Lot 80: Henry Tanworth Wells, R.A. (1828-1903)

Portrait study of George Price Boyce (1826-1897), full-length, seated, reading a letter inscribed 'Sketched by H.T. Wells. R.A./from G.P.B.' (lower right) pencil, pen and brown ink, unframed 7 1/8 x 43/4 in. (18.1 x 12.1 cm.) EXHIBITION London, Tate Gallery, George Price Boyce, 1987, no. 3 NOTES The Tate exhibition catalogue dates this drawing c. 1860, when Boyce was thirty-four, and describes him as sketching; he seems, however, to be reading, possibly a newspaper. Wells had met Boyce at Bettws-y-Coed, when Boyce was sketching there under David Cox's supervision in the summer of 1851, and by November that year he appears in Boyce's diary, both being members of the Artists' Society at 29 Clipstone Street. They became brothers-in-law when Wells married Boyce's younger sister Joanna in December 1857, and they are seen together, with Joanna and their fellow artist J.R.Clayton, in Wells's Conversation Piece, 1861, reproduced in Virginia Surtees' edition of Boyce's diaries, 1980, facing p. 38.