel Henry Llewellyn, PRA, RBA, RI (British, 1858-1941) A summer's day on the coast signed 'W.Llewellyn' (lower left)oil on canvas89 x 59cm (35 1/16 x 23 1/4in). Provenance: Private collection, Italy. Like Frank Brangwyn, Ernest Dade, Jacomb Hood and other members of the Chelsea artists' colony based in Manresa Road in the late 1880s, Llewellyn was peripatetic. The evidence supplied by picture titles places him at Southwold, St Ives, Padstow, Whitby and on the Beauly Firth near Inverness. Only one or two of these painting expeditions can be securely dated and a number of studies have yet to be identified with specific locations. The present example is one of these. Problems are compounded by the fact that the painter, like his Walberswick contemporary, Philip Wilson Steer, seems capable of working in different styles at the same time. Having broken with his family to become an artist, this future President of the Royal Academy, must in those early years, make his own way in the world, and his primary focus was on securing a reputation as a portrait painter. Unlike Steer, extant coastal studies are rare and while important plein air figure-pieces such as Summertime by the Sea (sold in these rooms, 14 March 2018), can be placed in their appropriate historical context, works such as A summer's day on the coast are more difficult. Here we rely completely on one or two smaller works such as Southwold Beach, c 1886, (also sold in these rooms, 14 March 2018) to propose comparisons in the handling of foreground weeds and grasses. As a result, it is tempting to place the present stretch of coastline in East Anglia, sometime in the late 1880s when it seems that the landscape was first worked in pastel on paper (sold Christie's, South Kensington, 24 July 2005). What remains striking about the picture however, is its unusual format. It is essentially a sky-scape, rather than a landscape. In this – as in Southwold Beach – the spectre of Constable hangs over the scene in huge clouds that echo the master's Weymouth Bay, 1816 (National Gallery, London).We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.
Sir William Samuel Henry Llewellyn, PRA, RBA, RI (British, 1858-1941) A summer's day on the coast signed 'W.Llewellyn' (lower left)oil on canvas89 x 59cm (35 1/16 x 23 1/4in). ProvenancePrivate collection, Italy. Like Frank Brangwyn, Ernest Dade, Jacomb Hood and other members of the Chelsea artists' colony based in Manresa Road in the late 1880s, Llewellyn was peripatetic. The evidence supplied by picture titles places him at Southwold, St Ives, Padstow, Whitby and on the Beauly Firth near Inverness. Only one or two of these painting expeditions can be securely dated and a number of studies have yet to be identified with specific locations. The present example is one of these. Problems are compounded by the fact that the painter, like his Walberswick contemporary, Philip Wilson Steer, seems capable of working in different styles at the same time. Having broken with his family to become an artist, this future President of the Royal Academy, must in those early years, make his own way in the world, and his primary focus was on securing a reputation as a portrait painter. Unlike Steer, extant coastal studies are rare and while important plein air figure-pieces such as Summertime by the Sea (sold in these rooms, 14 March 2018), can be placed in their appropriate historical context, works such as A summer's day on the coast are more difficult. Here we rely completely on one or two smaller works such as Southwold Beach, c 1886, (also sold in these rooms, 14 March 2018) to propose comparisons in the handling of foreground weeds and grasses. As a result, it is tempting to place the present stretch of coastline in East Anglia, sometime in the late 1880s when it seems that the landscape was first worked in pastel on paper (sold Christie's, South Kensington, 24 July 2005). What remains striking about the picture however, is its unusual format. It is essentially a sky-scape, rather than a landscape. In this – as in Southwold Beach – the spectre of Constable hangs over the scene in huge clouds that echo the master's Weymouth Bay, 1816 (National Gallery, London).We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.
Sir William Samuel Henry Llewellyn, PRA, RBA, RI (British, 1858-1941) Southwold Beach signed and indistinctly dated 'Llewellyn' (lower right); inscribed 'Southwold Beach' (lower left) oil on panel 14 x 23.2cm (5 1/2 x 9 1/8in). Footnotes Provenance Private collection, UK.
