Lot 51: Balthasar Nebot (fl. 1730-after 1765)

A view on the River Skell at Studley Royal, Yorkshire, with figures fishing in the foreground
signed and dated 'B. Nebot 1762' (lower left)
oil on canvas
29 1/4 x 43 1/2 in. (74.2 x 110.4 cm.)
in a carved and gilded serpentined frame

C.H. Collins Baker, 'Nebot and Boitard', Connoisseur, 1926, vol.75, p.4.
Col. M.H. Grant, The Old English Landscape Painters, 1957, I, p.77.
C. Hussey, English Gardens and Landscapes, 1700-1750, London, 1967, pp.134-5.
J. Harris, The Artist and the Country House, London, 1979, p.194.
E. Waterhouse, The Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters, Suffolk, 1981, p.225 (illustrated).

Presumably commissioned by William Aislabie, and by inheritance at Studley Royal.
The property of the Trustees of the Henry Vyner settlement, removed from Fountains Hall, Ripon; Christie's, London 11 April 1980, lot 90.

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

This picture is part of a series of nineteen views that Nebot painted of the estates of Studley Royal, Fountains Hall and Kirby Fleetham, near Ripon, Yorkshire. At Studley Royal the Aislabie family created arguably the most important water garden in England in the eighteenth century.

The estate of Studley Royal was inherited by John Aislabie, fourth son of George Aislabie (c.1630-1675), the principal registrar of the archiepiscopal court of York, and his second wife, Mary, the eldest daughter of Sir John Mallory of Studley Royal, on the death of John's elder brother, George, in 1693. He married Anne, daughter of Sir William Rawlinson of Hendon, Middlesex, whose uncle, John Sharp, Archbishop of York, facilitated his election as Member of Parliament for Ripon in 1695. Aislabie was an active politician, campaigning vigorously on trade issues, although his allegiances were rather ambiguous. When Robert Harley came to power in 1710 he was made a Lord in the Admiralty and following the accession of King George I he was rapidly promoted and appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1718. Through his chancellorship he sponsored the South Sea Company and when the 'South Sea Bubble' burst in 1720, his business involvement was investigated and condemned by Parliament. He was forced to resign on 23 January 1721 and was for a short time confined in the Tower. On his release, Aislabie returned to his estate at Studley, where in 1718 he had embarked on an ambitious scheme for the gardens. He created the celebrated Water Gardens, the fantastic vistas and elaborate formal design of which were inspired by French water gardens, such as the elegant parterre at Chantilly. The Palladian architect, Colen Campbell, offered advice, but otherwise, Aislabie appears to have had no formal assistance. His gardener, William Fisher, was an estate employee and the building was carried out under the direction of a local man, John Simpson.

His only son, William Aislabie, succeeded to the estates on his father's death in 1742 and purchased Fountains Hall in 1767. He continued to extend the gardens, his picturesque romantic designs contrasting with the formal landscape favoured by his father.

In his series of nineteen pictures, Nebot records many of the most important focal points of the landscape, including these views on the River Skell and views of the Chinese Pagoda and wood, the Moon ponds, and the Octagon Tower. John Harris (op. cit.) suggests that a possible still life by Nebot, signed and dated 1735, and recorded in Lord Ripon's collection in the twentieth century, may have been commissioned by either of the Aislabies and that both father and son patronised Nebot. The present picture is the only one of the series to be signed and dated, and is the basis on which John Harris attributed the entire series to Nebot.

The serpentined frame, with reeded and antique-fluted ribbon scrolls wreathed in Roman foliage, is conceived in the George II French 'picturesque' fashion popularised by B. Langley's Treasury of Designs, 1740. With its shell-scalloped trophies incorporated in open and voluted corner cartouches, it relates to the type of frame pattern adopted in the 1750s by Zuccarelli.

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