Lot 163: Samuel Wale, R.A. , c.1721-1786 A horse-drawn carriage on the Road to Henley-on-Thames; The Rustic Bridge at Park Place, Henley-on-Thames each pen and black ink with grey wash on laid paper

two, the first inscribed u.c: Road to Henley.; the second inscribed u.c.: Park Place each pen and black ink with grey wash on laid paper Quantity: 2

27.4 by 22 cm.; 10 7/8 by 8 5/8 in.

Lesley Noble

VARIOUS PROPERTIES
Edward Edwards, author of Anecdotes of Painters, 1808, considered Wale's best works to be 'small drawings, which he executed for prints, most of which were drawn in Indian ink'. The present pair does not appear to have been engraved however, they may have been designed for that purpose.

Park Place had been a Royal park, in the possession of Frederick, Prince of Wales, in the 1740s. The rustic bridge was on General Henry Seymour Conway's (1719-1795) estate and was designed by Revd. Humphrey Gainsborough, the brother of Thomas Gainsborough R.A. It is an early example of Picturesque Architecture and was built with stones from Reading Abbey.