Sir William Samuel Henry Llewellyn, PRA, RBA, RI (British, 1858-1941) Summer-time near the Sea signed and dated 'S. LLEWELLYN'86.' (lower right) oil on canvas 72 x 93cm (28 3/8 x 36 5/8in). Footnotes Exhibited London, New English Art Club, 1887, no. 45. Literature Pall Mall Gazette 'Extra', 1887, p. 89 (illustrated). 'New English Art Club', London Daily News, 5 April 1887, p. 2. 'Art in April', The Magazine of Art, 1887, p. xxv. Described by The Magazine of Art as one of the two best landscapes in the New English Art Club exhibition of 1887, William Samuel Henry Llewellyn's Summer-time near the Sea was unusual for its time.υ1 Successful landscape paintings shown at the Royal Academy in the mid-1880s by the likes of John Everett Millais, Benjamin Williams Leader, John MacWhirter and Peter Graham were grand romantic mountainous affairs, confected in the studio and filled with 'gloamin' and 'mirk'. To paint a stretch of scrub land, in the open air, on a warm summer's day, with a few distant houses and nautical debris, was, in itself, somehow radical. Such was the early reputation of the New English that works like this were only to be expected. Now in its second year, the young painters' society had proved controversial, and given that most of its members, like Llewellyn, had completed their training in Paris, it was regarded by some as more 'Anglo-French' than English. There was even a lobby that this mnemonic be included in the club's name.υ2 What started as a group not exceeding fifty members the year before, was now expanded to eighty, and in the Wentworth Studios of Manresa Road, Chelsea, where Llewellyn worked, meetings were held with a view to going even further with a wholly 'democratic' British 'Salon' thrown open to all potential exhibitors.υ3 Known as the 'bigger movement', this ambitious proposal, initially by Henry Herbert La Thangue, the guide and mentor of the Chelsea colony, eventually ran out of steam as spring exhibiting season approached in 1887.υ4 The expanded New English, where the present canvas was shown, was thus the standard-bearer for the avant-garde and its exhibition that year included John Singer Sargent's remarkable portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife (Crystal Bridges Museum, Arkansas), Theodore Roussel's controversial nude Reading Girl (Tate) and George Clausen's rural Stone Pickers (Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne). The other 'best landscape' was the equally unconventional Bow Net, (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) by Thomas F Goodall. Both Goodall and Llewellyn were showing pictures painted in East Anglia and like the Newlyn and Glasgow School painters, were following the rubric of Bastien-Lepage. They had found rural retreats in which to practice the new Naturalism that was emanating from France. In the summer of 1886, Llewellyn had gone to the village of Walberswick, one of the cradles of what soon became recognized as British Impressionism. Affectionately known as 'Wobbleswig', its popularity with artists had increased dramatically since it and neighbouring Southwold acquired their own railway stations in 1879. Here, in the summers of the mid-eighties, painters such as Philip Wilson Steer, Walter Osborne, Edward Stott, Blandford Fletcher and Frederick Brown gathered along with one or two Americans.υ5 Of the group, Llewellyn was particularly close to the etcher, Frank Short, a Walberswick regular, who also rented one of the Chelsea studios, and was well-connected in exhibiting circles. In gratitude for his support, Llewellyn presented Short with his painting of The Goose Girl, of that year (fig. 1).υ6 It is certainly the case that in the summer of 1886, while at Walberswick, Llewellyn crossed over to Southwold on the Blyth ferry. A surviving oil sketch reveals the steeply banked coastline with its beached craft. Here one would have found Steer at work, but at this point, the artist saw no need to adopt his comrade's more extreme experiments, and what we have is a fluent plein air study that echoes Constable more than Monet (see lot 100). Radicalism as such was reserved for the present more ambitious, Summer-time near the Sea. Llewellyn's style at this time was described by Morley Roberts as having been '... influenced by La Thangue and the French School' from whom he 'imported the square brush method'. While being 'always extremely dextrous in technique'. 