Lot 122: JOSEPH WEST 1797-C.1875

including studies after the antique, classical, gothic and Renaissance statues at Chartres, Abbeville, in the Louvre, Paris, sculpture and frescoes by Lorenzo Ghiberti, Giotto, Ghirlandaio, Simon Montialli, Andrea del Sarto, Michaelangelo, all in Florence, Raphael's School of Athens, ando ther paintings by him in Rome and Venice, paintings by Correggio in Bologna and Florence, Titian in Milan, Florence, and the Accademia, Venice, by Tintoretto in Venice, and by Masaccio, Parmigianino, Veronese, Albano, Domenicino, Caravaggio, Caracci, Guido Reni, Durer, Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Poussin, Le Sueur, and others
four hundred and sixty five, most inscribed, pencil, some watercolour or brown washes over pencil heightened with white, many with fixative, in an album bearing Lord Northwick's bookplate, with a watercolour portrait of Lady Shirley after the Van Dyck at Petworth House, Sussex

various sizes

THE PROPERTY OF A LADY

The artist, his sale at Christie's, 6th June 1834, lot 5-30 (bt. Northwick);
Lord Northwick, Thirlestane House, Gloucestershire;
Edward Croft-Murray

Joseph West was a member of the Bonington circle in France, having met Bonington there sometime before 1825. Marcia Pointon suggests that West may have known Bonington's patron, John Lewis Brown, the Bordeaux wine importer, as his collection included a portrait of West by Bonington (Marcia Pointon, The Bonington Circle, 1985, p.98). West's sale in 1834, of which these drawings formed part, consisted of a Collection of Oils and Water-colours made...during a visit to the Continent, and took place just before a further trip abroad, for Lord Northwick pencilled a note in the catalogue to his collection (catalogue now in the Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, Conn.): 1834/June 20 saw Mr.West/before his departure for/Flandres + commissioned/him to paint (copy two or 3 pictures for me). None of these copies, if they were executed, can be identified in the Thirlestane House sale of 1859.

We are grateful to Patrick Noon for his assistance in cataloguing this album