Lot 130: CHARLES REUBEN RYLEY CIRCA 1752-1798

AN ALBUM OF ANIMAL DRAWINGS

measurements note
album sheet measures 43 by 53 cm., 17 by 21 in.

including studies of lions (12), lionesses (6), an Indian elephant, wild boar (2), dogs or wolves (5), a swan, cows (7), a pig, leopards (2), greyhounds (2), carthorses (2), an African Kudu, a cow and a milkmaid, monkeys and owls, hares, a stag and hind, mice, horses (7), a horse and cart, a monkey, elk, goats, a fox, a buffalo and others

fifty-eight, twenty-five dated between June 3rd 1776 and 26th August 1792, four inscribed and some numbered

fifteen pen and grey ink with grey wash, fourteen pen and brown ink and brown wash, seven pen and brown ink, fourteen pencil, three watercolour over pencil, two red chalk and two black chalk and one pen and grey ink, most on laid paper, bound between blue linen boards with a blue leather spine and corners, lower right corner embossed in gold: M.W.I., with Michael Ingram's bookplate attached to inside cover
with a black chalk drawing of a maid and pencil studies of a girl at Knockbury (dated 1907) by other hands

PROVENANCE

Part of an album in the Warwick Collection, from whom purchased by Sir Bruce Ingram, 1936 (according to Michael Ingram's inscription on the first page of the album)

NOTE

Ryley, a pupil of John Hamilton Mortimer, became a student at the Royal Academy Schools in February 1769 where he obtained a silver medal in 1770 and a gold medal in 1778. He exhibited annually at the Royal Academy from 1778 until his death. Although he had high aspirations of becoming a successful history painter ill health forced him to work as a teacher and decorative painter. It was under these circumstances that he met Charles, third Duke of Richmond (1735-1806) who was an important patron of the arts. The Duke commissioned the artist to make a series of studies of the animals in his private zoo at Goodwood and the drawings in the present album are part of this series. Others can be found in the Witt Collection at the Courtauld Institute, London and the Huntington Library, San Marino