'Some', Roberts claimed, '...have said that it [ie the square brush method] is 'smart' ... implying that a picture may be too clever by half. If so, this is mostly due to [Llewellyn's] sturdy and praiseworthy resolve ... to be a master of technique first of all ...'.υ7 In order to prove Roberts's point we may compare Llewellyn's treatment of the figure in Summer-time near the Sea with La Thangue's 'square brush method' in Study of a Boy in a Black Hat, before a Cornfield (fig. 2). As though to confirm his status, Llewellyn, this putative 'master of technique', completed a scrupulously accurate small version of the picture in watercolour (fig. 3), while providing a drawing for illustration in the Pall Mall Gazette 'Extra'. There is no sea in Summer-time near the Sea, but its presence off to the right of the picture is inferred by a series rusting anchors that punctuate the middle distance. Similar nautical debris is contained in Walter Osborne's An October Morning, painted on the beach, not far from the present location. On the far side of the river Blyth, just beyond Llewellyn's anchors, is the harbour of neighbouring Southwold, but here, on the south side of the river the land is marshy and falls into swamps that form the flood-plain of the Blyth estuary which Llewellyn's barefoot model surveys. In common with other lads whose future was predestined, the boy wears a white fisherman's sailcloth smock, familiar in the works of Osborne and other Walberswick and Newlyn contemporaries. Even the dilapidated barrow is significant, since similar implements are found in pictures such as John Lavery's On the Loing, An Afternoon Chat.υ8 It is even tempting to compare the treatment of tufts of grass and foreground weeds in Lavery's work with those of Summer-time ...to observe a comparable spatial structuring.υ9 Such elements in themselves, qualify Summer-time near the Sea as a great 'thesis picture' in 1887. They were symbolically, the 'clothing' of plein air Naturalism, and they placed the artist at the centre of the new painting. It was only in the following year, when he toured the Cornish coast that Llewellyn closed in on Steer's more informal subject matter in the equally remarkable Digging for Bait, Skilly (fig. 4) where we find yet another boy clad in a fisherman's smock. After Roskilly, Llewellyn made other trips to Cornwall, working at St Ives and Padstow, and in Evening at Padstow 1890 (Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport) he returned to that wistful sense of childhood reverie that was first discovered in the present canvas. He skirted Newlyn, and may have felt that, already a major force in British Art, it was now over-populated with artists.υ10 He also went north to Whitby where Ernest Dade, one of his other Manresa Road contemporaries worked along with members of the Staithes Group, but by the mid-nineties his London portrait practice claimed precedence, and it was for this he was primarily known in later years. Although he obtained royal approval for his state portrait of Queen Mary, he continued to paint more speculative landscapes and figure subjects, and these were essentially reserved for smaller exhibitions such as that of the Society of Twenty-five Painters. In such pictures we sometimes glimpse that supreme sensitivity which characterises Summer-time by the Sea, and those halcyon sunlit days of 1886 at Walberswick. We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for his assistance in cataloguing this lot. υ1 Up until 1888, Samuel Henry William Llewellyn signed his work 'S Llewellyn'. Thereafter he adopted 'William' as his chosen soubriquet. Despite the fact that he became President of the Royal Academy in 1928 – a role he occupied for ten years – surprisingly little is known about Llewellyn's early life. Born in Cirencester, son of a moulder – a skilled tradesman – he broke with his parents to study at the Government Art Training School, South Kensington, before completing his education in Paris in the atelier Julian under Jules Lefèbvre and Gabriel Ferrier. Returning to