A Way of Life: The Collౠection of Barbara & Ernest Kafka
Samuel Shelley
Portrait of three ladies
Lot Closed
July 6, 01:46 PM GMT
Estimate
800 - 1,200 GBP
Lot Details
Description
A Way of Life: The꧟ Collection of Barbara & Ernest Kafka
Samuel Shelley
Whitechapel circa 1750 - 1808 London
Portrait of three ladies
Brown wash over pencil;
inscribed lower left: Shelley;
sold together with a wash drawing attributed to Samuel Shelley, depicting a lady, traditionally identified as Lavinia, Viscountess Althorp (1762-1831), inscribed verso: The Countess Spencer / 1788
180 by 226 mm; 218 by 173 mm
(2)
sale, London, Sotheby's, 24 September 1987, unknown lot number,
where acquired by the late owners
The second:
Sir John and Lady Witt (1907-1982) (L.2228b);
their executor's sale, London, Sotheby's, 19 February 1987, lot 37,
where acquired by the late owners
I. Williams, Early English Watercolours, London 1952, pp. 213-4, reproduced fig. 332
Iolo Williams, a great authority on early British works on paper, once owned Shelley's Portrait of the three ladies. He illustrated it in his 1952 book and commented that it had 'long given [him] much pleasure and seems to have something of the strong blocking in of the main lines of composition which one associates with the pen and wash drawings of Romney'.1
Shelley was primarily a London based portrait miniaturist but drawings by him survive in, amongst other institutions, the British Museum ♊and Victoria &🌼; Albert Museum.
1. Williams, op. cit., pp. 213-4