London in 1884, he rented one of the Trafalgar and Wentworth studios in Manresa Road, Chelsea, along with other Francophile students. υ2 Kenneth McConkey, The New English, A History of the New English Art Club, RA Publications, 2006, p. 29. υ3 Social activities in Manresa Road included the First Carnival Ball, held in February 1887 – the forerunner of the Chelsea Arts Ball. Llewellyn was also a founder member of the Chelsea Arts Club which emanated from the studios in October 1890. υ4 McConkey 2006, pp. 34-6. υ5 Arthur Hoeber and Willard Leroy Metcalf worked at Walberswick in 1884 and 1885 respectively. For Metcalf, see Elizabeth de Veer and Richard Boyle, Sunlight and Shadow, The Life and Art of Willard L Metcalf, (Abbeville Press, New York, 1987, pp. 192-4. For a general survey, see Richard Scott, Artists at Walberswick, East Anglian Interludes 1880-2000, Art Dictionaries Ltd., Bristol, 2002, pp. 26-42; idem, The Walberswick Enigma, 1994 (exhibition catalogue, Ipswich Borough Council). υ6 Short's etching of the pier illustrates the heavy wooden staithes used for wharf construction on the east coast of England. Llewellyn's Goose Girl, 1887 (fig. 1), and dedicated 'To my friend F short', may represent Whin Hill, Southwold. υ7 Morley Roberts, 'A Colony of Artists', Scottish Art Review, vol 2, 1889, p. 74. For a fuller description of 'square brush' painting see McConkey 2006, p. 32. υ8 Boys similarly clad may also be found in the paintings of Broads-men by Henry Herbert La Thangue. υ9 It is likely that Llewellyn was very familiar with the work of Osborne and La Thangue. However he is unlikely to have seen Lavery's On the Loing ... other than through photographs in 1886, since it was only exhibited in Glasgow and Paisley by this time. υ10 At the same time, a superb, but unidentified Landscape c. 1889 (National Museum of Wales) may indicate a visit to Upper Swell in the Cotswolds, since it closely resembles later works at this location by Alfred East.
! *SIR WILLIAM SAMUEL HENRY LLEWELLYN, PRA, RBA, RI (BRITISH, 1858-1941) Digging for Bait, Skilly signed, inscribed and dated 'WLlewellyn./88 Skilly' (lower right) oil on canvas 46 x 61cm (18 1/8 x 24in). Provenance: with Alex Fraser Gallery, Vancouver Private collection, USA The present lot is an interesting early work from an artist best known as a Society portraitist. Born in Cirencester, Llewellyn's early artistic training took place at the National Art Training School under Sir Edward John Poynter, PRA (British, 1836-1919), before a spell in Paris in the atelier of Jules Lefebvre (French, 1834-1912), among others. Llewellyn's early Exhibited: works show an interest in landscape and plein air painting; while he is listed with a London address, Llewellyn clearly travelled widely, producing work in Walberswick (1886-7), Newlyn (1888) and St Ives (1892), where there were artists colonies working during this period, and visiting coastal towns such as Whitby (1893-4). By 1888, when the present lot was painted, most of the first generation of the Newlyn School had settled in and around the West Cornwall town, and the area would have been well known to the wider artistic community, not least through the regular academy exhibitions of Stanhope Forbes, RA (British, 1857-1947). While there is little evidence of Llewellyn's interaction with these artists during the 1880s, the present lot - painted on the northern part of Roskilly beach, which lies to the west of Newlyn - shows a clear affinity with both the technique and choice of subject that this community of artists were to utilise in their work. Here, the artist works in a broadbrush, impressionistic style, described by The Studio as an 'economy of means', retaining 'a regard for certain refinements of the laws of picture-making' (The Studio, 155). By the early 1900s, Llewellyn worked predominantly as a portrait painter, in a more conservative style, typified by his state portrait of Queen Mary (RA, 1912, no.150). A prolific exhibitor, his work was shown at the Royal Academy from 1884, as well as the Royal Society of British Artists, the Grosvenor Gallery, and the New English Arts Club. He served as President of the Royal Academy from 1928-1938, and as Trustee of the National Gallery 1933–40.
SIR WILLIAM LLEWELLYN OIL ON CANVAS MOUNTED ON BOARD (British, 1858-1941) Redcastle, the Beauly Firth, Northern Scotland. Image measures 22.75" x 36", signed "W. Llewellyn" lower right. In a gilt wood frame.
Sir (Samuel Henry) William Llewellyn GCVO PRA (British, 1858-1941) Listed artist. Oil on board painting depicting a river side village and a bridge. Signed W. Llewellyn lower right. Sight area measures approximately 12.5 x 15.75" and frame 14.5 x 18 x 0.75" and weighs about 2 lbs. Some damage to frame. Sir William Llewellyn is a notable English painter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and served as President of the Royal Academy from 1928 to 1938.
'Constance, the wife of the Revd Arthur Luckock' signed and dated 'W.Llewellyn 1907' (upper left), bears title on old exhibition label (attached to the frame) oil on canvas 61 x 51cm (24 x 20 1/16in).
OOC - 'Portrait of Mrs. Kirk of Carrickfergus' by Sir William Llewellyn (British, 1858-1941) signed upper right and dated 1901, subject identified from previous sales record at Christies, London, in ornate matched corner gilt frame, SS: 29 3/4" x 24 3/4", OS: 42" x 37", cleaned and relined.
Sir William Llewellyn, PRA, RBA, RI (British, 1858-1941) Portrait of a Lady, 1915 signed lower left "W Llewellyn" oil on canvas h:152 w:92 cm Provenance: From a Cambridgeshire country house
Sir Samuel Henry William Llewellyn, P.R.A., R.B.A., R.I. (1858-1941) Pembroke Castle signed 'W.Llewellyn' (lower right) oil on canvas 21½ x 27¼ in. (54.7 x 69.2 cm.)
Sir Samuel Henry William Llewellyn, P.R.A., R.B.A., R.I. (1858-1941) St Ives signed and inscribed 'W. Llewellyn/St Ives' (lower left) oil on canvas 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm.)
Portrait of Sir Gerald Hemmington Ryan, Bt., seated at a desk signed 'W. Llewellyn' (lower right) oil on canvas 44 x 34 in. (111.8 x 86.4 cm.) Painted in 1932.
Arranging Flowers signed 'W. Llewellyn' (lower right) oil on canvas 291/2 x 38 in. (75 x 96.5 cm.) PROVENANCE Lady Scotter Richard Green, London. Acquired from the above by the present owner. NOTES A painter primarily of portraits and landscapes, Sir William Llewellyn proved one of more versatile figures of his day, combining the remarkable talents of both a gifted artist and an accomplished administrator. Born in Cirencester, he studied first at the Royal College of Art, London under Sir Edward Poynter and then in Paris under Fernand Cormon, Jules Lefebvre and Gabriel Ferrier. From 1884 he exhibited at the Royal Academy, the New Gallery, the Grosvenor Gallery and the Royal Society of British Artists. Elected President of the Royal Academy from 1928-38, Llewellyn introduced an important feature to this institution by organising a new series of loan exhibitions. The most popular loans were those of Dutch and Italian Art, whilst the loans of Persian and Chinese Art indicate his unique and original outlook. Between 1937-40, he was also appointed a Trustee of the National Gallery. As a portraitist, his career comprised some extremely important commissions including a Royal State Portrait of Queen Mary in 1910 and the United Service Club of the Queen in 1913. The Flower Arranger is thought out carefully in that the elements of the composition not only describe an activity but they also illustrate the lady's elevated taste and elegance. The objects ranging from Chinese Export porcelain bowls on the table to the ink drawing on the wall attest to her interest in contemporary fashion. Her choices of color, both expressed in varied flowers as well as in the table cloth and the lavender wall paint confirm her well combined preferences, as well as the subtlety of her personality. Although the flower arrangement is yet far from completion one can only imagine the grace it will posses.
